SANLiC 2023 Conference

Breaking the Mould: Change, Disruption, Reflection

Subthemes include:

Pre-Conference Workshop Presentations

Facilitator – Nora Buchanan

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Transformational Agreements- the impact on transformed workflows, relationships, insights and experiences

Through the transformative agreement framework, research and academic libraries are shifting the way they manage processes, APC workflow, staffing structures as well as the tools used in order to usher in the move to Open Access publishing. This session will briefly highlight the challenges and experiences of SANLiC member libraries. 

Arjan Schalken is the Program Manager UKBsis at UKB, the network of Dutch university libraries and the Royal Library. His work focusses on the realisation and implementation of sustainable publish and read deals. An important result of the UKBsis programme is the realisation of a data warehouse to monitor, manage and analyse publication-related data as input for negotiations, contract fulfilment and tracking the open access life cycle of publications. Arjan also advises UKB and the Dutch universities on their 100% Open Access strategy. As the project manager of “You Share, We take Care”, Arjan helps universities to implement article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Law, supporting researchers to share their research publications in the institutional repositories more easily. He is also the project manager for implementing consortium agreements with fully open access publishers.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

How to manage Transformative Agreements: a Dutch University Library Helpdesk perspective

Checklists, tips, tricks and insights from Dutch library helpdesks about additional lessons learned.

Tasha Mellins-Cohen, Project Director at COUNTER and Founder of Mellins-Cohen Consulting, joined the scholarly publishing industry in 2001. She has held roles within learned societies and commercial publishers across operations, technology, editorial and executive functions. In 2020 she launched Mellins-Cohen Consulting in response to requests for help in developing and implementing learned society-appropriate OA business models. From 2022 she took over the running of COUNTER, the usage metrics standard, alongside her consulting work. 

She says: “Data and standards are essential underpinnings for our community, from the metadata standards that help optimise discoverability to the usage metrics that are one aspect of measuring impact. My combined roles as COUNTER’s Project Director and founder of an independent consultancy business helping publishers achieve a sustainable transition to open access both rely on that pairing.”

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Working with usage metrics – a practical session (online presentation)

COUNTER staff and volunteers are frequently told that manipulating and interpreting usage statistics presents a challenge to both librarians and publishers. In this highly interactive, practical session, I’ll show you easy ways to work with industry-standard usage reports in Excel to derive answers to important questions. Other essential information covered in the session will be the benefits of using Reports instead of Standard Views; which metrics matter most for books, journals, and databases; and why standardised usage metrics matter to all of us.

Christa Morrison has a background in higher education teaching (Journalism and Business Programs), educator development, and digital competence & confidence building. She joined McMaster University in Canada six years ago as Digital Pedagogy Specialist at the Paul. R. MacPherson Institute for Leadership, Innovation and Excellence in Teaching. There she focused on Technology Enhanced Teaching and Digital Learning. After being named McMaster Women in Tech Changemaker in May 2020, she filled the role of Business Systems Specialist in the central information technology department. In this role she supports faculty, researchers, students, and staff with the adoption and use of collaboration and productivity cloud technologies. Christa is part of various global panels (2023 Educause Teaching and Learning Horizon Report), research projects (News Futures 2035), non-profit initiatives (Technovation), and online forums (Gartner, Cuccio, DigiLearn, Microsoft AI in Education) focused on the impact of emerging technologies and trends on education.  She is a sought-after judge and evaluator of innovation projects in technology, education, and journalism.

This year she is co-moderator of Microsoft Canada’s EdTech Series where faculty and higher education leaders will share strategies and tactics to thrive as learning organizations in the AI era.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Demystifying generative AI (online presentation)

Marguerite Nel is an assistant director, and the Head of Library Technical Services at the Department of Library Services (DLS), University of Pretoria (UP). She has Bachelor’s degrees in Consumer Science and Information Science.  Her career at the University of Pretoria started in 1997 at the Veterinary Science Library, where she worked closely with researchers and veterinary practitioners. Research for her master’s degree (obtained in 2015) focused on the information behaviour of veterinary researchers and how library services can be aligned accordingly. At the beginning of 2017, she moved to the main library to take up her current position. She is also a PhD candidate in the Department of Information Science, UP, and had authored several journal articles, and a book chapter, and presented at a number of national and international conferences.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Acquainted and informed: Strategies for communicating and implementing transformational agreements in the university community

