LAM-Related Research Funded Under Spain’s National Research Agenda (2010 – 2020)

This study analysed and contextualised research on LAMs (acronym for libraries, archives and museums) funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation under competitive calls for projects from 2010 to 2020. The ultimate intention was to verify the existence or otherwise of a national research agenda on these cultural institutions. The initial search and location of Spanish Ministry-funded projects in official sources was followed by data processing and grouping by subject category. A total of 145 projects were analysed. The results showed LAM projects to be scant in number, highly varied in terms of subject matter, poorly funded, widely scattered across a number of areas of knowledge although with a prevalence of the humanities, and highly concentrated in certain institutions and disciplines. The subject-based analysis characterised LAM institutions, from the research perspective, as tools supporting other types of research but not themselves objects of study. None of the nationwide research plans was observed to include LAMs as a line of research. This study has essentially two practical implications. 1. It underscores the need for greater transparency among research project funding agencies; and 2. it defends the inclusion of LAMs among the items on a country’s national research agenda deserving of funding to enhance awareness of their value, purpose and projects

European National Libraries’ strategy

The study identifies and analyses the areas of strategic importance for European national libraries and sheds light on how they aim to confront the third decade of the twenty-first century. It shows the focus of their efforts and resources. The websites of 49 members of the Conference of European National Libraries (CENL) were reviewed in April 2019 to gather information on their strategic plans. The 10 plans found were subsequently analysed. The study identified good management practice in terms of the transparency inherent in the ready public accessibility of European national libraries’ strategic plans, as well as 11 areas for priority action defined in the plans analysed: collection and preservation/conservation of knowledge; access; participation in cultural and social life; furtherance of research; improvement of physical space; collaboration and alliance building; support for education; lifelong training for staff; digital innovation; support for business; and working atmosphere. The findings, drawn from 10 libraries with strategic plans, cannot be extrapolated to the entire population of the 49 initially chosen for the study. National libraries should consider the importance of announcing their priorities, disclosing what they do and how by making their strategic plans public. As this review inventories good strategic planning practice in European national libraries, its dissemination here was deemed to be of professional interest

Estudio de la complejidad estructural y dinámica de la Biblioteca Digital Universitaria: un modelo de cambio basado en el conocimiento

Mención Internacional en el título de doctorPrograma Oficial de Doctorado en Documentación: Archivos y Bibliotecas en el Entorno DigitalPresidente: José Antonio Moreiro González.- Secretario: Luis Joyanes Aguilar.- Vocal: Emir Suaide

Comunicación de bibliotecas universitarias en Twitter ante la Covid-19

Libraries have had to reorient their activities and services due to the closure of their physical facilities during the Covid- 19 crisis. In the framework of higher education, educational institutions have transferred their teaching and research to the online environment. University libraries have always been an essential element in the development of teaching and educational activities, and their role has been crucial during the confinement period. This research aims to analyze how Spanish university libraries have communicated this new way of providing their services through Twitter during the first weeks of the state of alarm. A total of 11,867 tweets and retweets from 56 libraries were analyzed based on an ad hoc thematic categorization. The conclusions highlight the role of libraries in the face of the health emergency and the transformation and publicity of this new way of working, as well as their role as an important information point to keep up to date with the current situation of the pandemic.Las bibliotecas han tenido que reorientar sus actividades y servicios ante el cierre de sus instalaciones físicas debido a la crisis de la Covid-19. En el marco de la enseñanza superior, las instituciones educativas han trasladado su docencia e investigación al entorno online. Las bibliotecas universitarias, siempre han constituido un elemento esencial en el desarrollo de actividades docentes y educativas y durante el confinamiento su papel ha sido clave. Esta investigación tiene por objetivo analizar cómo las bibliotecas universitarias españolas han comunicado la nueva forma de prestar sus actividades a través de Twitter durante las primeras semanas del estado de alarma. Se analizaron 11.867 tweets y retweets de 56 bibliotecas. Para su análisis se realiza una categorización temática ad hoc. Se concluye poniendo en valor el papel de las bibliotecas ante la emergencia sanitaria y la rapidez de actuación en la transformación y publicidad de su nueva forma de trabajar. Asimismo, se destaca su papel como punto informativo importante para seguir la actualidad de la pandemia

Active disclosure of Spanish historic archives' economic-financial information

Spain's national historic archives are entrusted with the custody of documents that shed light on historic events and periods of worldwide interest. Further to the country's Transparency Act (2013) and given such archives' importance as national scale public cultural institutions, their economic and financial information is pertinent and should be accessible to citizens. This study reviewed the economic and financial data available on the websites of eight historic archives in Spain and those of their parent institutions. That their activity does not pursue economic objectives is no reason for not providing an account of what they do, how they do it and the resources they deploy. Searches for a series of active disclosure-related indicators required under Spain's Transparency Act revealed that these archives fail to furnish any economic, budgetary or statistical information whatsoever on their websites. Those findings infer that the institutions at issue do not deem legal active disclosure obligations to be applicable to them as organizational units under the aegis of a higher-ranking body, in this case the Ministry of Culture. Archives are urged to adopt the good practices in place in other countries and make an effort to enhance their transparency, which would indisputably redound to their visibility, credibility and institutional image.This work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades [RTI2018-095187-B-I00]

