Translation: [Français] [español]

The Academic and Research Libraries Section (ARL), with generous sponsorship by Ex Libris and SAGE, is offering THREE (3) Attendance Grants for the 2019 IFLA World Library & Information Congress in Athens, Greece. One awardee will be selected from each of these regions:

• Africa
• Latin America
• Asia/Pacific region

What does the Attendance Grant Cover?
Each grant covers the early registration fee for IFLA members of Euro 505 which expires on 15th May 2019. The Attendance Grant will also provide support for travel and/or accommodation of up to Euro 700.
Applicants must be able to attend the Congress and will be responsible for all other costs associated with Congress attendance. Please see the Conference website for further details about the Congress.

What is expected from the grant holders?
The successful candidates will be required to be onsite at the Congress and participate actively for its duration, including attendance at ARL committee meetings, and the IFLA Awards session, where they will receive their certificates. They may also be required to take part in publicity events during the conference, such as events organised at the two sponsors’ exhibition stalls.

Following the Congress, awardees will be required to write a brief article (approximately 500 words) about their Congress experience, The article must be within 3 months of the end of the Congress, and will be published on the ARL Section blog. Awardee’s submission essays may also be published in advance of the conference.

Eligibility
• The applicant must be a paid-up member of his/her national library association
• The applicant should not have attended the IFLA Congress before
• The applicant must be willing to share their experience at the IFLA Congress with their national library association
• The applicant must be eligible to obtain a visa for travel
• The applicant must declare that she/he is able to fund all other costs beyond the grant that are involved in attending the Congress, e.g. all other hotel, travel and subsistence expenses NOT covered by the Grant
• Those who have previously received this Grant (formerly known as Essay Contest) are not eligible to apply again.

Application Procedures
Applicants should prepare four documents for review by the committee:

1) A covering letter providing:
• your contact details (e.g. name and email address)
• short summary of your employment and/or student status
First-time IFLA attendees, young professionals, students of Library and Information Studies (LIS) and those working in LIS jobs for the first time will have an advantage in the assessment of applications, so make sure you mention this if you belong to one of these categories.

2) A written statement of up to 500 words. The statement should describe:
• how attending IFLA will benefit you in a personal and/or professional capacity, with reference to the 2019 theme of the conference; and
• how you intend to apply the benefits that you have outlined in a practical way after the Congress, either for you personally or for the library/information unit you work in

3) A cost estimate or budget for your attendance at the Congress, along with a declaration of your ability to fund all costs beyond the grant of Euro 700 and of your eligibility for any relevant visas. At a minimum, your budget should include travel and hotel costs, but please also consider meals, visa-related fees, and other personal expenses when planning your trip. Please note any costs that will be funded by your employer or by other grants and awards.

4) A statement indicating that you have approval from your employer, that if you are a recipient of this Grant, that you have their support to attend the IFLA World Library and Information Congress in Athens, Greece.

All four documents should be sent by email to:
Liz State
Email: lizstate@gmail.com

Your application must be received by 16th March 2019. All applications will be acknowledged upon receipt.
All applicants will receive notification of award status no later than 18th May 2019.

Please note
Our grant is possible because of the generous sponsorship by Ex Libris and SAGE. Our sponsors want to offer all our grant applicants an opportunity to receive news and announcements of their products and services, and we will be sharing your contact details with them. If you do not wish to have your contact details shared, please indicate your preference in your submission document.

The internet has changed our understanding of information and communication forever. What do we lose in the face of the digital era and where lies the future of scientific knowledge?
No matter what your goal is, digital solutions always seem to be the most efficient and cost-effective answer. No other channel gives us quicker access to information. Social media provides the most convenient way to network. Smartphones allow for an unrestricted access to images, videos, words, and services – at all times, with minimal effort.