Transformational agreements were formally launched at the University of Pretoria (UP) at the beginning of 2022. Although, by that time, the movement to open access was well aligned with institutional values of openness, collaboration, and social responsibility, the concept of transformational agreements was still new and unfamiliar to the university community. With well-established open access practices already in place, the main objective of the library was therefore not only to introduce transformational agreements to researchers, but also to enable seamless processes for the implementation of them in current research workflows. This paper will report on the strategies and initiatives developed by the library to ensure prompt, productive, and efficient uptake and commitment by researchers and academics. It will further provide practical recommendations for universities seeking to effectively communicate transformational agreements to their communities and share best practices to ensure effective alignment with scholarly communication workflows.

Nora Buchanan is the SANLiC Licensing Manager. A graduate of the former University of Natal (now the University of KwaZulu-Natal), she qualified as a librarian and holds a PhD degree in Information Studies from the same university. Nora has over four decades’ library experience, 32 years of which were spent working in the University of KwaZulu-Natal Libraries.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

ConsortiaManager

ConsortiaManager stores all the data relevant to SANLiC-negotiated agreements in one place. This session will provide an overview of ConsortiaManager, the type of information we upload to it and how it functions. Bring your questions because this will be an interactive session!

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Staffing for the disruption of transformative agreements (online presentation)

The framework given will walk participants through the processes for:

Conference Presentations

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Wielding Modern Magic

In this talk, Adam will discuss some projects he and his collaborators have created by wielding the transformative power of information and technology. The talk aims to inspire listeners about the positive side of transformative technologies that can change the world for the better, and how we may create this change.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Increasing publishing success with Wiley

This is an overview of the Wiley-SANLiC Transformational Agreement and details the additional programmes that Wiley is offering to promote research output in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

International research collaboration between South Africa and rest of the world: A bibliometric analysis of the trends over the past decade (online presentation)

Professor Geoffrey Boulton is Regius Professor of Geology Emeritus at the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom. He is a Fellow of the International Science Council (ISC) is currently serving a second term as an Ordinary Member of the ISC Governing Board (2018-2021; 2021-2024), is a member of the Standing Committee for Science Planning (2022-2025) and chairs the ISC Project on the Future of Scientific Publishing.

Panellists:

Ahmed Bawa, Savo Heleta (online), Andrew Joseph, Malavika Legge, Pedro Mzileni and Daisy Selematsela.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Reforming scholarly communication and the role of libraries (online presentation):

(A fishbowl discussion introduced by Geoffrey Boulton, International Science Council)

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Online platforms for digital libraries: embracing change and disruption through reflection

Taylor & Francis is one of the world’s leading publishers of advanced, emergent and applied academic research and knowledge. We commission, curate and publish expert research and provide a range of services to researchers and knowledge makers, contributing to human progress and discovery through knowledge. We’ve published over 145,000 book titles, and we publish over 2,400 journals.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

AI and higher education (online presentation)

AI tools are being used for administration, teaching, learning, and research. They are being used to crunch data on recruitment, admission, and retention. We use self-service chatbots and can assess and predict staff and student performance. We see AI tools in the form of personalized tutors, in content recommendations, we use them to generate content, write code, resolve accessibility issues, and to detect plagiarism. In research, AI tools are being used to sift through large data sets to identify patterns, build models, recommend relevant articles, create citations, and prepare manuscripts for publication.

In this session we will consider how to develop an understanding of the developments, promises, and limitations of AI in higher education. We will then highlight the roles we as humans have to play.

Arjan Schalken is the Program Manager UKBsis at UKB, the network of Dutch university libraries and the Royal Library. His work focusses on the realisation and implementation of sustainable publish and read deals. An important result of the UKBsis programme is the realisation of a data warehouse to monitor, manage and analyse publication-related data as input for negotiations, contract fulfilment and tracking the open access life cycle of publications. Arjan also advises UKB and the Dutch universities on their 100% Open Access strategy. As the project manager of “You Share, We take Care”, Arjan helps universities to implement article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Law, supporting researchers to share their research publications in the institutional repositories more easily. He is also the project manager for implementing consortium agreements with fully open access publishers.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Insight into the Dutch open access strategy

In 2022 around 85% of all corresponding and co-author publications of Dutch universities will be open access. What makes the Dutch strategy successful? What are the challenges and how will developments in scholarly communication and open science shape the strategy towards 2030?

