Providing Online Access to over a Century of Theses and Dissertations at UMass Amherst

For the past ten years the University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries have collected and disseminated electronic masters theses and doctoral dissertations through their institutional repository (IR), ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. In addition to collecting all currently produced ETDs, the Libraries are in the midst of an ambitious project to digitize more than a hundred years worth of print dissertations and theses. Beginning with the oldest dissertations and theses, which are rarest and most at risk of physical damage, and now digitizing works on a departmental basis, the entire collection of over 20,000 print theses and dissertations at the University of Massachusetts Amherst will be digitized and made available online over the next decade. This will help ensure the preservation of this important and unique body of work as well as greatly enhance access to it. This lightening talk will explain our project workflow and copyright policy as well as our process for batch uploading the theses and dissertations files and their associated metadata to our Digital Commons repository

Volume 44, Number 1, March 2024 OLAC Newsletter

Digitized March 2024 issue of the OLAC Newsletter

Effect of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and angiotensin receptor blocker initiation on organ support-free days in patients hospitalized with COVID-19

IMPORTANCE Overactivation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) may contribute to poor clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19. Objective To determine whether angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) initiation improves outcomes in patients hospitalized for COVID-19. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In an ongoing, adaptive platform randomized clinical trial, 721 critically ill and 58 non–critically ill hospitalized adults were randomized to receive an RAS inhibitor or control between March 16, 2021, and February 25, 2022, at 69 sites in 7 countries (final follow-up on June 1, 2022). INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomized to receive open-label initiation of an ACE inhibitor (n = 257), ARB (n = 248), ARB in combination with DMX-200 (a chemokine receptor-2 inhibitor; n = 10), or no RAS inhibitor (control; n = 264) for up to 10 days. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was organ support–free days, a composite of hospital survival and days alive without cardiovascular or respiratory organ support through 21 days. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model. Odds ratios (ORs) greater than 1 represent improved outcomes. RESULTS On February 25, 2022, enrollment was discontinued due to safety concerns. Among 679 critically ill patients with available primary outcome data, the median age was 56 years and 239 participants (35.2%) were women. Median (IQR) organ support–free days among critically ill patients was 10 (–1 to 16) in the ACE inhibitor group (n = 231), 8 (–1 to 17) in the ARB group (n = 217), and 12 (0 to 17) in the control group (n = 231) (median adjusted odds ratios of 0.77 [95% bayesian credible interval, 0.58-1.06] for improvement for ACE inhibitor and 0.76 [95% credible interval, 0.56-1.05] for ARB compared with control). The posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitors and ARBs worsened organ support–free days compared with control were 94.9% and 95.4%, respectively. Hospital survival occurred in 166 of 231 critically ill participants (71.9%) in the ACE inhibitor group, 152 of 217 (70.0%) in the ARB group, and 182 of 231 (78.8%) in the control group (posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitor and ARB worsened hospital survival compared with control were 95.3% and 98.1%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this trial, among critically ill adults with COVID-19, initiation of an ACE inhibitor or ARB did not improve, and likely worsened, clinical outcomes. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT0273570

Adventures in ETD metadata wrangling: Metadata workflows for a mass retrospective thesis and dissertation digitization project at the University of Massachusetts Amherst

This presentation gives a brief overview of our retrospective thesis and dissertation digitization project and then describes our automated process of creating MARC records for the digital versions of the theses and dissertations, transforming the MARC metadata to Dublin Core, and batch uploading the metadata and PDF files to our Digital Commons institutional repository

Open Access, Copyright, and Fair Use for Theses and Dissertations

This event gives graduate students an overview of open access and the benefits of choosing open access for electronic theses and dissertations. An overview of copyright and fair use as it relates to theses and dissertations isl also be presented. Discussion time explores graduate students\u27 thoughts about open access and copyright issues. Pizza served. Co-sponsored by the Graduate School and the University Libraries

Sabbatical Report: Summary of Survey Results on Digital Preservation Practices at 148 Institutions

The purpose of my sabbatical project was to identify institutions with established digital preservation programs, and investigate how these programs were implemented. To accomplish this task, I conducted a web-based survey that looked into what systems were being used for digital preservation, what services were offered to the campus or user community, staffing and organizational models to support digital preservation programs, as well as the costs associated with these various digital preservation programs. I received a total of 148 responses to the survey. Of the 148 responses, 100 respondents finished the survey. To follow up from the survey, I conducted 12 phone interviews with librarians and archivists from various types of institutions. The digital preservation survey I conducted was sent out via several listservs, and I received responses from all types of institutions including national libraries, state libraries, academic libraries, public libraries, church and corporate archives, national parks archives, historical societies, research data centers, and presidential libraries. Roughly a third of the respondents were from large academic institutions with more than 20,000 students, another third were from smaller academic institutions with less than 20,000 students, and the remaining third were from non-academic institutions. The survey results and an annotated list of digital preservation systems and tools are also included as attachments to the report

Open Access, Copyright, and Fair Use for Theses and Dissertations

This event will give graduate students an overview of open access and the benefits of choosing open access for electronic theses and dissertations. An overview of copyright and fair use as it relates to theses and dissertations will also be presented. Discussion time will explore graduate students\u27 thoughts about open access and copyright issues

Open Access, Copyright, and Fair Use for Theses and Dissertations

The event will give graduate students an overview of open access and the benefits of choosing open access for electronic theses and dissertations. An overview of copyright and fair use as it relates to theses and dissertations will also be presented. Discussion time will explore graduate students\u27 thoughts and questions about open access and copyright issues