The false promise of the digital

It seems like the internet and our smartphones leave nothing to be desired. Yet we rarely talk about the price we’re paying for all this comfort. That’s probably because most of us aren’t even aware of it.
Given all the obvious advantages that digital technology offers it’s hardly surprising that people spend more and more time glued to their smartphones. The search for new information and the desire for unlimited communication keep users engaged with their phones. They also blur the lines between curiosity, dependency and addiction. Many of the expectations we have towards the digital world – reliable contacts, the ultimate discovery, more likes and notifications – seem to be disappointed in the end.
It would be too easy to claim that digital natives can no longer experience the physical world. According to this argument, virtual phenomena are only a surrogate of the real world. But the real problem does not lie with physical tangibility.
The real problem is this: The digital and the internet cannot provide any real experiences. An experience is a moment that we want to dwell upon. An experience is an end in itself. But the internet and the digital are only means to some other end. That’s why the internet, despite making information and communication so easily accessible, does not allow us to participate in any experiences. And this is where the analog comes into play.

Enlightenment and the analogue experience

The analog invites us – or even forces us – to experience and to pause and think. As opposed to the digital, the analog is not a mere copy or a representation. To accept the digital and its implications as an end in itself, on the other hand, would dissolve all experience in favor of endless loops of pointless interaction. That’s the price we pay for digital media. And it’s a price that is rarely included in cost-benefit analyses.

The analog can interrupt the endless loop of the digital, but only if analog phenomena remain our goal. The internet can lead us there. Think of the sciences and libraries as an example. The key experience of science is enlightenment. Enlightenment is a moment that we want to dwell upon. Enlightenment is curated in words that are made available to us in books and journals. These books remain in libraries while science advances.

In the case of scientific knowledge, the internet initiates and leads us towards new insights and discoveries that are then made available to us as publications in libraries. Knowledge, manifested in publications, consequently, stands for an inherently analogue experience – an experience that could be jeopardized if we continue to focus on the digital in the area of science and the production of knowledge.

https://blog.degruyter.com/the-revenge-of-the-analogue/

Andreas Degkwitz,
Director, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin,
University Library, Germany

