Tag Archives: academic libraries

Library Stat of the Week #25: At Similar Levels of GDP, Countries with More Academic Librarians See Higher Numbers of Publications

In the past two weeks, we have explored the figures that IFLA’s Library Map of the World offers us on the subject of academic libraries and library workers. We have looked at how many there are in different parts of the world, including relative to population, and last week, as correlations between numbers of libraries and librarians, and scientific publications and patents.

In the third and final post of this mini series, we take the analysis of the last point a little further, in order to see whether the positive correlation seen in particular between numbers of academic library workers per head and publishing survives when another key factor is taken into account – the overall strength of an economy.

There is a strong reason for doing this. Graph 1 compares numbers of scientific and technical publications per 100 000 people (based on World Bank data) with calculations of Gross Domestic Product per person (adjusted for purchasing power) (also based on World Bank data).

Graph 1: GDP per capita (PPPs) and Publications per 100K People

There is a very strong correlation here. This is perhaps not surprising, given that richer economies are better able to allocate resources to support higher education and research, and of course also offer a larger market.

Nonetheless, the correlation isn’t perfect, suggesting that other factors may affect numbers of publications, other than GDP.

Interestingly, in addition, the correlation between GDP per capita and publications per 100 000 people is much stronger than that between total government spending on research and development and publications.

Secondly, we can look at the relationship between numbers of academic library workers and levels of GDP. Graph 2 does this, showing, again, a positive correlation, but this time a less strong one.

Graph 2: Academic Librarians per 100 K People and GDP Per Capita (PPPs)In other words, while in general, richer countries tend to have more academic library workers, this is not always the case. Some very rich countries have relatively few, while some poorer countries have relatively many.

This opens up the question of whether there may be any positive connection between numbers of academic library workers and publications, even when we hold GDP constant. We do this, in Graph 3, by calculating how many more or fewer publications a country is producing in relation to the overall trend, and comparing this with figures for academic library workers.

Graph 2: At Constant GDP. Do More Librarians Mean More Publications?In this graph, a negative figure on the vertical axis indicates that they are producing relatively few publications for their level of GDP per person, while a positive one indicates higher publishing rates.

As we can see, there is a gentle positive correlation here. While it is not a dramatic one, this does provide a suggestion that investing more in libraries (as a key part of the research and education infrastructure) may help drive numbers of publications.

Finally, we can go a step further and look not only at relative numbers of publications compared to what would be expected at a given level of GDP per capita, but also at which countries have a relatively high number of academic librarians given their GDP per capita.

Graph 4: Numbers of Academic Library Workers and Publications, Relative to GDP Per Capita Expectations

Graph 4 does this, taking the numbers already used for the vertical axis in Graph 3, and making new calculations, based on the average trend found in Graph 2, in order to work out whether countries have more or fewer academic library workers than expected at their level of GDP per capita.

This exercise reinforces the conclusion in Graph 3, suggesting that in two countries with the same level of GDP per capita, the one which has more academic librarians will tend to out-perform one with fewer, in terms of number of scientific publications.

Clearly, this is a point that would need further analysis in order to come to any firm conclusions of course, including study at a more detailed level, in order to see to what extent correlation could mean causality. Nonetheless, it is a welcome piece of evidence for use in advocacy.

 

Find out more on the Library Map of the World, where you can download key library data in order to carry out your own analysis! See our other Library Stats of the Week! We are happy to share the data that supported this analysis on request.

Library Stat of the Week #24: Where there are more academic librarians, there is more publishing and patenting

As highlighted in last week’s post, academic libraries are central to any country’s infrastructure for learning and innovation. Through giving learners and researchers access to existing knowledge, and support to make the most of it, they enable work to happen that leads to social and economic progress.

Last week’s post offered an initial overview of data about academic libraries and library workers in IFLA’s Library Map of the World database, suggesting that there are, on average, 1.32 academic libraries and 10.63 academic library workers per 100 000 people.

Within this, there is strong variation across countries, with, for example, there being 26.25 academic library workers per 100 000 people in the United States, but fewer than 0.1 elsewhere.

What might this mean for the ability of countries to innovate?

In this week’s Library Stat of the Week, we’ll take a first look at data on some common metrics of innovation performance – numbers of scientific publications, and numbers of patents – in order to look for potential correlations.