National archives" priorities: an international overview

This discussion of national archives’ present priorities affords an overview of the areas meriting their greatest attention. It is based on an analysis of 18 strategic plans and 41 vision statements found for the 159 national archives affiliated with the International Council on Archives’ regional branches that provide public access to these documents on their websites. Improvement in access to and conservation and digitisation of the respective collections are convergent items in such plans and statements. Other strategies including protection for the national heritage and collective memory are also identified in some developing countries where the national archive is the mainstay of cultural and intellectual life. Strengthening national archive authority as the governing institution that guides a country’s archival policy, another issue found in both plans and statements, infers the need to heighten archives’ social and institutional role in their respective countries. The article identifies what is deemed good practice in cultural institution transparency management by describing what these institutions do and how. The scant presence of strategic plans on national archives’ websites is regretted, however, for it deprives citizens of information on the action planned for the years to come and precludes any international extrapolation of the present findings.This work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades [RTI2018-095187-B-I00

Transparency in Spanish archive and library websites: A comparative study

Transparency is a principle that has attracted a good deal of international attention in recent years, especially in connection with combatting corruption and building open, participatory governments accountable to their citizens. Public libraries and archives are not only information suppliers, but also public bodies obliged to provide the citizenry with information about their own governance and activities. Those obligations are laid down in Spanish Act 19/2013 of 29 December on Transparency, Access to Public Information and Good Governance (Spanish initials LTAIPBG). This article describes the results of applying a transparency measuring tool, TransPa_BA, to 106 regionally administered national historic archives and national public libraries. The tool, in turn the result of a research project, includes 20 indicators to measure active public disclosure by public libraries and 22 by archives in keeping with the provisions of the aforementioned Act. The indicators and their respective parameters (visibility, content, form, accessibility, reusability, dating and currency) provide guidelines to enable these institutions to comply with transparency and accountability requirements by furnishing society in general and their stakeholders in particular with information on their activities and performance in key areas. Further to the findings, the target institutions have made hesitant attempts to enhance transparency with respect to earlier inquiries. Public libraries are observed to be more active than archives, although the transparency scores obtained are low due to the failure to provide information on some indicators as well as on parameters such as dating and reusability. Both types of institution have a long road ahead in the pursuit of greater transparency.The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities under project RTI2018-095187-B-10

Research data services (RDS) in Spanish academic libraries

Research data services (RDS) are actions undertaken to provide researchers with support, advising, training, information, a technological infrastructure and a regulatory framework with respect to research data management (RDM) throughout the life cycle of the data. The implementation of RDS is an activity that is becoming increasingly important within the functions carried out by academic and research libraries. The aim of this study is to provide a snapshot of the research data services implemented in academic libraries in public universities in Spain, identifying the number and types of services deployed. We conducted a Website Content Analysis of the libraries of the 48 Spanish public universities to discover which RDS they are implementing and promoting. The results show that, despite a lack of institutional policies regarding research data, libraries are deploying these new services, albeit unevenly in terms of both the number of services and the type of support provided. Services related to development of the data management plan (DMP) and preservation of the data in repositories predominate. This inventory is presented as a first step towards learning the level of RDS implementation in Spanish academic libraries, providing a partial perspective and leading the way to exploring other aspects in greater depth in future studies.This work has been supported by the Madrid Government (Comunidad de Madrid-Spain) under the Multiannual Agreement with UC3M in the line of Excellence of University Professors (EPUC3M02), and in the context of the V PRICIT (Regional Programme of Research and Technological Innovation)

Voremetur Project: proposal for the digital cataloguing of museum objects on media art

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe the creation of a catalogue of museum objects associated with two media art collections. The proposal was formulated under the Voremetur "Vocabularios para una Red de Archivos y Colecciones de Media Art y sus efectos: metaliteracy y turismo de conocimiento" (thesauri for networked media art archives and collections and their effects: metaliteracy and knowledge tourism) (HAR2016-75949-C2-1-R). Collection characteristics and typologies are discussed along with the difficulties encountered and the interoperability of the platform chosen with other Web resources that foster visibility. Design/methodology/approach This paper describes a case study and a review of the protocols and standards used to catalogue media art collections. Digitised descriptions were processed with Omeka software in conjunction with the expanded Dublin Core metadata schema. This paper also reviews the literature on the conceptualisation of these collections and the challenges involved in their conservation and management. Findings The result was the creation of a digital repository for two media art collections: one linked to Espacio P; and the other the outcome of digitising part of the MIDECIANT collection (Archivo Media ART AEMA). Originality/value The methodology innovates the description and analysis of museum objects on media art in Spain. The proposed cataloguing method can be replicated and used to describe similar collections and lays the grounds for creating a Spanish network of media art archives and collectionsThis work was supported by the Ministerio De Economía y Competitividad (Spain) (HAR2016-75949-C2-1-R)

Lucha contra la desinformación desde las bibliotecas universitarias

Fighting disinformation from academic libraries The potential role of university libraries in raising awareness about fake news and its problems is addressed. For this, a study that allows to know the current work and actions developed by the Spanish university libraries regarding this phenomenon was carried out. A questionnaire was sent to the 75 public and private universities in Spain. The response rate was 56%. The results show concern about the phenomenon of disinformation in higher education and highlight the necessary role of libraries as infomediarian agents. This study is an approximation based on data on the current relationship between university libraries and the phenomenon of post-truth in the Spanish library framework