Academic libraries have always provided services to researchers, scientists and scholars. In the past, this primarily involved collecting and organising academic publications – but in our digital age these services have had to evolve to keep pace with developments. Libraries have launched their own publishing platforms and begun offering publishing services to researchers, particularly within the context of the open access movement.
Open access is about making high-quality research available to everyone. It involves publishing research findings online after they have passed through an approved review process and allowing readers to access these materials for free. Any publishing fees incurred – whether these are charged by a commercial publisher or a publishing platform run by a public institution – are paid by the researchers or their institutions. As often happens, however, the good intentions and ideas behind this process have also been exploited by a number of “black sheep”. Alongside legitimate open access participants, recent years have also seen the emergence of predatory journals and predatory conferences that contact researchers all over the world, touting their services for a fee that may be hard to spot at first glance. If a researcher takes the bait and submits an article or conference abstract, it will often be published immediately or accepted for presentation without even passing through a peer review process. In other words, the predatory journal or conference is simply interested in the financial gain and has no interest in good scholarly practice.
Predatory publishing and predatory conferences have recently featured heavily in many areas of the German media. The radio and television broadcasters Norddeutscher Rundfunk and Westdeutscher Rundfunk and the broadsheet newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung have all devoted months of research to investigating this controversial topic. Yet the majority of researchers and scientists are not affected by this phenomenon, at least not directly. Figures from the Science Media Center Germany suggest that only about 1.3 percent of scientific staff at German universities are involved. (https://www.sciencemediacenter.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Fact_Sheets_PDF/Predatory-Publishers_SMC_Fact-Sheet.pdf, 2018:2, in German). Although this is a relatively small percentage, the predatory side of the business is showing worrying signs of growth – and anyone who considers the wider consequences can see that it could end up causing enormous damage to academia and society as a whole. Predatory journals typically publish two types of articles. Firstly, articles written by academics who were previously unaware of the existence of predatory journals and simply wanted to publish their results in good faith and, secondly, authors who deliberately make use of these journals to publish articles that would not be accepted by other journals due to a lack of scientific rigour. The problem is that these two types of article appear side-by-side, and it is often difficult or impossible for a layperson to spot the difference in quality. Pseudo-scientific articles can cause very real damage, especially in the field of medicine, where patients may search for information online, come across articles that includes some incorrect information, and fail to check its veracity with a medical professional. Honest researchers who accidentally publish their work in predatory journals are deprived of the reputation they need to advance within the academic system. Once they notice their error, they are essentially left with no choice but to remove the article from their list of publications in order to avoid any suspicion of dishonesty, even though the article itself may be perfectly respectable. The same thing applies to conferences. Attending scientific conferences to exchange views with other experts is an essential part of any researcher’s work, and it is a good platform for networking, especially for younger members of the academic and research communities. Yet predatory conferences typically stack together short presentations one after the other. In many cases, they provide no time for discussion and mix together a bewildering assortment of topics without any identifiable overall theme, destroying any opportunity for a real exchange of views.
At first glance, it can be very difficult to know whether you are dealing with a predatory journal or conference, or a genuine one. Many predatory publishers take great care to design their website to look like a legitimate enterprise. In some cases, the title may be almost the same as a respectable operation, with just one or two letters changed. The website may list reviewers or Editorial Board members – often renowned experts in their field of work – who have nothing whatsoever to do with the publisher or conference. In other words, their names have simply been used without their knowledge. Ultimately, this represents dishonest and criminal activity on the part of the predatory journal or conference organiser, since they are using false promises to make money and, in many cases, disseminating false information.
Although people have known about this problem for a long time, it is only now that it has come to the attention of a wider public as a result of greater media interest. And questions are now rightly being asked as to what can be done to tackle this problem.
One way of helping researchers is to provide express warnings against predatory journals and predatory conferences in the open access policy of each individual institution. For academic libraries, the problem of predatory publishing and predatory conferences is an important new aspect of their work. They have the ability and indeed the duty to enhance their services to the academic world by actively enlightening researchers as to how predatory publishing and predatory conferences work.
ZB MED – Information Centre for Life Sciences strives to live up to this challenge, offering services such as an FAQ page about this topic on its website (https://www.publisso.de/open-access-beraten/faqs/predatory-publishing/). The frequently asked questions also feature links to information published by other institutions, including criteria for distinguishing between predatory and authentic journals and conferences. One of the most important links is to Think.Check.Submit (https://thinkchecksubmit.org/), a site produced jointly by the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP), International Standard Serial Number (ISSN), Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche – Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER), Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), International Association of STM Publishers (STM), UKSG, and a number of individual publishing houses. One of the criteria is to look up the journal in the DOAJ, which keeps an updated list of authentic open access journals. However, some publishers have not yet signed up their journals for this service or are still working their way through the approval process, so this list cannot be viewed as exhaustive and should not be used as the sole basis for excluding a journal from consideration. The key is to draw on multiple criteria for checking the authenticity of a journal, since one criteria alone may lead to the wrong conclusion. Libraries can also offer workshops and presentations (including webinars) that go into more detail about the problem and discuss the various criteria.
Another important task that libraries should be focusing on is keeping their own catalogue up-to-date – particularly by adding open access publications to their existing records. It is obviously important for libraries to apply the same criteria as those mentioned above to ensure they do not legitimise dishonest journals by including them in their catalogue.
It can often be extremely difficult to identify a predatory journal, but academic libraries offer the kind of information literacy and advisory services that make them the first port of call when it comes to identifying predatory publishing and predatory conferences. They play an important role in supporting an authentic and rigorous academic process.

