Do Open Access Articles Have a Greater Research Impact?

While many authors believe that their work has a greater research impact if it is freely available, studies to demonstrate that impact are few. This study looks at articles in four disciplines at varying stages of adoption of open access—philosophy, political science, electrical and electronic engineering and mathematics—to see if they have a greater impact, as measured by citations in the ISI Web of Science database, if their authors make them freely available on the Internet. The finding is that, across all four disciplines, freely available articles do have a greater research impact. Shedding light on this category of open access reveals that scholars in diverse disciplines are both adopting open access practices and being rewarded for it

Do Open Access Articles Have a Greater Research Impact?

While many authors believe that their work has a greater research impact if it is freely available, studies to demonstrate that impact are few. This study looks at articles in four disciplines at varying stages of adoption of open access—philosophy, political science, electrical and electronic engineering and mathematics—to see if they have a greater impact, as measured by citations in the ISI Web of Science database, if their authors make them freely available on the Internet. The finding is that, across all four disciplines, freely available articles do have a greater research impact. Shedding light on this category of open access reveals that scholars in diverse disciplines are both adopting open access practices and being rewarded for it

Leveraging the growth of open access in library collection decision making

A primary goal for collection management is assessing the relative value of continuing information resources. A variety of new environmental factors and data are pertinent to relative value. One of the emerging metrics is the degree to which the articles within a subscription journal are also available open access (OA). That OA level directly affects the value of a journal subscription. This paper outlines a theoretical model for accounting for open access in decision making by proposing an Open Access-adjusted Cost per Download metric. Refinements to the metric are also discussed, as well as how it can be applied, and the broader scholarly communication implications of leveraging open access in library decision making

ANSI/NISO Z39.99-2017 ResourceSync Framework Specification

This ResourceSync specification describes a synchronization framework for the web consisting of various capabilities that allow third-party systems to remain synchronized with a server’s evolving resources. The capabilities may be combined in a modular manner to meet local or community requirements. This specification also describes how a server should advertise the synchronization capabilities it supports and how third-party systems may discover this information. The specification repurposes the document formats defined by the Sitemap protocol and introduces extensions for them

Knowledge and Perceptions of Couples' Voluntary Counseling and Testing in Urban Rwanda and Zambia: A Cross-Sectional Household Survey

Most incident HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa occur between cohabiting, discordant, heterosexual couples. Though couples' voluntary HIV counseling and testing (CVCT) is an effective, well-studied intervention in Africa, <1% of couples have been jointly tested.We conducted cross-sectional household surveys in Kigali, Rwanda (n = 600) and Lusaka, Zambia (n = 603) to ascertain knowledge, perceptions, and barriers to use of CVCT.Compared to Lusaka, Kigali respondents were significantly more aware of HIV testing sites (79% vs. 56%); had greater knowledge of HIV serodiscordance between couples (83% vs. 43%); believed CVCT is good (96% vs. 72%); and were willing to test jointly (91% vs. 47%). Stigma, fear of partner reaction, and distance/cost/logistics were CVCT barriers.Though most respondents had positive attitudes toward CVCT, the majority were unaware that serodiscordance between cohabiting couples is possible. Future messages should target gaps in knowledge about serodiscordance, provide logistical information about CVCT services, and aim to reduce stigma and fear

Self-archiving practice and the influence of publisher policies in the social sciences

Authors in different disciplines exhibit very different behaviours on the so-called ‘green’ road to open access, i.e. self-archiving. This study looks at the self-archiving behaviour of authors publishing in leading journals in six social science disciplines. It tests the hypothesis that authors are self-archiving according to the norms of their respective disciplines rather than following self-archiving policies of publishers, and that, as a result, they are self-archiving significant numbers of publisher PDF versions. It finds significant levels of self-archiving, as well as significant self-archiving of the publisher PDF version, in all the disciplines investigated. Publishers’ self-archiving policies have no influence on author self-archiving practice

Identifying the serial work as a bibliographic entity

A solid theoretical foundation has been built over the years exploring the bibliographic work and in developing cataloging rules and practices to describe the work in the traditional catalog. With the increasing prevalence of multiple manifestations of serial titles, as well as tools that automate discovery and retrieval, bibliographic control of serials at a higher level of abstraction is more necessary than ever before. At the same time, models such as IFLA’s Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records offer new opportunities to control all bibliographic entities at this higher level and build more useful catalog displays. The bibliographic mechanisms that control the work for monographs—author, title, and uniform title—are weak identifiers for serials. New identifiers being adopted by the content industry are built on models and practices that are fundamentally different from those underlying the new bibliographic models. What is needed is work identifier for serials that is both congruent with the new models and can enable us to meet the objective of providing work-level access to all resources in our catalogs

Toward a 21st Century Library Catalog

Library catalogs have represented stagnant technology for close to twenty years. Moving toward a next-generation catalog, North Carolina State University (NCSU) Libraries purchased Endeca’s Information Access Platform to give its users relevance-ranked keyword search results and to leverage the rich metadata trapped in the MARC record to enhance collection browsing. This paper discusses the new functionality that has been enabled, the implementation process and system architecture, assessment of the new catalog’s performance, and future directions

Future Leaders’ Views on Organizational Culture

Research libraries will continue to be affected by rapid and transformative changes in information technology and the networked environment for the foreseeable future. The pace and direction of these changes will profoundly challenge libraries and their staffs to respond effectively. This paper presents the results of a survey that was designed to discern the perceptions and preferences of future library leaders related to organizational cultures in these times of precipitous change. The study finds that future leaders of academic libraries perceive a significant gap between their current and preferred organizational cultures and that current organizational cultures limit their effectiveness