Huddersfield Open Access Publishing

This paper presents the findings of the Huddersfield Open Access Publishing Project, a JISC funded project to develop a low cost, sustainable Open Access (OA) journal publishing platform using EPrints Institutional Repository software

Documenting Doha: Community Archiving and Collective Memory in Qatar

Heritage experts working in Qatar contend that international museum standards do not allow them to engage with local understandings of history and heritage, thereby acknowledging the disconnect between museums and Qatari collective memory. This article posits that due to the relative absence of relatable representations in international-facing museums, Qataris, building upon a local tradition of private folk museums, are collecting and sharing their heritage materials via social media in forms known in the field of archival studies as “community archiving.” In reviewing examples of Qatari online community archives, it notes correspondences to the characteristics of community archives that have been identified by archival scholars. It concludes that while formal community archives do not exist in the country, Qataris are participating in robust community archiving activity on social media from which mainstream heritage institutions could learn

Open source repositories: Implications for libraries

Software that is accepted as “Open source” should comply with 10 conditions which are itinerated in the paper. The paper subsequently describes the application of open source initiatives in the digital library context. Three open source digital library initiatives developed by the Digital Library Research Group at the Faculty of Computer Science and information Technology, University of Malaya are highlighted. These are; (a) MyManuskrip: digital library of Malay manuscripts; (b) MyAIS : Digital library of Malaysian scholarly journals and conference proceedings; and (d) DSpace@Um: a digital library of dissertations, theses and final year project reports. Other “free” systems such as EJUM: electronic journal of university of Malaya is also described to highlight the slight difference between open source and being free. The paper also describes the libraries involved in the initiatives and the changing eco-system which libraries must accept to embrace the open source culture

Skills and knowledge needs assessment of current and future library professionals in the state of Qatar

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate and document the skills and knowledge needs of future library professionals in Qatar and to use the outcomes of this research to help develop or refine focused library and information studies course curricula that meet the needs of the local workforce and also guide or improve national or local professional development programmes. / Design/methodology/approach: A skills and knowledge needs assessment survey was sent to library professionals, LIS students and library managers in Qatar. A total of 109 respondents completed the survey, a representation of around 25 per cent of the current LIS workforce in Qatar. / Findings: Findings indicated that respondents felt that the most needed future job roles included more client focused positions such as research librarians, information services librarians and subject librarians, as well as technical roles such as Arabic cataloguers, electronic resources librarians and system librarians. The largest amount of needed positions was also felt to be in school libraries. Respondents to the survey also felt that there was a lack of opportunities for professional development in Qatar and that the most needed area of skills training was information literacy, followed by copyright training and technical skills including RDA and Arabic cataloguing. One further finding identified from the survey was the concern felt by respondents about the lack of a professional body in Qatar that represented LIS professionals. / Practical implications: This paper provides data on future roles, skills and knowledge needed by library professionals working in international and culturally diverse workforces. It also provides findings that can be used to develop LIS curriculum and professional development programmes in international LIS environments. / Originality/value: A detailed needs assessment of this kind has not previously been undertaken in Qatar. The library and information sector in Qatar is an emerging field with a largely international workforce. This situation provides a distinct perspective on the needs of an emerging library sector that is a blend of different cultures, workplace practices and differing expectations and understandings of the role and skills needed to be a LIS professional

The Metagenomics and Metadesign of the Subways and Urban Biomes (MetaSUB) International Consortium inaugural meeting report.

The Metagenomics and Metadesign of the Subways and Urban Biomes (MetaSUB) International Consortium is a novel, interdisciplinary initiative comprised of experts across many fields, including genomics, data analysis, engineering, public health, and architecture. The ultimate goal of the MetaSUB Consortium is to improve city utilization and planning through the detection, measurement, and design of metagenomics within urban environments. Although continual measures occur for temperature, air pressure, weather, and human activity, including longitudinal, cross-kingdom ecosystem dynamics can alter and improve the design of cities. The MetaSUB Consortium is aiding these efforts by developing and testing metagenomic methods and standards, including optimized methods for sample collection, DNA/RNA isolation, taxa characterization, and data visualization. The data produced by the consortium can aid city planners, public health officials, and architectural designers. In addition, the study will continue to lead to the discovery of new species, global maps of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) markers, and novel biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs). Finally, we note that engineered metagenomic ecosystems can help enable more responsive, safer, and quantified cities

