Redesigning Workflows and Implementing Demand-Driven Acquisition at Virginia Tech: One Year Later

Library budgets are often stagnating, staff time is being redirected towards other needs, and demand for online resources is seemingly insatiable. These realities were part of the impetus behind Virginia Tech Libraries’ decision to begin a one-year demand-driven acquisitions (DDA) pilot program. This paper provides an overview of the DDA implementation challenges at Virginia Tech’s University Libraries and will detail the collection opportunities and financial benefits gained. Our goal is to provide participants with information to assist with their implementation of DDA. In summer 2012, Virginia Tech implemented a multivendor DDA option with YBP Library Service. The implementation and integration of DDA was not a one-step process. We continue to assess our workflow to meet the challenges of integrating DDA with our discovery layer Summon, managing cost, and addressing access problems. In our study, we compared cost and usage data from our 2010 and 2011 approvals and firm orders, COUNTER BR1 reports, and other vendor-provided data

Thirty Days and Counting: Conducting Effective Product Trials for Library Resources

Product trials for evaluating potential new resources can be a challenge for any library. To be most effective, several key elements must be addressed including determining suitable trial dates, establishing and confirming access, creating appropriate links, publicizing product availability, collecting usage data, and gathering feedback from participants. If one or more of these steps is missed, it is all too easy for trial access to run out before much useful data is gathered. The University Libraries at Virginia Tech have developed a method for managing this process through a Trials Workflow team and the use of free, Web-based project management software from Trello. Readers will learn about our workflow for conducting trials and discover how we work with our vendors to better manage the process for product trials

Earnestly Finding the Fun in Fund Codes

Collections and acquisitions staff at Virginia Tech and The University of Alabama presented two very different models for structuring fund codes and discussed the benefits and difficulties inherent to each method. Both groups share their philosophy and approach for allocating appropriate fund codes for budgeting, reporting, and analytical purposes, and highlight important considerations to be made when creating a fund code structure

Statistical Analysis, Data Visualization, and Business Intelligence Tools for Electronic Resources in Academic Libraries

Analytics, business intelligence, and data visualization have an increasingly important space in the changing assessment landscape of academic libraries. Today, most academic libraries are spending a significant amount of their total expenditure budget on electronic resources. While they are high-value assets for modern libraries, the expensive annual subscription cost and continuing price increases of e-resources also make them a substantial budgeting burden. It is therefore essential to have a clear statistical view of the trends and patterns in price changes for e-resources and vendors. This paper focuses on three major topics vital for developing such a view: first, the e-resources landscape and the need for evidence-based decision-making, analysis, and reporting; second, the methodology applied in a statistical analysis and data visualization research project, as well as business trends and patterns in the field of libraries’ e-resources; and third, business intelligence tools available for this type of analysis, including low-cost options such as Excel and Redlink, and premium options such as Tableau

Albatross: Rolling on a Sea of Data

Big deals and journal package incentives are an increasing reality for academic libraries, yet the solutions for evaluating these package scenarios in a timely, cost-effective manner are few. The proliferation of these offers requires the examination of numerous and complex questions. There is a need to know the utilization and strength of a package, the inflation costs for various titles and packages, and the ability to identify cost trends. A team of librarians at Virginia Tech created a solution for addressing these concerns and for managing their journal data by designing and developing an in-house database. Albatross, named in reference to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, is a database created to gather journal usage data and cost data in a central environment where the data can then be queried to use in return-on-investment analysis and journal package assessments

Risk factors associated with exposure to bovine respiratory disease pathogens during the peri-weaning period in dairy bull calves

peer-reviewedBackground Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) remains among the leading causes of death of cattle internationally. The objective of this study was to identify risk factors associated with exposure to BRD pathogens during the peri-weaning period (day (d)-14 to d 14 relative to weaning at 0) in dairy bull calves using serological responses to these pathogens as surrogate markers of exposure. Clinically normal Holstein-Friesian and Jersey breed bull calves (n = 72) were group housed in 4 pens using a factorial design with calves of different breeds and planes of nutrition in each pen. Intrinsic, management and clinical data were collected during the pre-weaning (d − 56 to d − 14) period. Calves were gradually weaned over 14 days (d − 14 to d 0). Serological analysis for antibodies against key BRD pathogens (BRSV, BPI3V, BHV-1, BHV-4, BCoV, BVDV and H. somni) was undertaken at d − 14 and d 14. Linear regression models (for BVDV, BPI3V, BHV-1, BHV-4, BCoV and H. somni) and a single mixed effect random variable model (for BRSV) were used to identify risk factors for changes in antibody levels to these pathogens. Results BRSV was the only pathogen which demonstrated clustering by pen. Jersey calves experienced significantly lower changes in BVDV S/P than Holstein-Friesian calves. Animals with a high maximum respiratory score (≥8) recorded significant increases in H. somni S/P during the peri-weaning period when compared to those with respiratory scores of ≤3. Haptoglobin levels of between 1.32 and 1.60 mg/ml at d − 14 were significantly associated with decreases in BHV-1 S/N during the peri-weaning period. Higher BVDV S/P ratios at d − 14 were significantly correlated with increased changes in serological responses to BHV-4 over the peri-weaning period. Conclusions Haptoglobin may have potential as a predictor of exposure to BHV-1. BRSV would appear to play a more significant role at the ‘group’ rather than ‘individual animal’ level. The significant associations between the pre-weaning levels of antibodies to certain BRD pathogens and changes in the levels of antibodies to the various pathogens during the peri-weaning period may reflect a cohort of possibly genetically linked ‘better responders’ among the study population