TOPICS & ABSTRACT:

AI as a disruptor: Threat or opportunity for libraries?

There has been a lot of recent discussion about the threat posed by generative AI to jobs, professions, and society. However, Clarivate would argue that – being at the nexus of technology and scholarly content – it brings important opportunities for library & information professionals. Robert will cover briefly: Opportunities for library end-user discovery, opportunities for internal workflow improvements, and better use of library resources, the AI already used in Clarivate library technology products, and our exciting plans for further development.

Leveraging research assets to maximize institutional visibility and impact

The institution’s research repository plays a key role in collecting and exposing researchers’ scholarly output, data, and activities. However, rounding up all this information manually can quickly become a time-consuming task. In this presentation we will share how the academic library can leverage its institutional repository to play a proactive role in maximizing research visibility and impact.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Open Access for South Africa in collaboration with Springer Nature

29 institutions are participating in the transformational agreement (TA) between Springer Nature and SANLiC. This means that corresponding authors affiliated with these institutions are eligible to publish their articles open access with fees covered. The agreement includes more than 2,400 hybrid journals across the Springer Nature portfolio. This presentation will elaborate on why open access in the first place and specifically with Springer Nature? In addition, we will look at an overview of SANLiC members’ publishing behaviour under the agreement so far and what actions we take to make it a success.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Local publishers and TAs: assessing readiness, inclusion and multi-organisation participation. It’s dry but can you think it?

South African publishers and content providers are negotiating the complex and rapid recent changes in Open Access largely independently. Key discussions have been held with stakeholders including the DHET and Assaf. Members of the Publisher’s Association of South Africa’s (PASA) s Scholarly Publishing Committee have also identified Open Access as a key focus area for development and engagement. The South African Scholarly Publishing Sector has engaged with international experts in the field and joined several industry organisations in order to further understand our role in this in the publications of both books and journals, and general research outputs that are funded for public interest and impact.

This session will explore how Wits University Press, and other South African publishers across the OA ecosystem, are preparing themselves for future participation in OA programmes and models, which seem to be largely driven by publishers in the Global North. The speaker will provide an assessment of the readiness of local publishers, examine the necessity of this inclusion on political grounds and practical implementation, and what initiatives the sector has undertaken to ensure that the readiness is met. The speaker will raise the prospect of a collaborative and open list of criteria for publishers to work towards in order to participate as a collective in the global arena, and for the criteria to be publicly available. The broad intention of the sector is to achieve a coherent and collaborative structure that all publishers could work towards with the guidance and participation of other stakeholders in the industry.

Wikus van Zyl is the Manager of UJ Press, based at the University of Johannesburg Library. He has an Honours Degree in Publishing and is currently doing his Online MBA with a focus on digital transformation through the Johannesburg Business School. He has 19 years of experience in Scholarly Publishing.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Open Access Scholarly Publishing by Library-based Scholarly Presses in the Global South

Disruption in the scholarly publishing industry has necessitated shifts in business models and income streams for scholarly presses. Publishers have had to rethink the way in which they operate in the wake of the Open Access movement. This gave rise to the emerging scholarly presses based in Libraries and publishing mainly Open Access books and journals. In South Africa, UJ Press and UCT Press are examples of this new model that is breaking the mould of traditional scholarly publishing. This paper will reflect on the challenges and opportunities of Open Access scholarly publishing in the current climate, particularly in the Global South.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Reports from OASPA’s Equity in Open Access workshops: the APC debate, reflections and rainbows

Equity is a word that packs a punch; it goes further than equality, includes inclusivity and assures diversity. As we strive for a world where publishing is predominantly OA, we realize this can only be achieved through dissolving barriers, welcoming all and facilitating participation in OA publishing on equitable terms. Without the development of new and more equitable approaches to OA we will not benefit from its full potential. OASPA is running a series of workshops bringing stakeholders together around the question of how we can deliver OA more equitably. This session will reveal what OASPA has learnt so far, and where we are going next. Topics covered will include why equity in OA matters, trends in the ‘OA market’ and what the debate about APCs and transformational agreements is all about amidst a spectrum of publishing models. Issues around payments, processes, prestige and perception will also be included. Time will be reserved for discussion and Q&A as we are learning, together, about equity in OA.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