For this, we can cross data from the Library Map of the World (using figures for numbers of librarians and libraries per 100 000 people), and World Bank data on scientific and technical journal articles, and on patent applications by residents, also translated into figures for numbers per 100 people.

Graph 1: Academic Libraries and Publications

Graphs 1 and 2 do this in the case of publications. The link between the strength of the academic library network and the number of scientific and technical publication is relatively clear, and makes sense intuitively.

Researchers with better access to books, journals and other resources, through libraries, are better placed to write high-quality articles themselves, likely to be accepted in good quality journals.

Graph 2: Academic Library Workers and PublicationsInterestingly, the correlation is stronger in the case of academic library workers (Graph 2) than in that of academic libraries (Graph 1).

It is likely that numbers of library workers is a better indicator of the strength of the field, both given the importance of staff in helping researchers, but also potential variation from country to country in how academic libraries are organised and counted.

While, as always, correlation does not mean causality (a point we will return to below), the graph does at least seem to back up the argument that a stronger library field will tend to support a higher publications output.

The next stage is to look at patents. These are often treated as a key indicator of the innovation performance of countries, given that they can be associated with new products, services and so business.

Graph 3 Academic Libraries and Patent ApplicationsGraphs 3 and 4 therefore repeat the exercise with patent application data, comparing numbers of academic libraries and library workers per 100 000 people.

In this, in order to avoid distortion, some countries with outlying data (notably the extremely high patenting figures for China and South Korea) have been excluded in order to allow for a better look at others.

It is clear that the relationships are less clear with patents than they are with publications. This is perhaps understandable – much patenting activity comes from businesses, while publications tend to come from universities and research centres

It is already clear that correlations are weaker here – indeed, there seems to be little correlation at all between the number of academic libraries and patents at all (Graph 3).

Graph 4: Academic Library Workers and Patent ApplicationsNonetheless, on the stronger indicator of the strength of academic library fields – the number of academic library workers per 100 000 people (Graph 4) – the correlation does reappear, although is still slightly weaker than with publications.

 

Overall, these results do support the conclusion that countries which perform better on traditional metrics of innovativeness are also the ones that have a stronger academic library field.

As mentioned above, this is not necessarily the same as causality. In next week’s Library Stat of the Week, we will therefore try to control for some of the other potential factors which might influence this connection.

 

Find out more on the Library Map of the World, where you can download key library data in order to carry out your own analysis! See our other Library Stats of the Week! We are happy to share the data that supported this analysis on request.

Library Stat of the Week #23: On average, there are 1.32 academic libraries, and 10.63 academic library workers per 100 000 people globally

After a few weeks of focusing on public and community libraries, it’s time to take a look, instead, at academic libraries. These are at the heart of the institutions they serve, as well as core parts of the infrastructure of any country for learning and research.

While future posts will look at the relationship between academic libraries and library workers and various indicators of research and education outputs, this week we’ll be looking just at how many institutions and staff there are, both in absolute terms, and related to population (using World Bank data for 2018).

Overall, globally, IFLA’s Library Map of the World counts over 80 000 academic libraries globally, on the basis of data from 105 countries, representing a total population of over 6bn (almost 80% of the total).

The largest number of academic libraries is in India, with over 42 000 alone recorded there, followed by the United States (4266) and China (almost 3000). In other world regions, Nigeria has the most in Africa (815), Ukraine in Eurasia (1843), Italy in Europe (1581), Brazil in Latin America and the Caribbean (2407), Egypt the most in the Middle East and North Africa (464), and Australia the most in Oceania (190).

Numbers of Academic Libraries by region, both in absolute terms, and relative to population (per 100 000 people)

Graph 1 provides further insights into number of academic libraries per region (where India ensures that Asia comes out as having the highest number of academic libraries, but also offers figures relative to population sizes.

This helps us see that globally, there are 1.32 academic libraries per 100 000 people, although at a regional level, this varies from over 1.5 in North America to 0.31 in Africa and 0.41 in the Middle East and North Africa.

The variation is wider still at the national level, going from 6.17 academic libraries per 100 000 people in Slovenia, followed by Kiribati (6.04), Macao, China (5.38) and Argentina (4.71) to 0.004 in Madagascar. It is of course possible that there is under-reporting here.

