Electronic Resource Availability Studies: An Effective Way to Discover Access Errors

Objective – The availability study is a systems research method that has recently been used to test whether library users can access electronic resources. This study evaluates the availability study’s effectiveness as a troubleshooting tool by comparing the results of two availability studies conducted at the same library before and after fixing access problems identified by the initial study. Methods – The researcher developed a six-category conceptual model of the causes of electronic resource errors, modified Nisonger’s e-resource availability method to more closely approximate student information-seeking behaviour, and conducted an availability study at the University of Redlands Armacost Library to estimate how many resources suffered from errors. After conducting troubleshooting over a period of several months, he replicated the study and found increased overall availability and fewer incidences of most error categories. He used Z tests for the difference of two proportions to determine whether the changes were statistically significant. Results – The 62.5% availability rate in the first study increased after troubleshooting to 86.5% in the second study. Z tests showed that troubleshooting had produced statistically significant improvements in overall availability, in the number of items that could be downloaded from the library’s online collection or requested through interlibrary loan (ILL), and in three of six error categories (proxy, target database and ILL). Conclusion – Availability studies can contribute to successful troubleshooting initiatives by making librarians aware of technical problems that might otherwise go unreported. Problems uncovered by an availability study can be resolved through collaboration between librarians and systems vendors, though the present study did not demonstrate equally significant improvements across all types of errors. This study offers guidance to librarians seeking to focus troubleshooting efforts where they will have the greatest impact in improving access to full-text. It also advances the availability research method and is the first attempt to quantify its effectiveness as a troubleshooting tool

Embedding Collective Ownership into a Systems Migration

The efforts presented here aim to humanize and honor the employees impacted by systems migrations. The authors hope that this can help other libraries interested in doing likewise. The official abstract is as follows: Armacost Library at the University of Redlands structured the experience of an integrated library system migration to encourage agency, collaboration, and user-centeredness. Careful deliberation by library leadership and creative team-building activities enabled the library to address technological, cultural, and patron-facing changes wrought by the migration. The presenters related migration leadership to the NASIG Core Competencies for Electronic Resource Librarians and considered attributes needed to support colleagues in developing collective ownership

Toward an Open Knowledge Research Graph

Knowledge graphs facilitate the discovery of information by organizing it into entities and describing the relationships of those entities to each other and to established ontologies. They are popular with search and e-commerce companies and could address the biggest problems in scientific communication, according to Sören Auer of the Technische Informationsbibliothek and Leibniz University of Hannover. In his NASIG vision session, Auer introduced attendees to knowledge graphs and explained how they could make scientific research more discoverable, efficient, and collaborative. Challenges include incentivizing researchers to participate and creating the training data needed to automate the generation of knowledge graphs in all fields of research

Making Memory Portable

No abstract availablehttps://inspire.redlands.edu/oh_chapters/1032/thumbnail.jp

Getting Things Done in the Library

No abstract availablehttps://inspire.redlands.edu/oh_chapters/1033/thumbnail.jp

Towards an Open Research Knowledge Graph

Knowledge graphs facilitate the discovery of information by organizing it into entities and describing the relationships of those entities to each other and to established ontologies. They are popular with search and e-commerce companies and could address the biggest problems in scientific communication, according to Sören Auer of the Technische Informationsbibliothek and Leibniz University of Hannover. In his NASIG vision session, Auer introduced attendees to knowledge graphs and explained how they could make scientific research more discoverable, efficient, and collaborative. Challenges include incentivizing researchers to participate and creating the training data needed to automate the generation of knowledge graphs in all fields of research

Speaker Panel: DEI Collections Audits -- How We Did It and How We Wished We Had

SCELC Member librarians will be joined by special guests in a moderated discussion on DEI collections audits in our libraries. With a range of both completed and ongoing projects represented on the panel, this session will cover experiences from all stages of a DEI collections audit-- from planning strategies all the way through post-audit hindsight reflections on successes and failures

Text Mining 101: What You Should Know

Scholars increasingly use text and data mining (TDM) methods to discover trends and relationships within complex digital data sets. In order to support this development in scholarly communication, librarians and publishers need to be knowledgeable about TDM methods, build partnerships with TDM researchers, and address challenges related to licensing and access to large document sets. The presenters of this NASIG session shared their experiences of supporting TDM as a library subject liaison, acquisitions librarian, and publisher representatives. Audience members discussed issues involving TDM of data from multiple publishers, local hosting of data sets and TDM activity by undergraduate students