The power of science visualisation

This presentation will show why video resources are so valuable to teaching STEM courses, and how JoVE fits in as the world’s leading video platform for research and education.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Contribution of librarians to implementing the SDG strategy of higher education institutions (online presentation)

Librarians should be seen as opportunity brokers as they can play a key role in in driving the sustainable development goals at higher education institutions. They should have a unique understanding and perspective of how we can integrate SDGs into academic curricular, research and outreach projects. I hope to share some ideas on how librarians can play a key role in terms of information literacy, open access, research and outreach thus making them strategic players in a higher education with an SDG implementation strategy.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

The value of university libraries through the lens of external evaluation bodies

Universities play a crucial role in imparting not only knowledge but also critical thinking skills to their students. Among the various facilities available on campus, libraries have traditionally been considered the heart of universities (Arshad and Ameen, 2010; Kumar and Mahajan, 2019). Historian Shelby Foote once famously remarked in 1994 that “a university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library” (Chepesiuk, 1994, p. 984). Despite the introduction of new services such as reference management, research data management, and other open access interventions, academic communities do not seem to fully recognize their value to the academic programme. Evidence of this can be seen in the continuous budget cuts experienced by many academic libraries in South Africa. This presentation centres on examining the significance of university libraries by assessing the value constructs embraced by higher education councils, professional organizations, and university ranking agencies. The overarching aim is to propose strategies that South African university libraries can implement to incorporate their value proposition into the academic agenda. By doing so, this paper seeks to contribute to the assessment and dissemination of library value and potentially curb the persistent reduction in information resource budgets.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Measuring and monitoring is not to improve statistics but to improve student learning and research impact

In this paper I explain the different monitoring and measuring systems we have put in place at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) and in the UJ Library to measure the impact of what we are doing. The paper explores what tools we use, why, and how. It explains some of the lessons we have learnt over the last five years, the challenges we faced and the successes we have had. In doing so I show how the UJ Library statistics are linked to the University statistics and how improvements made in the Library have an impact on the overall impact and the University. This paper unpacks the relationship between the Library and the University as we all work to create the best learning environment and support for our students and provide assistance to the researchers. The key focus of the paper is to explore how tools that measure and monitor impact are most useful when they are designed and used to measure how well students are doing and how impactful the work of researchers is, and not just in order to improve statistics or achieve a key performance indicator.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Data driven open access management: the role of a datahub in negotiations, contract management and open access strategy

The role of a datahub in negotiations, contract management and open access strategy.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

The ACS and SANLiC: A fruitful collaboration

Celebrating the Read & Publication Agreement with SANLiC – Introducing myself.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Discovering the undiscoverable

Change is a journey, join us through it!

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

DHET’s lists of accredited journals and bibliometric coloniality in South African higher education (online presentation)

This presentation will provide an analysis of the Department of Higher Education and Training’s (DHET) list of accredited journals in terms of the indexes and journals they feature and their locations in the world. We will show that the DHET’s choice of bibliometric indexes is a key structural and systemic factor that promotes bibliometric coloniality in South Africa. Through its lists, which are dominated by indexes from the Global North, DHET propagates primarily English-language academic journals based in and dominated by editorial boards that largely comprise scholars from the Global North as the only credible platforms for publication of scholarly output produced by South African scholars. We will discuss the need to strengthen knowledge infrastructures outside the corporate and neocolonial ‘core’ in the quest to dismantle bibliometric coloniality, promote epistemic plurality and decolonise knowledge in South Africa and elsewhere on the African continent and in the Global South. We will also discuss what dismantling bibliometric coloniality would entail and require from DHET, institutions, research offices and university libraries.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

The UFS Open Access Initiative and the relationship with the Interdisciplinary Centre for Digital Futures (ICDF) and High-Performance Computing (HPC)