Other regional leaders include Benin in Africa (1.87 academic libraries per 100 000 people), Ukraine in Eurasia (4.13), Bahrain in MENA (1.02), and Canada in North America (1.98).

 

However, as has also been underlined in the case of public libraries, staff are essential. Without them, students and researchers cannot benefit from the expertise and advice that trained librarians can bring, and the library cannot fulfil its potential.

Globally, the Library Map of the World suggests that there are almost 350 000 academic library workers, although in this case only from 78 countries’ data (accounting for 43% of the world population).

Numbers of Academic Library Workers by region, both in absolute terms, and relative to population (per 100 000 people)Graph 2 goes into more depth, breaking down numbers of academic library workers per region, and relative to overall population sizes. Once again, Asia comes out on top in terms of numbers of workers at almost 130 000 (not including India this time), with North America a little way behind on 93909.

At the national level, China has the largest single number of academic librarians (111023), followed by the United States (85752). Regional leaders (for which data is available) are Zimbabwe for Africa (750), Kazakhstan for Eurasia (10000), Germany for Europe (19614), Mexico for Latin America and the Caribbean (11209), Egypt for MENA (4309) and Australia for Oceania (3116).

Once again, it is interesting to look at numbers of library workers in relation to the population as a whole. Globally, there appear to be 10.63 academic library workers per 100 000 people (where data is available), with North America coming top at 25.8, and Europe some way behind at 15.02. Africa stands at 1.26 and MENA at 3.13.

At the national level, variation is wider still, going from 54.72 academic library workers per 100 000 in Kazakhstan and 26.25 in the United States to 0.07 in Uganda and 0.17 in Papua New Guinea. It is again possible that there is under-reporting here.

Other regional leaders in terms of numbers of academic library workers per 100 000 people are Mauritius in Africa (9.88), Brunei in Asia (19.12), Lithuania in Europe (24.52), Colombia in Latin America and the Caribbean (15.23), Egypt in MENA (4.38) and New Zealand in Oceania (17.43).

 

These figures both provide an interesting insight into the state of academic libraries around the world, but also provide a starting point for further analysis of how the strength of the academic library field might relate to other outcomes.

Clearly, we are still working with incomplete figures and so numbers need to be used with some caution, but it is already powerful to be able to start to explore these themes.

 

Find out more on the Library Map of the World, where you can download key library data in order to carry out your own analysis! See our other Library Stats of the Week! We are happy to share the data that supported this analysis on request.

 

 

 

Is the Library eBook Market Working? Identifying Areas for Further Investigation

With the obligation to close their doors for the safety of users and staff alike, the ability of libraries to offer services digitally has never been so important.

Libraries have responded, diverting available resources and energies into providing online storytimes and consultations, and developing their presence on social media.

Some have sought to reassign budgets from physical to digital collections, sometimes with supplementary funding offered by public authorities. This experience is, for many, making clear the differences in what libraries’ money can buy in the offline and online worlds, especially as concerns eBooks.

This is not a new concern of course. Libraries have been highlighting concerns about the way the library eLending market has been working for years, with high prices, restrictive terms, and simple non-availability of works all regularly featuring.

While much of the attention has been on ‘trade’ eBooks – those lent out by public libraries – this is an issue that also affects academic libraries (as our interview with Johanna Anderson underlined).

In terms of solutions, the focus has tended to be on copyright, and how to update rules in order to ensure that the provisions that allow for libraries to work with physical books should apply also to electronic ones.

However, copyright – as well as exceptions to it – are a response to problems in a market, either because a public good is not being supplied, or because the structure and operation of the market is working to the disadvantage of one party or another. This, of course, is the job of competition and consumer policy.

Following on from an earlier blog on this site about how competition – or anti-trust – policy applies in the world of libraries, this one looks to explore what evidence we have – and what evidence we might need – in order to encourage competition and markets authorities to look into the way that library eBook lending operates.

To do so, it will look at a number of the steps usually taken in competition investigations in order to assess the need for an intervention.

 

Are there excessive profits?

A first potential indicator of problems with the market is when producers are making profits that can be considered higher than usual.

The theory at least suggests that if a market is competitive, then high profits will tend to attract more companies. This will generate more competition, which will drive profits down, for the benefit of consumers.

Looking at eBook markets, it does not seem to be the case that ‘trade’ publishers are enjoying huge profits, although the big players have seen rises in recent years, often however on the back of audiobooks.