Status of Institutional Repositories in Asian Countries: A Quantitative Study

With the development of information communication technologies, a number of alternative strategies to the traditional scholarly publishing system have been evolved. Among these, Open Access (OA) model which promise to be extremely advantageous to peers everywhere, especially to those who have acute shortage of resources for purchasing scholarly literature. The impetus of OA was boosted by the Open Society Institute (OSI) in a small meeting convened in Budapest on December 1-2, 2001. The purpose of the meeting was to accelerate progress in the international effort to make research literature in all academic fields freely available on the Internet (OAIS, 2002; Hirtle, 2001). The first major international statement on OA, which includes a definition, background information and a list of signatories, is the Budapest Open Access Initiative. The other two leading statements are the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. The conception of open access in these three statements, which is often called the BBB (Budapest, Bethesda and Berlin) definition, launched, inspired, and continues to guide the open access movement. Although institutional-based, or more typically departmental, \u27archives\u27 were known before this, especially in areas such as computer science and economics that were served by NCSTRL and RePEc, respectively, OAI introduced the Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) to provide common services that could operate over more general, independent sites (Lynch 2001). Institutional Repository (IR) adopt the same open access and interoperable framework as e-print archive, but rather than being discipline-based, represent the wide range of research output of a given university or research organization. The term was coined by Scholarly Publishing for Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), and has been defined by SPARC as “digital collections capturing and preserving the intellectual output of a single or multi-university community” (Crow, 2001). Crow argues that institutional digital repositories will lead to significant increases in the prestige of the institutions that build them (Crow, 2002). Stephen Harnad also cites institutional prestige: “Distributed, institution-based self-archiving benefits research institutions in three ways. First, it maximizes the visibility and impact of its own refereed research output. Second, by symmetry, it maximizes their researchers’ access to the full refereed research output of all other institutions. Third, institutions themselves can hasten the transition to self-archiving and so more quickly reduce their library’s annual serials expenditures to 10% (paid to journal publishers for refereeing their submissions)”(Harnad, 2002). Pinfield, Gardner, and MacColl also argue that an e-print archive can raise the profile of an institution (Pinfield, Gardner, & MacColl, 2001)

Estimating the potential impacts of open access to research findings

Advances in information and communication technologies are disrupting traditional models of scholarly publishing, radically changing our capacity to reproduce, distribute, control, and publish information. The key question is whether there are new opportunities and new models for scholarly publishing that would better serve researchers and better communicate and disseminate research findings. Identifying access and efficiency limitations under the subscription publishing model, this paper explores the potential impacts of enhanced access to research outputs using a modified Solow-Swan model, which introduces ‘accessibility’ and ‘efficiency’ parameters into calculating returns to R&D. Indicative impact ranges are presented for Government, Higher Education and Australian Research Council R&D expenditures. We conclude that there may be substantial benefits to be gained from more open access to research findings

Reading on Paper: Exploring Trends of Using Printed Books among University Students and Shaping Reading Culture

Reading is a basic learning tool for an individual that begins early and continues throughout life. It would appear that the world is digitally at one\u27s fingertips, with everything connected to the internet with the increasing dominance of digital reading over paper reading. On the other hand, it is fair to assume that books will continue to be printed for a very long time despite the rise in e-book readers. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the actual trends in using printed books among university students. The study collected data from 233 undergraduate students from different Four (04) universities in Bangladesh through a survey questionnaire. The results show that despite the increasing use of digital devices and e-books, printed books remain the preferred medium for reading. Results suggest that young adults spend hours watching television and chatting on social media at the expense of reading and that reading culture has been in decline. The findings explored that a small percentage of respondents consistently use printed books, while a significant number resort to them for specific academic purposes. The study also highlights the varying levels of engagement, with some respondents dedicating several hours to reading printed books. Self-development and job preparation emerged as the primary reasons for using printed books, while entertainment played a lesser reason to read books on printed paper. The study further analyzes the preferred locations for reading printed books, with libraries and homes being the most commonly chosen settings