The University of the Free State (UFS) library is highly regarded as the initiator of collaborative efforts that enhance one-stop service delivery to the UFS research community clientele. Moore, (2011:7) states that access to scholarly communication is central to realising the vision of providing high-quality information services timeously, hence the need to invest in robust and efficient information and communication infrastructure. The HPC is one of the key stakeholders in unlocking the normalisation of open access (OA) at the UFS while the ICDF enhances user technological experiences. In this presentation I will showcase how the library collaborates with faculties and other support departments to promote open science. There is an African proverb that says, “If you want to go fast go alone but if you want to go far go together”. The library has been the champion of open science initiatives at the university but the buy-in has been slow. However, since the establishment of the library’s Digital Scholarship Centre and Interdisciplinary Centre for Digital Futures (ICDF) we have seen a major shift. We have seen a rise in joint projects that promote open science and there are plans for more similar projects.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Advancing early career researchers and scholars – building capacity and enriching careers through collaboration and partnerships (online presentation)

The Advancing Early Career Researchers and Scholars (AECRS) programme has been developed to address the needs of emerging academic researchers in the South African higher education and research sector, for support and capacity building. Following from previous studies on building a cohort of emerging academics nationally, and in-depth discussions with academic research leaders in all South African universities, the national landscape was mapped to determine interventions and resources needed for developing emerging researchers. Based on recommendations emanating from these studies and as key components of the AECRS programme, Universities South Africa (USAf) has developed the Thuso platforms:   Thuso Connect and Thuso Resources. Thuso (meaning help) Resources was developed in response to a need for a national ‘toolbox’ of useful resources for early career researchers and scholars.  In the interest of working together collaboratively to build strengths, South African universities are partnering in sharing instruments, resources, and training offerings, on an open access online platform. Thuso Connect is designed to give South African academic researchers the opportunity to participate in a nationwide, interactive, online mentorship programme. Individuals who are seeking mentorship, and others who are willing to offer it, can meet through the platform, and work together in a partnership.   The platform provides an effective, ethical way of introducing mentors and mentees. These platforms, Thuso Resources and Thuso Connect, will be available online, for early career researchers in all South African universities, to assist them in accelerating and enriching their academic career progress.

The presentation will describe the basis and the development of the two platforms and discuss their potential value as ongoing and future-looking resources.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

The impact of 4IR on the functions of academic and research libraries: a South African perspective

In recent years, academic and research libraries in South Africa have undergone significant transformation because of the growing penetration of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) in the global world, and especially the academic landscape. This shift has enormous influence on the functions of academic and research libraries. One can also argue that this transformation has had both a positive and a negative impact on the library’s role in supporting research, teaching, and learning. The digital age, courtesy of 4IR, has opened new opportunities for libraries to expand their collections, improve accessibility, and provide more personalised services to users, resulting in the creation of digital libraries, which have become an essential resource for students and researchers alike. In South Africa, libraries have made an effort to embrace innovative technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality to enhance users’ experiences. These changes have also led to the disruption of traditional library functions, with a shift towards digital resources and a reduced emphasis on physical collections. This has raised concerns about the long-term viability of physical libraries and the role of librarians as curators of physical collections. In response to these challenges, academic and research libraries in South Africa have sought to strike a balance between traditional and digital resources, while also ensuring that the needs of all users are met. This has involved rethinking library spaces, developing new programmes and services, and providing greater support to researchers. This study examines the impact of 4IR on academic and research libraries in South Africa, reflecting on the broader changes in the academic landscape and technological advancements. While these changes present challenges, they also present new opportunities for libraries to innovate and adapt to meet users’ changing needs.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Building infrastructure for open-access publishing and open access publication funds.

The emergence of open-access publishing and sustainable infrastructure has enabled the scholarly community to exert greater control over how research is produced and disseminated by promoting the development of diverse publishers beyond the commercial entities that dominate the academic landscape. The open access publishing process has recently taken centre stage in initiating and embracing publishing procedures through transformative agreements to enhance access to research output. 

The University of the Free State (UFS) has invested in building infrastructure and sustainable funding to support institutional research output through open access funding. Reinsfelder and Pike (2018:138) imply that it is common practice for publishers to use article processing charges (APCs) to finance open access publications, and many academic libraries cover these expenses for their authors. On the other hand, Solomon and Björk 2012:99 argue that these APCs are not new to the scholarly publishing process, but they have now become the central revenue mechanism for funding publishing operations. 