On the academic side, major publishers do make high profit levels, although again not necessarily just on the back of their eBook operations.

However, profit levels alone are not a sure sign of a competition issue.

 

Is the market concentrated?

In many investigations, the next place to look in trying to work out whether a market is not working is whether there is a limited number of competitors. A large share of the market held by just one or a few companies could indicate a problem.

When it comes to eBooks, the picture is different for ‘trade’ and academic books. In the case of the former, there are plenty of publishers putting out novels and other materials.

With academic journals, there is a well-documented concentration of much of the market in the hands of a number of publishing companies, and concern every time that there is talk of a merger or take-over.

However, even were one of the big publishing companies to disappear, the market would remain to compare favourably with that for internet providers or airlines in many countries.

Of course, this is to assume that the market is for eBooks in general. Alternatively, we can look at the market for a single book. In this case, the rightholder has a monopoly thanks to copyright.

Clearly this is a violation of perfect competition, but one that – at least theoretically – can be justified in terms of giving the rightholder the time they need to recoup their investments. Whether the current length of copyright terms in international law has anything to do with economic logic is another question.

Crucially, the monopoly awarded to the rightholder of a particular eBook is easier to justify when these are substitutable – i.e. when eBook A by publisher X could broadly be replaced by eBook B by publisher Y.

When, however, this is not the case – i.e. because a student or researcher needs a very specific work, or a library card-holder wants to read the latest bestseller, not something a bit like it – there is more of a challenge.

Another solution would be to allow physical books to compete – for example by allowing a library to digitise a physical copy in their collection, and give access on a one-copy-one-user basis. However, this idea is deeply contested.

Even initiatives focusing on out-of-commerce works, such as Controlled Digital Lending, have led to threats of legal action, while the Hathi Trust’s work to provide digitised copies of books now is largely justified by the fact that access to physical copies is impossible.

Were a competition investigation to be launched, a key question would therefore be how the market is defined, and whether allowing physical books to compete with eBooks could bring a degree more competitiveness to markets for individual works without undermining the possibilities for rightholders to recoup investments.

 

Are there barriers to entry?

A further step in an assessment of competition is to look at whether there are issues that may be preventing competitors from entering a market, and competing with existing companies by offering cheaper alternatives.

Clearly if we are considering each individual eBook as a separate market, then there is a huge barrier to entry – copyright. But as suggested before, just like other forms of intellectual property, copyright at least originally had a form of economic logic.

But even if we look at academic eBooks as a whole, there can also be challenges. As set out in our interview with Johanna Anderson, publishers can tend to want users to access their eBooks through their platforms.

However, if libraries don’t want to – or can’t – buy access to every platform available, the only alternative  is to buy individual eBooks from vendors, but often at prices which have been set many times higher than those of print equivalents. This serves to push libraries towards publisher platforms, despite the fact that the library may only want a small share of the eBooks available there.

The effect of this is, effectively, to push libraries towards buying access to bigger platforms, potentially at the expense of spending on smaller, newer publishers.

This risks creating a barrier to entry by smaller players (or forcing them out of the market) by making it more difficult for libraries to allocate money more freely between publishers on the basis of what users actually want.

This situation is similar to that already seen with the ‘big deals’ offered for bundles of journals, which a number of countries are beginning to seek to abandon, even at the risk of losing access to content that researchers and students want.

In the trade eBook sector, there can also be issues with barriers to entry, for example when libraries or library systems are obliged to buy a fixed number of books.

The same goes when it is possible to sell bestsellers under terms that mean that they ‘capture’ large share of library budgets, leaving less space for new or emerging voices. In each case, established players gain an advantage that risks creating barriers for others.

A competition investigation here could shed more light on the subject of whether specific practices of bundling, or minimum purchases, have a negative effect on new entrants or customers.

 

Is there market power?

A final issue to explore, linked to the question of barriers to entry, is whether a particular player enjoys market power.

This implies that one side of the equation (a producer or buyer) has a freedom to change conditions – for example by raising or lowering prices, or imposing tougher or looser terms – and the other has little option but to accept, for example because there is no alternative.

This can be a real concern for libraries faced with demand from users – from readers coming to a public library, to students or researchers at an academic one.

As already underlined in the previous section, the way that the academic eBook market works can make it possible to increase prices steeply while libraries have little option other than to accept, or face frustration from users.

