According to the American Library Association, there are 119,000 libraries in the United States. But how many do we need? In this vision session report, Arizona State University Librarian James J. O'Donnell addresses this question through the lenses of discovery tools, usability, and marketing strategy. He also addresses the need for a more global and collaborative approach to collection building in libraries. This deliberately provocative talk provides several different ways to think about the answer to the title question-and several answers.
The responsibility for and the initiative to preserve electronic journal content is neither clear nor easy, and knowing the preservation status of an e-journal is not a basic step within the NASIG Core Competencies for Electronic Resources Librarians life cycle of electronic resources management. Columbia and Cornell University Libraries secured funding for a project to specifically evaluate strategies for expanding e-journal preservation. A wide range of e-journal categories are evaluated within the scope of the project, including: content direct from publishers, small and society publishers, Open Access e-journals, full-text content from third-party content providers, and university generated e-journals. Discussed are techniques for identifying at risk e-journals, integrating preservation into license negotiation with publishers, tracking the preservation status of e-journals, and developing relationships with existing preservation agencies. The quality of future of scholarship and teaching hinges on the preservation of the scholarly record.
The role electronic resources librarians (ERLs) have in licensing electronic content is the most relevant in the breadth of an ERLs core responsibilities. While ERLs are rarely lawyers in addition to being librarians, the role they play in educating stakeholders, negotiating with publishers and vendors, and crafting understanding of licensing terms is integral for the success of a rapidly growing and changing electronic collections environment. Often, new ERLs have to learn these skills on the job. Discussed are tools and resources for new ERLs to build their electronic content licensing competency and insight on how to educate to advocate for the ERLs role in licensing.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.