Dr. Ursula Arning
PUBLISSO/ Leitung
Open-Access – digitale Langzeitarchivierung – Forschungsdaten

Funded by the University Grant Committee (UGC) of Hong Kong, the Joint University Librarians Advisory Committee (JULAC) launched a cross-institution teaching and learning related project titled “Enhancing Information Literacy in Hong Kong Higher Education through the Development and Implementation of Shared Interactive multimedia Courseware” in three years starting from 2015 through 2018. The Project aims to enhance information literacy among students in UGC-funded institutions by developing and implementing a shared interactive multimedia courseware. After this project, students should be able to uplift their capacity to use information to learn, and to build students’ awareness of themselves as informed learners. There are altogether five sub-projects under this main theme to (a) assess the information and educational needs of undergraduate students at the beginning of the project; (b) conduct research readiness self-assessment exercises for undergraduate students at the beginning as well as near the completion of the project for comparison sake; (c) build up IL capacity of the academic librarians in Hong Kong; (d) develop a shared information literacy courseware; and finally (e) develop IL loaded courses together with faculty members by using the Course Enhancement Funds.

Among other deliverables of the Project, InfoLit for U, a free open-access MOOC on IL using edX platform, was launched in February 2018 as a 24×7, self-paced, non-credit bearing MOOC for undergraduate students. There are altogether eight discipline-related elective modules, namely Arts & Humanities, Business & Economics, Education, Engineering, Health Sciences, Law, Science and Social Sciences. These modules provide inquiry-based context within which information seeking tasks related to these disciplines are designed. InfoLit for U enables users to think and plan the information needs of their research, search for ideas to develop ideas, evaluate ideas to form new ideas, connect ideas to create their own idea, and join and learn from communities.

Leo F.H. Ma

Head, Upper-campus Libraries

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

In 2017, under the supervision of Estonian Research Council, two research groups from the University of Tartu and Tallinn University in cooperation with the Estonian Academy of Sciences conducted research (surveys) on Open Science approaches in Estonia. Work of these working groups was supported by RITA programm.

The survey led by the University of Tartu: Kelli, A., Mets, T., Vider, K., Kull, I. (2017) Open Science in Estonia and Europe: Legal and Socio-Economic Aspects. Tartu: University of Tartu (in Estonian, executive summary in English on pages 6-9).
The focus of the research was open science issues, open access publishing, open data and socio-economic impact of open science in general. The report found out following statistics about Estonian research: Estonia spends about 4 million euros every year on research databases licenses. Estonians publish 35 OA international journals. “The system of open science is still only being devised in Estonia, requiring approximately 0.7 million euros per year for 2018/2019.” The report came up with various conclusions and recommendations for previously mentioned topics.

The survey led by Tallinn University,: Toom, K., Olesk, A., Ruusalepp, R., Kaal, E., Mandre, S., Vaikmäe, R. (2017) Open Science in Estonia and Europe: Possibilities and Potential from the Viewpoint of Different Target Groups. Tallinn: Tallinn University and Estonian Academy of Sciences (in Estonian, executive summary in English on pages 12-16). This one focused on open science trends and placing it in the context of Estonian sciences and state needs. The report describes the roles what R&D institutions, the State and researchers play in shaping the Estonian Open Science principles and analysis show the “societal profit of Open Science from the viewpoint of different target groups.” In 2017, (21 March – 3 April), a web survey was conducted for the purpose of this research. Out of 4033 researchers, 671 respondents filled out the survey. Based on these results, it can be said that respondents viewed Open Science in a positive way. Open Access to publications was perceived as profitable for science. Respondents indicated two major problems when it came to publishing in Open Access journals: quality of OA journals and funding  publishing in these journals.  The report brought out lack of organized preservation of research data. Most researchers still keep their data in their personal devices; however, they showed interest in intuitional and national data repositories as well as raising awareness of options of data storage.