Similarly, the work carried out by the library eLending project in Australia has underlined to what extent libraries’ choice is limited given their need to meet patron demand. As a result, rightholders have a broadly free hand to set higher prices, although of course may themselves lack the information to do so effectively.

The particular situation of libraries – in particular their mission, often set out in law, to meet the information needs of users – can make them particularly vulnerable to exercise of market power.

A competition investigation could take the information already gathered in Australia, and look to understand more broadly the degree to which libraries are constrained in decision-making, and to what extent this is allowing prices and terms for eBooks that would otherwise be impossible.

 

Clearly, this blog has drawn only on a limited number of examples, and can only point at possibilities, rather than draw any conclusions. Nonetheless, competition investigations into the library market are not a new idea.

In 2018, the European Universities Association proposed one looking at broader scholarly publishing, and a group of individual researchers have sought to launch a case on a specific company, as did UK researchers on the subject of non-disclosure agreements in particular.

So far, eBooks have tended not to attract quite the same attention as other fields, but with it uncertain for how long libraries are going to need to be primarily digital institutions, there may be value in a deeper look.

With public and institutional funding likely to become scarcer in the coming years, ensuring it is well spent is going to be a priority.

 

[Corrected on 26 May 2020 to underline that the reference to concentration in the academic market should have emphasised journals, rather than books]

Available, affordable? An interview with Johanna Anderson about eBooks in Academic Libraries

Much of the discussion about eBooks in libraries focuses on the situation for public libraries. With scholarly publishing having switched to digital formats relatively early, it can be easy to assume that all is well. However, with the COVID-19 pandemic forcing academic libraries to close their doors, it has become clear that this is not the case.

To find out more about the situation, we interviewed Johanna Anderson, an academic librarian and public library advocate from the United Kingdom, to find out more. You can follow Johanna on Twitter.

 

1. How have you and colleagues experienced the closure of your buildings to the public?
Lectures and teaching were moved online over a week before our libraries were closed. We were not closed until the end of the Tuesday after the government’s instructions to close campuses, and before this saw a bit of a dash to the library by students to get books, laptops etc.

Since then we have been working to try to get alternative ebook titles of key texts not available in electronic format as we can’t get onto campus to do scanning, and have spent hours trawling provider platforms for affordable eBooks. We have also been doing literature search tutorials with students online, and have also compiled a list of additional resources made temporarily available by publishers.

This has taken quite a lot of work as they tend to be on unfamiliar platforms to us and the students. Students already find literature searching complicated so all of these additional platforms and the inherent difference in access limits has added to that complication. We are doing what we can to help students navigate them.

The most difficult thing is making students aware of the resources in the first place as they are pretty swamped with trying to adjust to the changes in circumstances already and they are pretty stressed – not ideal for processing new information

2. How much use was being made of academic eBooks before the crisis? What lay behind this?

It’s hard to get exact figures at the moment due to circumstances but students tend to prefer hardcopy books and our hardcopy stock circulation statistics are very high. This is partly due to the nature of the text heavy courses we deliver, e.g. social sciences and humanities.

Nonetheless, there is demand – where we do have eBooks available they are heavily used. Therefore, for ANY title we have on reading lists we will ALWAYS buy eBooks where possible rather than hardcopy. However, we did do an audit of one of our schools and for our computing courses only 17% of titles on the reading lists were available in electronic format. The figure is far lower on humanity courses.

3. To what extent are eBook versions of texts available for you to buy for the library?

This kind of ties into the above. We are about on par with the figures in the report prepared by UK Copyright Literacy on the value of the Copyright Licencing Agency (CLA)’s licence to UK Higher Education.

This noted, in particular, that “in an audit of most frequently scanned books, of the 904, 902 were recognised by the ProQuest database, and 94 (10%) were identified as ISBNs with an electronic alternative. This chimes with other estimates that only around 10% of current academic titles are available as eBooks.” (pg 24).

The table on page 26 is very useful in illustrating the issues we have with licencing models as it shows that single user licence eBooks dominated scan requests and were also the most available licence when ebook purchasing. The average costs are also pretty depressing.

There is a danger in seeing the CLA licence used to provide key chapters of  books to a large cohort of students, and equating that as a viable alternative to resourcing a library with complete books.

