News from the Field

David Free

2019 ACRL Value of Academic Libraries Travel Scholarships

ACRL recently announced recipients of the latest round of Value of Academic Libraries Travel Scholarships in 2019. These scholarships of up to $2,000 each support librarians presenting on their work demonstrating the impact of academic libraries in the broader landscape of higher education.

The selection committee chose three proposals in this competitive round of applications. They are:

Janet Clarke (Stony Brook University) and Raymond Pun (Alder Graduate School of Education) for a presentation titled “The Impact of APA Librarians on Student Success, Faculty Productivity, and Building Community” at Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education National Conference.

Heather Howard (Purdue University) for a presentation titled “Student Information Use and Decision-Making in Innovation Competitions” at the European Academy of Management Annual Conference.

Jennifer Wilhelm (Texas A&M University) for a presentation titled “Invest in Your Library: Why Your Institution’s Librarians Are a Valuable Asset in a Collaboration Portfolio” at the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators Student Financial Wellness Conference.

These travel scholarships take up a recommendation from the 2017 ACRL report “Academic Library Impact: Improving Practice and Essential Areas to Research” (prepared by OCLC Research and available for download or purchase) that academic librarians effectively communicate their contributions to institutional stakeholders and the higher education community.

Johns Hopkins University Press partners with Altmetric

Johns Hopkins University Press (JHUP) has partnered with data science company and alternative metrics provider Altmetric to provide their users and staff with valuable publication attention insights. JHUP plans to integrate the Altmetric Badges for their books and journals hosted on Project MUSE and the JHUP website. These colorful Altmetric visualizations offer valuable insight and immediate feedback to readers and authors on how publications are being received and shared on online sources such as social media, mainstream news, and Wikipedia. To find out more about Altmetric Explorer for Publishers and Altmetric Badges for books and journals please visit Altmetric.com.

LYRASIS and Duraspace announce merger

LYRASIS and DuraSpace have announced that by July 1, 2019, they will officially merge to create one organization, empowered to help drive scalable change, new technologies, and services. This merger will create a new model for collaboration, innovation, and development in the landscape of academic, research, and public libraries, galleries, archives, and museums. The merged organization will leverage its expertise, reach, and capacity to create and build new programs, services, and technologies that enable durable, persistent access to data and services. The LYRASIS and DuraSpace communities will continue to benefit from the existing programs and services that they receive from each organization.

The newly merged organization will be an on-ramp to a worldwide collaborative community of more than 4,000 institutions and nine open source, community-supported technology programs across six continents. In addition, it will build capacity in the scholarly ecosystem through open technologies, services, funding opportunities, expertise, training, and support.

NISO publishes updated Transfer Code of Practice

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) has published an updated version of the Transfer Code of Practice, NISO RP-24-2019, Transfer. This NISO Recommended Practice provides voluntary guidelines for publishers to follow when transferring journal titles between parties to ensure that the journal content remains easily accessible by librarians and readers. The goals of the Transfer initiative are to promote a set of standards that apply under transferring conditions, and to encourage the industry to embrace these as a baseline level of quality and performance. The recommended practice document consists of several agreed overarching principles, specific roles and responsibilities for transferring and receiving publishers in various areas of work, and an extensive glossary of terms. The updated NISO Transfer Code of Practice is available for download at www.niso.org/publications/rp-24-2019-transfer. For more information about the Transfer initiative, see www.niso.org/standards-committees/transfer.

EBSCO releases Music Index with Full Text

EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) recently introduced Music Index with Full Text to meet the increasing demand for music-related resources. Music Index with Full Text is a tool for music scholars with more than 170 full-text journals, from 1970 to the present, covering every aspect of classical and popular music. Music Index with Full Text includes cover-to-cover indexing and abstracting for more than 600 periodicals, performance reviews, sound recordings, and videos. The collection covers every genre from jazz, folk, rock, blues, country, opera, and classical music to choral and band music, gospel, and electronic and experimental music. Additionally, the resource includes journals devoted to specific musical instruments including the organ, guitar, concertina, viola, and tuba.

Designed to meet the needs of international students as well, Music Index with Full Text has a broad global perspective with content representing more than 20 languages and full-text journals from more than 30 countries, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Learn more at www.ebsco.com/products/research-databases/music-index-full-text.

Resources for College Libraries call for reviewers

Resources for College Libraries (RCL), the Choice/ACRL bibliography of essential titles for undergraduate teaching and research, invites experienced subject liaisons and faculty to serve as peer reviewers. We are currently seeking peer reviewers for a variety of RCL Social Sciences and Science and Technology subjects including Agriculture, Anthropology, Astronomy, Biology, Business Administration, Chemistry, Computer Science, Economics, Education, Environmental Sciences, General Science, Geography, Geology, Health Sciences and Medicine Journalism and Communication, Law, Mathematics, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, Sports and Recreation, Technology, and Engineering.

Reviewers are tasked with assessing the subject collection comprehensively, providing recommendations for editorial improvement and constructive feedback on how well the core title selections support the college curriculum. RCL referee work can help strengthen collection development practice, inform local projects, and build subject expertise.

To apply, submit a current CV and a brief description of your qualifications, particularly developing or evaluating core collections and/or teaching in the subject area to RCL Project Editor Anne Doherty at adoherty@ala-choice.org. Preference will be given to those who apply by June 1, 2019. Learn more about RCL at www.choice360.org/products/rcl.

Draft ACRL Impactful Scholarship and Metrics Framework feedback

The ACRL Impactful Scholarship and Metrics Task Force was formed in 2017 with the goal of creating a new ACRL framework designed to address gaps between current scholarly evaluation practices and impactful scholarly activities within academic librarianship, including ways to evaluate and measure the impact of a wide range of research outputs. ACRL is now seeking public comment on a draft framework by Monday, June 3, 2019.

Add your comments publicly to the draft framework online or share your comments privately with the task force via feedback form. ACRL expects to release the final, Board-approved document by summer 2020. Complete details and links are available on ACRL Insider at www.acrl.ala.org/acrlinsider/archives/17454.