Exploring Library 2.0 on the Social Web

Library 2.0 literature has described many of the possibilities Web 2.0 technologies offer libraries. Case studies have assessed local use, but no studies have measured the Library 2.0 phenomenon by searching public social networking sites. This study used library-specific terms to search public social networking sites, blog search engines, and social bookmarking sites for activity associated with librarians and library users. Blog search data about the recentness of activity or the popularity of a blog post indicate Library 2.0 technology has many early adopters but provide less evidence of sustained use. The results follow a curve resembling the 80 / 20 rule and also resemble Chris Anderson’s “long tail” effect, in which very few authors create the vast amount of content. These exploratory results can be used as a starting point for future studies. Librarians who use tags to describe Web-based content might use these findings to select more effective tags. Librarians implementing a blog or a social networking presence might use this study to balance the benefits with the amount of work required to maintain an up-to-date presence

Leveraging OA, the IR, and CrossDepartment Collaboration for Sustainability: Ensuring Library Centrality in the Scholarly Communication Discourse on Campus

More than halfway into the second decade of the 21st century, academic libraries are becoming more integrated in the scholarly life of their faculties than ever before. Important trends in scholarly communication, such as transitioning from subscription journals to open access journals, increasing amounts of “born digital” data and creative works, the growing importance of protecting one’s intellectual property rights, and keeping digital scholarship organized, managed, and preserved, are all areas where academic scholars and researchers require support services and assistance. Librarians are natural partners to provide these services

Leveraging OA, the IR, and CrossDepartment Collaboration for Sustainability: Ensuring Library Centrality in the Scholarly Communication Discourse on Campus

More than halfway into the second decade of the 21st century, academic libraries are becoming more integrated in the scholarly life of their faculties than ever before. Important trends in scholarly communication, such as transitioning from subscription journals to open access journals, increasing amounts of “born digital” data and creative works, the growing importance of protecting one’s intellectual property rights, and keeping digital scholarship organized, managed, and preserved, are all areas where academic scholars and researchers require support services and assistance. Librarians are natural partners to provide these services

Scholarly Communication Outreach: OERs, ETDs, and Liaisons

At Eastern Illinois University (EIU) several library faculty have been involved with a coordinated outreach effort to provide scholarly communication support services to EIU\u27s faculty. This presentation will highlight many of those efforts, including producing the results of the recent Bepress survey trial of faculty digital research needs, using the IR as a platform for hosting Open Educational Resources, marketing the IR and library services to faculty via Success + Service reports, training library subject liaisons to be scholarly communication coaches, and outreach efforts to specific campus entities such as EIU\u27s Research and Sponsored Programs Office, the Center for Humanities, and the Graduate School

Ectomycorrhizal fungi and past high CO2 atmospheres enhance mineral weathering through increased below-ground carbon-energy fluxes

Field studies indicate an intensification of mineral weathering with advancement from arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) to later-evolving ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungal partners of gymnosperm and angiosperm trees. We test the hypothesis that this intensification is driven by increasing photosynthate carbon allocation to mycorrhizal mycelial networks using 14CO2-tracer experiments with representative tree–fungus mycorrhizal partnerships. Trees were grown in either a simulated past CO2 atmosphere (1500 ppm)—under which EM fungi evolved—or near-current CO2 (450 ppm). We report a direct linkage between photosynthate-energy fluxes from trees to EM and AM mycorrhizal mycelium and rates of calcium silicate weathering. Calcium dissolution rates halved for both AM and EM trees as CO2 fell from 1500 to 450 ppm, but silicate weathering by AM trees at high CO2 approached rates for EM trees at near-current CO2. Our findings provide mechanistic insights into the involvement of EM-associating forest trees in strengthening biological feedbacks on the geochemical carbon cycle that regulate atmospheric CO2 over millions of years

Ideas and perspectives: strengthening the biogeosciences in environmental research networks

Many scientific approaches are improving our understanding and management of the rapidly changing environment. Long-term environmental research networks are one approach to advancing local, regional, and global environmental science and education. A remarkable number and wide variety of environmental research networks operate around the world today. These are diverse in funding, infrastructure, motivating questions, scientific strengths, and the sciences that birthed and maintained the networks. Some networks have individual sites that were selected because they had produced invaluable long-term data, while other networks have new sites selected to span ecological gradients. However, all long-term environmental networks share two challenges. Networks must keep pace with scientific advances and interact with both the scientific community and society at large. If networks fall short of successfully addressing these challenges, they risk becoming irrelevant. The objective of this paper is to assert that the biogeosciences offer environmental research networks a number of opportunities to expand scientific impact and public engagement. We explore some of these opportunities with four networks: the International Long Term Ecological Research programs (ILTERs), the Critical Zone Observatories (CZOs), the Earth and Ecological Observatory networks (EONs), and the FLUXNET program of eddy flux sites. While these networks were founded and grown by interdisciplinary scientists, the preponderance of expertise and funding have gravitated activities of ILTERs and EONs toward ecology and biology, CZOs toward the Earth sciences and geology, and FLUXNET toward ecophysiology and micrometeorology. Our point is not to homogenize networks, nor to diminish disciplinary science. Rather, we argue that by more fully incorporating the integration of biology and geology in long-term environmental research networks, scientists can better leverage network assets, keep pace with the ever-changing science of the environment, and engage with larger scientific and public audiences

Best in Show Family Honorable Mention, Jane Eyre

https://thekeep.eiu.edu/ediblebook_2016/1057/thumbnail.jp

Best in Show Family Honorable Mention, Jane Eyre

https://thekeep.eiu.edu/ediblebook_2016/1057/thumbnail.jp