This issue is skimmed over in the report, but for me, this is just not a sensible collection management approach. We do currently make the best use of the CLA licence that we can, but it is not enough.

Of course, eBook versions of texts may be available through publishers’ own platforms, but this is not a realistic option given that we need to offer readers a range of books, from many different publishers. We simply cannot afford to buy into every platform going, so we have to rely on aggregate vendors who are currently not in a position to negotiate reasonable prices that libraries can afford.

4. To what extent have you come across contractual barriers, such as limitations on where copies can be accessed?

Previous to the COVID-19 crisis, eBook purchasing was a nightmare. We have had cases of vendors selling us licences which publishers have then restricted access to or withdrawn, which quite frankly, is disgusting.

A lot of the key texts e.g. research methods ones are not available in ebook format at all as discussed above. Many books, as CLA points out, are single user only books… which are often ten times the price of a hardcopy. Students will not use them if, when they click on a book title, they are told they cannot read it at that time.

Students, and indeed most academics, do not understand the restrictions – it is no surprise as this is so complicated. They think “e” = available to them anytime and anywhere.  We do not have the budgets to buy eBooks whatever the cost, so librarians spend HOURS trawling through complicated licences on different platforms.

Furthermore, the price of eBooks varies wildly with no obvious rhyme or reason.  More recently Taylor and Francis/Routledge have increased the price of their eBooks up to sometimes as much as 10x the original price (as I’ve highlighted on my Twitter feed) and some are starting to introduce “expiry dates” so the licence to a purchased eBook expires after a year. This is perverse!

Moreover, we cannot collectively complain because contract terms prevent us from sharing this sort of information. Who knows what they are charging other universities!

5. To what extent are they affordable? How do they compare to physical versions of the same books

As set out above and in the report about the CLA licence, it is not easy to answer because there is so much variation, not just by publisher but also by discipline.

For example, Sage doesn’t tend to publish things in electronic format (which is very annoying, given that their materials are heavily needed by teaching students etc who spend most of their time on placement). When they do, they tend to be single user licences only, but are a similar price to the hardcopy.

Then you get publishers like Taylor and Francis who will sell a hardcopy book for £30-40, but charge are £400 + for a single user ebook. Incidentally, these same titles were approximately £120-£180 before Christmas, which was already high. Nonetheless, as I said at the beginning, prices vary so much that it is difficult to give a straightforward answer to this one.

6. What reasons have you been given for the high prices?

Publishers say that promoting eBook formats leads to a reduction in their income because multiple hardcopies are no longer purchased, although this seems hard to square with the regular high profits that many of them continue to enjoy. It also makes no sense as we cannot afford these prices even if we wanted to, so I am not buying from them at all! I’m not sure how this will help their bottom line! I am told that much of the process of producing a book is often outsourced in order to reduce costs, so I can’t see how they cost more than hardcopy books.

If there was a single user eBook at the same price as a hardcopy I would buy a couple of licences, and I know that JISC have had some communications with T&F about this

7. Do these make much sense in the current circumstances? 

It doesn’t make sense in any circumstances. This has just magnified the issue! I have been complaining for months. People are only taking note now as it is making a difficult situation worse. Taylor and Francis announced to much fanfare that they are going to allow libraries to buy their single user eBooks with temporary unlimited access. This is no help at all as we still can’t afford them! I also have no intention of being stuck with single user ebooks I had to pay hundreds for after all of this. It just isn’t practical.

8. What impact does this have on you in your job, and on your budgets?

It has been very frustrating and stressful… things are tricky enough already! Students panicked and rushed to the library to get hardcopy texts before we shut down, which is absolutely what should not have had to happen in the current circumstances. As I have already said, I have spent hours and hours trying to find alternative eBooks, often to no avail. Taylor and Francis have not made their pricing more reasonable so I can see eBooks are there but I cannot buy them. It’s so frustrating!

There is a myth, particularly among university management, that everything is available in electronic format. This is often used as a reason for the reduction of physical space in libraries, but it really is not the reality. When things ARE available in electronic format the publishers can change the terms or withdraw items and there isn’t anything we can do about it. Currently, we simply do not have the negotiating power to change this.

 

Wikipedia and Academic Libraries: Gathering best practices of professionals

IFLA welcomes Laurie Bridges (Oregon State University), Raymond Pun (Alder Graduate School of Education) and Roberto Arteaga (Pacific Lutheran University), three library professionals to talk about their book project to link Wikipedia and academic libraries.