Contralateral interictal spikes are related to tapetum damage in left temporal lobe epilepsy.

OBJECTIVE: In temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), the epileptogenic focus is focal and unilateral in the majority of patients. A key characteristic of focal TLE is the presence of subclinical epileptiform activity in both the ictal and contralateral healthy hemisphere. Such interictal activity is clinically important, as it may reflect the spread of pathology, potentially leading to secondary epileptogenesis. The role played by white matter pathways in this process is unknown. METHODS: We compared three interhemispheric white matter tracts (anterior commissure, fornix, and tapetum) to determine the pathway most associated with the presence of contralateral interictal spikes. Forty patients with unilateral left or right TLE were categorized based on the presence or absence of contralateral interictal spikes. Analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were run on diffusion properties from each tract. RESULTS: The analyses revealed that patients with left TLE and with bilateral interictal spikes had lower fractional anisotropy (FA) and higher mean diffusivity (MD) in the tapetum. Patients with right TLE did not show this effect. No significant associations with bilateral activity were observed for the other tracts. Blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) functional connectivity data revealed that homotopic lateral, not mesial, temporal areas were reliably correlated in bilateral patients, independent of ictal side. SIGNIFICANCE: Our results indicate that, among the tracts investigated, only the tapetum was associated with contralateral epileptiform activity, implicating this structure in seizures and possible secondary epileptogenesis. We describe two mechanisms that might explain this association (the interruption of inhibitory signals or the toxic effect of carrying epileptiform signals toward the healthy hemisphere), but also acknowledge other rival factors that may be at work. We also report that patients with TLE with bilateral spikes had increased lateral bitemporal lobe connectivity. Our current results can be seen as bringing together important functional and structural data to elucidate the basis of contralateral interictal activity in focal, unilateral epilepsy. A PowerPoint slide summarizing this article is available for download in the Supporting Information section here

Fermi Large Area Telescope Constraints on the Gamma-ray Opacity of the Universe

The Extragalactic Background Light (EBL) includes photons with wavelengths from ultraviolet to infrared, which are effective at attenuating gamma rays with energy above ~10 GeV during propagation from sources at cosmological distances. This results in a redshift- and energy-dependent attenuation of the gamma-ray flux of extragalactic sources such as blazars and Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs). The Large Area Telescope onboard Fermi detects a sample of gamma-ray blazars with redshift up to z~3, and GRBs with redshift up to z~4.3. Using photons above 10 GeV collected by Fermi over more than one year of observations for these sources, we investigate the effect of gamma-ray flux attenuation by the EBL. We place upper limits on the gamma-ray opacity of the Universe at various energies and redshifts, and compare this with predictions from well-known EBL models. We find that an EBL intensity in the optical-ultraviolet wavelengths as great as predicted by the "baseline" model of Stecker et al. (2006) can be ruled out with high confidence.Comment: 42 pages, 12 figures, accepted version (24 Aug.2010) for publication in ApJ; Contact authors: A. Bouvier, A. Chen, S. Raino, S. Razzaque, A. Reimer, L.C. Reye

The Eighth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Data from SDSS-III

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) started a new phase in August 2008, with new instrumentation and new surveys focused on Galactic structure and chemical evolution, measurements of the baryon oscillation feature in the clustering of galaxies and the quasar Ly alpha forest, and a radial velocity search for planets around ~8000 stars. This paper describes the first data release of SDSS-III (and the eighth counting from the beginning of the SDSS). The release includes five-band imaging of roughly 5200 deg^2 in the Southern Galactic Cap, bringing the total footprint of the SDSS imaging to 14,555 deg^2, or over a third of the Celestial Sphere. All the imaging data have been reprocessed with an improved sky-subtraction algorithm and a final, self-consistent photometric recalibration and flat-field determination. This release also includes all data from the second phase of the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Evolution (SEGUE-2), consisting of spectroscopy of approximately 118,000 stars at both high and low Galactic latitudes. All the more than half a million stellar spectra obtained with the SDSS spectrograph have been reprocessed through an improved stellar parameters pipeline, which has better determination of metallicity for high metallicity stars.Comment: Astrophysical Journal Supplements, in press (minor updates from submitted version