News from the Field

David Free

University of Illinois Library names 15-millionth volume

The library at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has named its 15-millionth volume. Ceo ditte de husbonderie fist un chivaler sir Walter de Henleye has been added to its collections, acquired through the generosity of Library Friend Betty Jean Peters Albert in honor of her husband, Waco W. Albert. This acquisition is a scarce early 14th century Anglo-Norman manuscript containing a nearly complete text of Henley’s 13th-century Hosbondrye, one of the most influential works on agriculture and land management of the middle-ages. This is one of only 41 surviving manuscript copies. Walter of Henley, who was both a knight and a Dominican friar later in life, wrote the Hosbondrye as a didactic treatise on estate management in the form of a sermon from father to son and giving advice on husbandry, corn farming, and livestock farming.

The purchase of the 15-millionth volume was made possible through three separate endowment funds from the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Funk ACES Library, and the Veterinary Medicine Library—all established by Betty Jean Albert—as well as a bequest from her estate. A framed digitized image from this newest volume will join a display, recognizing all the University Library’s millionth volumes, permanently installed on the first floor of the Main Library building on the Urbana campus. To view a digitized version of the manuscript, visit go.illinois.edu/15Mdigital.

Butler University faculty release new open textbook through PALSave

Two Butler University faculty members have released a new peer-reviewed open textbook through the Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI). In Linear Transformations on Vector Spaces, authors Scott Kaschner, chair and associate professor of mathematics, and Amber Russell, associate professor of mathematics, set out to redefine the way students learn linear algebra. The book is one of the first to be published with a Textbook Creation Grant from the PALSave: PALNI Affordable Learning program, and as an open educational resource, it is entirely free to students. Linear Transformations on Vector Spaces is freely available through the PALNI Press at https://pressbooks.palni.org/lineartransformationsonvectorspaces/.

Kaschner and Russell received a PALSave Textbook Creation Grant for the project in 2021. Offered to faculty from PALNI-supported institutions, the grant allows educators to develop open textbooks that are freely available online, making them part of a nationwide effort to reduce the cost of course materials for college students. Financed with support from Lilly Endowment Inc., each grant provides a maximum of $6,500 per project or $5,000 per author. Currently, there are 15 grant-funded titles published or in production through PALNI. Learn more about Textbook Creation Grants and other OER opportunities offered through PALNI at https://palsave.palni.org/.

Nominations sought for ACRL Board of Directors

Don’t be shy! Your participation matters and we invite you to be a part of shaping the future of ACRL. The ACRL Leadership Recruitment and Nomination Committee (LRNC) strongly encourages members to nominate themselves or others to run for the position of ACRL vice-president/president-elect, councilor, and director-at-large in the 2025 elections. The association seeks Board of Directors members who can offer visionary leadership and a broad perspective of librarianship. It is not a requirement that members of the Board be library directors or deans.

The deadline for nominations is February 15, 2024. The LRNC will request a curriculum vita and/or a statement of interest from selected individuals prior to developing a slate of candidates. If you have any questions about the nominating or election process, please feel free to contact LRNC Chair Trevor A. Dawes at tadawes.ala@gmail.com. Additional information about the ACRL Board of Directors is available on the ACRL website at https://www.ala.org/acrl/resources/policies/chapter2.

JSTOR releases first Path to Open books

JSTOR, part of the nonprofit ITHAKA, recently announced the release of the first books in Path to Open, a new program designed to affordably and sustainably support the open access publication of new groundbreaking books in the humanities and social sciences. JSTOR released 43 of the first 100 Path to Open titles. These books, all peer-reviewed, were selected by the participating university presses and JSTOR, and explore topics in 36 subjects like public health, religion, education, communications, literature, conflict resolution, and film studies. They strengthen bibliodiversity by focusing on research from diverse perspectives that use a range of methodologies and that may be international, national, or local in focus.

Launched as a pilot in January 2023, Path to Open is a delayed open access model where new books are made available to supporting libraries upon publication and become open access after three years. Thirty-seven university presses have joined the initiative along with more than 60 academic libraries, including consortia like the Big Ten Academic Alliance, who are looking to develop sustainable open access solutions. Learn more at https://about.jstor.org/path-to-open.