 

Could you please introduce yourself?

My name is Laurie Bridges (she/her/hers), I am an Instruction and Outreach Librarian at Oregon State University and Associate Professor. I am currently teaching a 2-credit Honors class about Wikipedia and social justice, this is my second time teaching the class. I developed the curriculum and taught it for the first time in the Spring of 2019. I have co-hosted two Wikipedia editathons at my university. I work with a couple of faculty on my campus to help facilitate successful Wikipedia editing assignments (a history course and a writing course). I co-authored two articles in the Journal of Academic Librarianship:

I’m Raymond Pun (he/him/his), a librarian in the Alder Graduate School of Education in California, USA. I’ve organized and participated in Wikipedia-edit-ahons before. I’ve collaborated with teaching faculty in the sciences, women’s studies, and ethnic studies to create opportunities for students to learn about online sources, and the need to engage with online reference materials more critically.

I’m Roberto Arteaga (he/him). I’m an assistant professor and instruction and reference librarian at Pacific Lutheran University. I joined this project after having conversations with Laurie about Wikipedia in relation to library instruction and for-credit courses. I’m just beginning my Wikipedia journey, and I’m particularly interested in developing more pedagogical approaches to teaching with Wikipedia, both in library contexts and beyond.

Librarians collaborated with Wikipedians old and new to improve articles related to Multnomah County, Oregon.
Pdx.leecat – CC BY-SA 3.0

You are developing an open access book project on Wikimedia projects and academic libraries, how did this project get started? 

Laurie: As I was doing research for my courses and articles I used Merrilee Proffitt’s book, “Leveraging Wikipedia,” which is a great introduction for all libraries and librarians. However, it was missing what I really wanted, an in-depth look into academic libraries and librarians and how they’re using Wikipedia. I started chatting with Ray Pun about this, and from here the idea grew.

Ray: Yes, I agree with Laurie! For the events that I’ve organized with faculty, it was important to have students from underrepresented groups contribute to Wikipedia using library resources. Less than 15% of contributors to Wikipedia were women, based on a survey in 2015. In addition, there is under-representation of content on Wikipedia about women and other minority groups and their perspectives and experiences so that’s where I collaborated with academics to address these issues. Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites and it is very important to add and improve its content.

Laurie: And, around the time I was chatting with Ray about this, Roberto reached out to me, he was considering doing a Wikipedia project in one of his classes and wanted to chat. After our video conversation, in which Roberto asked thoughtful and thought-provoking questions, I started thinking he might be the perfect third to a possible editing team. I talked with Ray and we decided to invite Roberto to join us. I really enjoy working in groups of three.

Wikipedia training session in the framework of 1Lib1Ref with 9 librarians and information science professionals in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Jacquitoz – CC BY-SA 4.0

 

Could you tell us more about the subjects that will be addressed in this book and why?

Ray: Roberto and Laurie created a website covering the subjects in the book that would be of interest to many people. We hope the book covers case studies coming from theoretical and pedagogical approaches. We are looking for academic library workers to share how they utilize Wikipedia content to promote information literacy, collaboration or research.

Laurie: I have several librarian contacts in Spain, and I was aware that some interesting things were being done with Wikipedia in the Catalonia region. Then, serendipitously I received a grant to attend the Wikimedia + Education conference in San Sebastian, the Basque region in Spain. It was during the conference that I learned librarians in the Basque region are also doing some unique activities. And, during the conference, I really began to think about how librarians around the world are probably doing fascinating things with Wikipedia that are not shared widely, beyond the local region or country. I thought an open access online book might be the best way to collaborate and share information across borders and around the world.

 

Wikipedia workshop at the Faculty of Medicine on the Leios-Biscay campus in the Basque Country. Theklan – CC BY-SA 4.0

 

Black history month in Nigeria in partnership with AfroCROWD Kaizenify – CC BY-SA 4.0

 

According to you, what common goals are there between Wikimedia Foundation’s projects and academic libraries?

Roberto: I would say that just like the Wikimedia Foundation, libraries, in general, are committed to facilitating access to information to their communities. While libraries are often bound by contracts with publishers that prevent from fully opening up resources to everyone, librarians are now, more than ever, beginning to advocate for more content to become more widely available and reduce the content kept behind paywalls.