In October 2017, the Centre for Ethics, University of Tartu, in cooperation with a working group appointed by the Estonian Research Council published ´The Code of Conduct for Research Integrity.` The Code states that researchers should prefer publishing in Open Access journals if all other conditions are equal and they should publish research results in a way that the public would gain access to it. Most Estonian universities have a requirement to deposit university’s theses and dissertations in their institutional repositories and make it publicly available (Green Open Access).´Estonian Code of Conduct for Research Integrity` (cross-disciplinary) states that it is the duty of the researcher to provide as broad access to their research data as laws and regulations allow. In addition, the researcher has to ensure that the research data is findable and usable as easily as possible – referring to FAIR data.

Liisi Lembinen, Director of development, University of Tartu Library
Tiiu Tarkpea, Data Librarian, University of Tartu Library

Academic libraries have moved quickly to establish new collections, services, and space configurations for new and emerging needs. We recognize the necessity of embedding library staff and services in the workflow of users. One pressing need academic libraries are eager to address is to configure our own workflows to maximize the fluidity of service provisions. Below are some possibilities for change. The examples are illustrative, and a nuanced framework needs to be developed to anticipate all library functions that situate in very different institutional, socio-economical, and political realms.

To be a part of a user’s workflow, successful academic libraries need to minimize disruptions our services cause. Such disruptions, seeing from the user’s workflow perspective, are dead ends on a user’s path of discovery and access, including unawareness of library expertise and services online or in physical facilities, unprocessed materials that mislead a user to believe something does not exist, errors in bibliographic records or service descriptions that lead to zero match, mis-shelved items that wastes a user’s time, broken links, unavailable seating, closed service points at user desired hours etc. They may also be soft breakdowns, such as ambience, staff attitude, and troubleshooting responsiveness. Where library services break down are the most probable points the user abandon the library. This action is particularly easy in library’s virtual space.

Academic libraries’ organization is still predominantly vertical, i.e., we are divided into public-facing and behind-the-scene departments. Breakdown mediation, however responsive we maybe, is still reactive, and actions are handed from one department to another despite increasing internal collaborations. Although we added new staff to meet new needs, in most cases they reside within the vertical confines.
Might it be possible to align libraries’ workflow to support collection not by ownership but by how soon the access can be for users? Processing not by physical or digital medium nor by publication frequency but by upcoming use forecast? Space and hours not by location of service points nor calendar but by the whereabouts and rhythm of a user’s research, teaching, and learning process? How would we balance investments between work that prevents breakdowns and those that repair them? How do we transition to a model in which our individual library’s users are supported collectively? The more successful open access and open education will be the tighter alignment and coordination between the libraries and users is required.

Ultimately, only when services are predictable and reliable would a user embed the academic libraries in his/her workflow. This is especially true in an environment where resource is not scarce, but attention bandwidth is. Only when academic libraries rethink our structure would we be able to produce the consistency and reliability within our means and at scale. Many colleagues have been working on this alignment, some U.S. examples include:

User behavior: Numerous research reports produced by Ithaka S+R and other organizations or libraries.
Collection: Linden, J., Tudesco, S., & Dollar, D. (2018). Collections as a Service: A Research Library’s Perspective. College & Research Libraries, 79(1), 86. doi:https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.79.1.86

Processing: LeBlanc, J., & Kurth, M. (2018). Assessing staff alignment in technical services. Library Resources & Technical Services, 62(2), 66-73. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/2024440304?accountid=10267

Innovation and technology: Tarleton Gillespie; Pablo J. Boczkowski; Kirsten A. Foot, “Rethinking Repair,” in Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society , 1, MIT Press, 2013, pp.344-
Library costs: Courant, P. N. & Nielsen, M. (2010). On the cost of keeping a book. Retrieved from https://leverpress.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/CourantandNielsen.pdf

Planning: https://future-of-libraries.mit.edu (I cite the website instead of the reports, because the website shows the process.)

I invite you to share further readings and ideas from around the world to help us think about this challenge collectively.