New from ACRL—Everyday Evidence-Based Practice in Academic Libraries: Case Studies and Reflections

ACRL announces the publication of Everyday Evidence-Based Practice in Academic Libraries: Case Studies and Reflections, edited by Claire Walker Wiley, Amanda B. Click, and Meggan Houlihan, which collects excellent, thorough examples of evidence-based practice across functional areas of academic libraries and includes many evidence types in a variety of contexts.

Evidence-based practice (EBP) in academic librarianship is embedded in the way we approach our work. An EBP project might be a yearlong study with many types of evidence collected or a simple assessment that helps you make a small adjustment to your work. Large or small, EBP is a way of operating day-to-day.

Everyday Evidence-Based Practice in Academic Libraries five sections explore:

• Understanding Users
• Leadership and Management
• Instruction and Outreach
• Collections
• Open Initiatives

Chapters include studies on how to understand the experiences and needs of diverse student populations, interviewing faculty to build scholarly partnerships, evidence-based strategic planning, incorporating intersectionality in information literacy instruction, conducting a diversity audit, and assessing open educational resources initiatives. The conclusion calls for librarian reflection to be incorporated into evidence-based decision-making, as reflection is key to understanding the ways that a librarian chooses to embody librarianship.

Everyday Evidence-Based Practice in Academic Libraries offers high-quality evidence from a variety of perspectives and inspires a commitment to evidence-based practice in your day-to-day work and library culture.

Everyday Evidence-Based Practice in Academic Libraries: Case Studies and Reflections is available for purchase in print and as an ebook through the ALA Online Store; in print through Amazon.com; and by telephone order at (866) 746-7252 in the United States or (770) 442-8633 for international customers.

ACM announces open access publishing model for International Conference Proceedings Series

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, has announced it will transition its International Conference Proceedings Series (ICPS) to a fully open access publishing model beginning January 1, 2024. Making its ICPS program open access represents an important step in ACM’s comprehensive shift to full OA publication of all content in the ACM Digital Library (DL), which is planned for completion by December 2025. ICPS provides a mechanism for publishing the contents of high-quality conferences, technical symposia, and workshops in the ACM Digital Library, thereby increasing their visibility among the international computing community. ACM has published more than 75,000 research papers in the DL from more than 2,000 conferences through the ICPS program since it was established in 2002. All ICPS-published articles appear in the DL and are assigned digital object identifiers (DOIs), which enhances discovery and enables persistent reference linking and archiving in digital preservation repositories, all while ensuring perpetual access. More details are available at https://www.acm.org/publications/icps/faq.

EBSCO releases 2024 Serials Price Projection Report

EBSCO Information Services (EBSCO) has published the 2024 Serials Price Projection Report. This year’s report projects that the overall effective publisher price increases for academic and academic medical libraries are expected to be (before any currency impact) in the range of three to four percent for individual e-journal titles, two to three percent for e-journal packages, and four to five percent for print titles.

Published annually, EBSCO’s Serials Price Projection is based on surveys of a wide range of publishers and reviews of historical serials pricing data to assist information professionals as they make budgeting decisions for the upcoming renewals season. This report looks at market dynamics highlighting many issues that are currently driving the scholarly information marketplace including economic factors such as high inflation rates, currency impact, the trend toward open access (OA) content, the decline of print materials, and more. The report is available at https://www.ebsco.com/sites/default/files/acquiadam-assets/EBSCO-Serials-Price-Projections-Report-2024.pdf.

Oregon libraries take 2023 Federal Depository Library of the Year honors

The US Government Publishing Office (GPO) has named the State Library of Oregon and Portland State University Library as the Federal Depository libraries of the year for increasing access to government information throughout the Pacific Northwest. Both libraries worked together over the last couple of years to make more than 37,000 government documents accessible to the public as part of the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP). The collaboration by the libraries creates a fully cataloged collection for Oregon. The success of this project can serve as a blueprint for other libraries throughout the country in collaborating to increase public access to government information. GPO provides permanent public access to federal government information at no charge through www.govinfo.gov and partnerships with approximately 1,100 libraries nationwide participating in the Federal Depository Library Program. For more information, please visit www.gpo.gov.