Ray: Agreed! It is especially important, particularly now during the pandemic. As it has been reported, COVID-19’s Wikipedia page has been one of the most visited sites. Creating more works under open access (OA) will certainly help.

 

Can you tell us more about the open access model and why you choose it? 

Ray: Early in our planning stages, we went with an open access model because we felt that OA would give us and our contributors the flexibility to share their work with colleagues. We envisioned some of our chapters to be multilingual and wanted to enable access to such content. Wikipedia itself is open and for us, it was important to follow that approach.

Laurie: Wikipedia is radically open. Not only do you see the article, but you see the “talk” tab where the conversation is happening, you see the history tab, and you can see contributors’ history over time. One of the reasons Wikipedia is so popular is because it’s available for free, to everyone, anywhere (Of course, there’s censorship, but that’s another story.) Therefore, we felt it was important to have a book that is open and free to librarians.

 

Finally, what would be your recommendations for libraries wishing to develop Wiki projects?

Laurie: I can answer this question because I just co-authored an article about Wikipedia in libraries for educational use (you can see the post print here). I recommend reaching out and connecting with others, because there is a wealth of knowledge and people are eager to share their successes and failures. Many librarians start with the #1lib1ref campaign, which is low-stakes and easy to get involved with – you just need to add one citation to Wikipedia.

Another popular activity is editathons, happening everywhere in the world. I think the most popular topic for librarian editathons is Art + Feminism. It’s important to note that in-person editathons have been cancelled for the foreseeable future, but there are many remote editathons taking place. In the US and Canada, faculty members can run classes through the WikiEdu dashboard, and librarians can connect with professors who are using the dashboard and offer their expertise. For librarians outside of the US, you can connect with the Wikimedia Education team to find resources in your area.

How can anyone interested find out more?

You can find more information here: https://sites.google.com/view/globalwikipedia/

 

Library Stat of the Week #13: Globally, 94.6% of documents borrowed from academic libraries are digital

In last week’s Library Stat of the Week, we looked at eLending in public and community libraries, both in terms of loans per user, and the relationship with physical lending.

This underlined that while eLending continued to represent only a relatively small share of total lending – arguably due in part to the conditions under which libraries can do it – this already represented up to 15% of total loans in some countries.

This week, we’re looking at academic libraries. Here, use of electronic materials has been common for much longer.

The internet has opened up exciting possibilities to promote access to research from around the world, and opened the door to a world where it is not only those affiliated to the largest institutions who can draw on comprehensive collections of literature.

Of course, this is not yet the case, due to the slow spread of Open Access, and of course the fact that barely half of the world’s population can access the internet.

A particular concern at the moment – at the time of the COVID-19 Pandemic – is when access is limited to people in the library or on campus according to the terms of contracts. Many of the eBooks borrowed, or documents downloaded, by students and researchers from academic libraries will be subject to such restrictions.

Without action, education and innovation risks serious disruption. With action, we will see the potential of the internet realised – and of course a stronger case still for investing in universal connectivity.

So how extensive is the use of electronic documents in academic libraries? Figures reported on IFLA’s Library Map of the World for eBook loans and document downloads offer an idea.

Across the 55 countries and territories reporting such data, there were almost 12 billion such loans or downloads in the year of reporting. Across the 49 for which both these numbers, and numbers of registered users are available, that makes for over 137 loans or downloads per user per year.

In 51 countries and territories, we can also compare eBook loans and downloads with physical book and document loans. As a share of total loans and downloads, electronic ones account for 94.6% of the total!

Looking across world regions, the highest shares of electronic loans and downloads are in Latin America and the Caribbean (96.4%) and Asia (96.2%), while the European Union and Middle East and North Africa are both well over 80%.

The lowest shares – on incomplete data – are in Africa (47.2%) and non-EU Europe (43.5%). In Micronesia – the only country in Oceania with all relevant data, the figure is only 6.2%.

The data highlights the need for a dual approach for academic libraries in future – both ensuring that those which are already heavily reliant on digital materials are able to use them fully, and working to help those still primarily using physical ones to access all that digital tools have to offer.

 

Find out more on the Library Map of the World, where you can download key library data in order to carry out your own analysis! See our other Library Stats of the Week! We are happy to share the data that supported this analysis on request.