Xin Li

Associate University Librarian

Cornell University

Libraries these days are built digital brick by digital brick – brick being the metaphor for digital books, journals, articles, objects, media, digital infrastructure, networks, apps, data, and analytics. The growth of print collections has been declining considerably in recent times. Singapore Management University (SMU) Libraries spends over 90% of its funds on digital collections, 80% of its collections are digital.

Here is a selection of activities and technologies libraries are involved in these days:

the digital infrastructure, gateways, discovery layers, authentication systems, analysis of library space occupancy using WiFi heatmaps, big data, data analytics, metadata, DRMs (Digital Rights Management), connectivity, streaming videos, apps, e-learn programs about plagiarism, citation management, bibliometrics, open access repositories for publications, open education resources, games for teaching scholarly communication, creation and management of data, photographs and heritage collections, reading list and copyright management systems, virtual document delivery networks amongst the world’s libraries, gateways to other libraries’ collections, virtual chat services and so on.

Libraries of today are not concerned with building large print collections and creating the ‘perfect’ catalogue record anymore. Today’s libraries are focused on community engagement, being relevant, being responsive, being pro-active, making their resources and services ubiquitous, accessible, self-discoverable without obstacles, layers and mediation. They are concerned about being aligned to their constituencies and their stakeholders’ priorities including those of their parent institutions and their target audiences. Today’s libraries recognize that they can never provide all the resources their communities want and need on-site, but they must have intuitive and ubiquitous systems in place to make the resources available and accessible ‘just’-in-time’ and ‘just-for-you’ (their communities) and not ‘just-in-case’.

Libraries of today have higher order capabilities to re-invent, re-purpose, re-align and re-engineer themselves quickly and flexibly, both physically and virtually using both the heart and the head, to collaborate with their communities. Libraries do not claim to be the ‘heart of the university’ anymore, but they know they need to be in the ecosystem of their universities and an integral part of their universities’ digital infrastructure, digital services for research, teaching and learning and their nervous systems which include both the heart and the head.

Librarians of today are not and should not be defensive about their changing roles and responsibilities. Statements like ‘who uses libraries anymore?’, ‘I never go to the library, I have everything I want’, ‘does anybody use libraries anymore?’, ‘you must have a lot of books’, ‘you must read a lot of books!’ and so on should not trigger defensive reactions. On the contrary, these are wonderful occasions for librarians to demonstrate the value they add to their parent institutions, stakeholders’ and communities’ success and competitive advantage.

SMU Libraries’ physical usage has been increasing every year.  Over 1.3 million entries (7,000-8,000 unique persons per month) were recorded in 2017, which is a very high number for a university with a population of only 9,000 students. E-book downloads were nearly one million just for 2017. SMU faculty and students downloaded half a million articles in 2017. SMU librarians helped 500 students and faculty with their research enquiries, involving high end financial, legal, economic, business and other information resources.

Here is a selection of qualifications and expertise SMU Librarians have: Six with business degrees, seven with engineering degrees, three with law degrees, one with accountancy, four economics, one with biological sciences (including psychology), four computer science and three with humanities degrees. They all have master’s degrees in library and information science from well- known universities, local and international. Some have a second master’s degree. They don’t shelve books, neither do they catalogue books; they analyse data, use high end tools and resources to provide services, to plan, to make decisions and to engage with their communities.

They provide consultancy to faculty and students and manage digital infrastructures. They teach students and guide faculty how to find, access and make the most of relevant resources efficiently and effectively. They negotiate licences for databases with vendors and provide copyright advice. They organize metadata and ensure resources are accessible in a seamless way just-in-time. SMU librarians research, write, publish and present papers at international conferences and some co-author research papers with faculty.

Libraries of today are all about expertise, resources, services and spaces both digital and physical. They add value to their communities’ success in a seamless, ubiquitous and agile way. Libraries of today are the digital and virtual village squares of their campuses. Today’s libraries are about engagement, collaboration, communication and partnerships.

Gulcin Cribb

University Librarian

Singapore Management University