In this presentation I will share how UFS has built an infrastructure to support the open access mandate. We use both OA2020 and AmeliCA approaches. While we build the capacity to publish our journals, we also participate in SANLIC’s mandate of Open Access. One of the approaches we took to support researchers who want to publish open access by creating an open access fund to pay for APCs. I will share our successes and the challenges we face.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Expanding Access to Open Access Articles in Hybrid Journals with Article Level Intelligence

The hybrid publication model, where journal issues contain a mix of subscription-only and Open Access articles, has fast become the preferred publication model of most publishers. Because link resolvers link based on journal entitlements data, if a library does not subscribe to a hybrid journals, the resolver will think access is not available and not connect users to the Open Access articles. The result is needlessly denying or delaying patron access to articles indexed across discovery systems and databases, plus generating unnecessary interlibrary loan requests. This presentation will discuss how linking based on article-level intelligence overcomes these challenges by enabling linking to Open Access articles in non-subscribed titles, allowing libraries to effectively expand collections, better meet user expectations, and improve library workflows.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Mapping a protocol for more effective communication of transformative agreements

Rhodes University Library Services (RULS) experienced challenges relating to effective communication between and amongst the various stakeholders in the institution relating to open science and scholarly communication. The evidence of this increased dramatically with the advent of transformative agreements and how these agreements impacted the different stakeholders. This paper proposes a framework for increasing communication effectiveness between and amongst the Electronic Resources Librarian or Collection Manager, the Digital Scholarship Unit or Scholarly Communications Officer, the Research Office, the Faculty Liaison Librarian team, and academics. In addition, consideration is given to awareness campaigns and procedures.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Developing collaborative relationships between research offices and academic libraries (online presentation)

This session will delineate ways in which academic librarians and research office personnel can collaborate to strengthen the connection between research practices and the services offered by the academic library. The intent is to show where the academic library services can be mapped into the research process to help support research efforts. In addition, a communication structure will be outlined to aid in the development of a two-way communication plan between the two campus partners.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Higher Education sector – are we ready for the next disruption?

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on the higher education sector globally. This talk explores the various ways in which the pandemic has affected higher education institutions. What are the immediate and long-term consequences of the pandemic, including disruptions to the academic project and support services, the digital divide, and how we share knowledge and information? Have we learned anything, and are we ready for the next major disruption?

Arjan Schalken is the Program Manager UKBsis at UKB, the network of Dutch university libraries and the Royal Library. His work focusses on the realisation and implementation of sustainable publish and read deals. An important result of the UKBsis programme is the realisation of a data warehouse to monitor, manage and analyse publication-related data as input for negotiations, contract fulfilment and tracking the open access life cycle of publications. Arjan also advises UKB and the Dutch universities on their 100% Open Access strategy. As the project manager of “You Share, We take Care”, Arjan helps universities to implement article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Law, supporting researchers to share their research publications in the institutional repositories more easily. He is also the project manager for implementing consortium agreements with fully open access publishers.

TOPICS & ABSTRACT:

Five ways to optimize open access uptake after a signed read and publish contract: lessons learned from the Dutch UKB consortium Authors

Lessons learned from the Dutch UKB consortium: presentation and discussion.

Read and publish contracts compared to read only agreements. Essential OA items to include

The Dutch UKB consortium signed its first Read & Publish agreement in 2015. Addressing both lessons learned and (changing) priorities, the model license was fine-tuned each year. In this presentation, the current Open Access paragraphs will be addressed including their context.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Walking the tightrope: balancing everyday work responsibilities with managing a multi-phase project

The existence of academic libraries is attributable to the value librarians are adding to teaching, learning, and knowledge production. To be able to achieve this, the library must ensure that the information needs of its researchers and students are timely and successfully met by its range of products and service offerings. Apart from access to extensive and sustainable information resources, the library is also mandated to provide intentionally designed physical spaces that adapt to users’ diverse needs, stimulate collaboration, innovation, and knowledge creation, and support student success and engagement.

Although most information resources are now digital, and the library aims to invest in electronic format, some information resources are still only available in print format, and past investments in information resources were mainly in print format. With the library being the custodian of these collections, librarians are obligated to ensure effective management, sustainability, and preservation for current and future generations.

