Community-based Curate-a-Thons to Enhance Preservation of Global Genetic Biodiversity Data

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and Research Data Librarians collaborated with an international research team of conservation geneticists to create an instructional and practical guide combining genetic biodiversity initiatives and data curation. Over the course of two months, the academic librarians held multiple community-based Curate-A-Thons where an international group of students, researchers, librarians, and faculty researchers participated in tracking down publications and metadata for genomic sequence data, thus crowd-sourcing this effort of metadata enhancement. This article details the successful Curate-a-Thon design and implementation process; the openly available instructional materials created and used to host the Curate-a-Thons; and the challenges and successes of these community-based events

Getting Found, Staying Found, Increasing Impact: Enhancing Readership and Preserving Content for OJS Journals, Second Edition.

Publishing a journal is about more than simply putting ink to paper (or pixels to screen). It is a collaboration between you and your readers. Two critical aspects of this relationship are, first, making your journal visible to your prospective audience. By putting your content online and making it freely available through open access, you can be reaching of millions of people around the world. But if they don’t know you are out there, they will not be able to become part of your scholarly community. Second, once you have your content in place, and have established an audience of dedicated readers, you will want to ensure that your journal is always available – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Unlike paper publications, electronic journals can disappear rather easily, either temporarily or permanently. Regular downtime caused by an unreliable server environment, or worse, complete loss of your content due to a lack of any kind of backup or preservation strategy, can seriously undermine your credibility with your readers, or even totally wipe out all of the work you and your collaborators have done together. This revised edition of Getting Found, Staying Found highlights many aspects of the publishing process that are important for increasing your journal’s “findability” and building a wider audience. Moreover, it will also show you how to ensure reliable and ongoing access to your valuable content. Much of the information in this resource is intended to be generic and could be applied to any journal, using any software platform. However, the authors have opted to include additional information pertaining to the Open Journal Systems (OJS) software developed by the Public Knowledge Project to provide further illustrations of how to apply this information in a real-world setting

A Guide to Utilization of the Microbiology Laboratory for Diagnosis of Infectious Diseases: 2013 Recommendations by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and the American Society for Microbiology (ASM)a

The critical role of the microbiology laboratory in infectious disease diagnosis calls for a close, positive working relationship between the physician and the microbiologists who provide enormous value to the health care team. This document, developed by both laboratory and clinical experts, provides information on which tests are valuable and in which contexts, and on tests that add little or no value for diagnostic decisions. Sections are divided into anatomic systems, including Bloodstream Infections and Infections of the Cardiovascular System, Central Nervous System Infections, Ocular Infections, Soft Tissue Infections of the Head and Neck, Upper Respiratory Infections, Lower Respiratory Tract infections, Infections of the Gastrointestinal Tract, Intraabdominal Infections, Bone and Joint Infections, Urinary Tract Infections, Genital Infections, and Skin and Soft Tissue Infections; or into etiologic agent groups, including Tickborne Infections, Viral Syndromes, and Blood and Tissue Parasite Infections. Each section contains introductory concepts, a summary of key points, and detailed tables that list suspected agents; the most reliable tests to order; the samples (and volumes) to collect in order of preference; specimen transport devices, procedures, times, and temperatures; and detailed notes on specific issues regarding the test methods, such as when tests are likely to require a specialized laboratory or have prolonged turnaround times. There is redundancy among the tables and sections, as many agents and assay choices overlap. The document is intended to serve as a reference to guide physicians in choosing tests that will aid them to diagnose infectious diseases in their patients