With more than 50 per cent of library spaces taken over by print collections, finding solutions to open these spaces, while still safeguarding these investments and assuring continued access to carefully collected knowledge, was central to a multi-phase project to relocating the paper journal collection of the University of Pretoria Libraries. Not only did this project come with quite a few challenges, it also imposed an exercise in planning, managing, and adjusting complex workflow procedures. This paper will report on the approach followed by the team to ensure the effective and efficient execution of the project.  The importance of developing and implementing the most effective workflows will be emphasized, and recommendations for skills development will be made.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Academic libraries are shifting due to social media and effective communication channel

This abstract examines the communication channels available to librarians working in higher education, identifies gaps in the channels, and explains why improving these channels is essential for the institution’s success.

The digital age has demonstrated that libraries are not just physical spaces for books but also virtual with an online presence. Libraries have established a significant online presence, and more libraries are promoting their digital offerings through social media platforms and transitioning to an online service.
However, simply having a website or social media profile is insufficient to engage with library users and attract and retain new users. To fully utilise social media’s power to promote library services and resources, librarians must develop a well-executed marketing strategy. Using technology is not sufficient; it requires an understanding of what the end game is. This understanding will then inform the strategy. UJ Library’s end game is to dovetail its goal with the University’s. Namely, “an international university of choice, anchored in Africa, dynamically shaping the future.”

With all the change and disruption, UJ is regarded as a caring institution committed to changing lives through education. Hence we as a Library want to align the goals to SDGs. The crucial elements are financial aid, food security, and sustainable development partnerships. The Library engages with stakeholders by ensuring we stay visible and relevant. We cannot accomplish our goals without proper communication channels and online visibility. A marketing strategy has been aligned to achieve the academic Library’s SDG goals.

Academic libraries constantly seek to improve their services, resources, and facilities to support their institution’s academic mission. Partnership and collaboration create a platform where shared knowledge and expertise can achieve collective goals while benefiting individual institutions.

Our success is measured by collating statistics, tracking social media impressions and engagements, and user satisfaction. By communicating through appropriate channels, we have succeeded in enhancing the Library’s usage, which has contributed to the improvement of our university rankings.

Due to digitisation, higher education institutions have updated knowledge storage, discovery and dissemination systems. Emails, texts, social media platforms, and blockchain are new communication technologies that have made creating collaborative initiatives in education and other fields easier.

Stephen Coetzee is the Sales Manager for Clinical Solutions at Elsevier within the Southern Africa (SADC) region. He was previously involved in business transformation and has held various roles within the health and life sciences sectors in Africa for various global multinational companies.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Preparing Future Health Professionals to Shape the Future of Health

Elsevier aims to help millions of students become practice-ready professionals, supporting them throughout their educational and professional journeys with the knowledge and analytics they need for a lifetime of informed, confident clinical decisionmaking.

Earl Givens Jr. is currently the Interim Vice Provost, Dean of Learning Resources, director of the Corriher-Linn-Black Library, and special assistant to the president for leadership development at Catawba College in Salisbury, NC USA. He was instrumental in initiating programmes and technology to advance the changing future of the campus library for the 21st century and worked closely with campus departments to implement both augmented reality and virtual technology at Catawba. Always on the cutting edge of technology, he is involved in library projects that push the envelope in academic libraries. He is committed to transforming the face of the library by integrating traditional library practices with contemporary technology. Givens holds his MLS from Emporia State University with an emphasis on library technology, a BA in American History from Emporia State University and is a graduate of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education in Organizational Leadership.

TOPIC & ABSTRACT:

Disruptive change: embracing ambiguous innovation

Bill Sharpe, former Research Director at Hewlett Packard Laboratories, defines innovation as “the process that takes an idea and assembles the resources needed to establish it in the world.” In the 20th century, disruptive innovation happened for an extended period. In the 21st century, creative, disruptive innovation is no longer time bound. Today, innovation rapidly moves and breaks all traditional theory models. Libraries are at the forefront of this rapid change and must be the bridge to our respective community leaders to provide equitable and open access to present and future communities on our campus and beyond. Join me as we identify the challenges of the day and the strategies to make progress for future generations.