Aligning Collections and Services with User Needs and Practices

In preparing for a five-year president’s advisory review of the library, the Carnegie Mellon University Libraries examined how users drew on the library collection and how they wanted to use information. We surveyed faculty and students to learn how they found and employed library resources for research, study and teaching. Circulation, interlibrary loan, and documented use of electronic resources provided one snapshot on the different ways that the campus community used information. From a 2001 study [Bergman] we extrapolated how much information for scholarly and research purposes was obtained from the free web. For the advisory board review in late 2010, we again updated this information with results showing a larger web (no surprise) and an increased use of electronic information and free web, a decline in circulation and a small rise in interlibrary loan. Based on these use patterns—a decline in circulation and an overall increase in the use of electronic resources—questions about staffing services and operations needed to be examined. In the summer of 2011, we explored these changes to understand their practical and operational ramifications. One line of inquiry was to re-examine the data collection process and collected data. Monographic circulation was extrapolated from all circulation data so that this type of use could be examined in more depth. Was the decline in circulation as dramatic as first thought? A second initiative—to put selection in the hands of users—was initiated to test and understand user behavior. Thus in fall 2011, a demand driven monographic acquisitions pilot project in computer science and electrical engineering was begun. This paper will report on the outcomes of those initiatives and initial steps taken to align collections and services

ACRL Framework for Impactful Scholarship and Metrics

The ACRL Impactful Scholarship and Metrics Task Force was formed primarily to create a framework for the measurement and evaluation of academic librarian scholarship. The framework is designed to address gaps between current scholarly evaluation practices and impactful scholarly activities within academic librarianship, including ways to measure and evaluate the impact of a wide range of research outputs

Standing together for reproducibility in large-scale computing: report on reproducibility@XSEDE

This is the final report on reproducibility@xsede, a one-day workshop held in conjunction with XSEDE14, the annual conference of the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE). The workshop's discussion-oriented agenda focused on reproducibility in large-scale computational research. Two important themes capture the spirit of the workshop submissions and discussions: (1) organizational stakeholders, especially supercomputer centers, are in a unique position to promote, enable, and support reproducible research; and (2) individual researchers should conduct each experiment as though someone will replicate that experiment. Participants documented numerous issues, questions, technologies, practices, and potentially promising initiatives emerging from the discussion, but also highlighted four areas of particular interest to XSEDE: (1) documentation and training that promotes reproducible research; (2) system-level tools that provide build- and run-time information at the level of the individual job; (3) the need to model best practices in research collaborations involving XSEDE staff; and (4) continued work on gateways and related technologies. In addition, an intriguing question emerged from the day's interactions: would there be value in establishing an annual award for excellence in reproducible research? Overvie

Trafficking through COPII Stabilises Cell Polarity and Drives Secretion during Drosophila Epidermal Differentiation

BACKGROUND: The differentiation of an extracellular matrix (ECM) at the apical side of epithelial cells implies massive polarised secretion and membrane trafficking. An epithelial cell is hence engaged in coordinating secretion and cell polarity for a correct and efficient ECM formation. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We are studying the molecular mechanisms that Drosophila tracheal and epidermal cells deploy to form their specific apical ECM during differentiation. In this work we demonstrate that the two genetically identified factors haunted and ghost are essential for polarity maintenance, membrane topology as well as for secretion of the tracheal luminal matrix and the cuticle. We show that they code for the Drosophila COPII vesicle-coating components Sec23 and Sec24, respectively, that organise vesicle transport from the ER to the Golgi apparatus. CONCLUSION: Taken together, epithelial differentiation during Drosophila embryogenesis is a concerted action of ECM formation, plasma membrane remodelling and maintenance of cell polarity that all three rely mainly, if not absolutely, on the canonical secretory pathway from the ER over the Golgi apparatus to the plasma membrane. Our results indicate that COPII vesicles constitute a central hub for these processes

Addressing staff concerns in changing times: supporting the institution\u27s greatest asset

The strategic plan at Carnegie Mellon University highlights the important contributions that staff members make to the organization. Concomitantly the university encourages the growth of a diverse campus community and stresses the important of developing a culture of respect. The university libraries have embraced these two threads – recognizing the important contributions made by staff and the desirability of a diverse work force. This paper discusses the importance of these two threads and highlights the various steps taken to acknowledge staff contributions and to create a culture of respect

Creating a free to read international digital library - five years later

The Million Book Project was begun in 2003 with the vision of creating a free-to-read, universally accessible, million-book digital resource by 2007 to provide a test bed for developing digital library tools and software. By spring 2007 1.4 million titles were digitized. The project stemmed from a collaboration of the university library and the school of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. From the project’s inception partners included libraries, institutions of higher education and research organizations in China, India and the U.S., essentially computer scientists and librarians. Additional partners have been added selectively as the project became more visible in the international community. This paper will discuss the challenges faced over the last five years through the partnership of organizations, some linked to national digital strategies and some not; highlight lessons learned from this project; and reflect on the future of this and other large scale digitization efforts

Fostering Information Fluency: Two Student Centred Initiatives.

Two initiatives have been undertaken at Carnegie Mellon University, one to address issues of accountability relative to information literacy and the other to learn more about graduate students’ information gathering behavior. In response to changing accreditation requirements, new evidence for student learning is being required. Thus a program to concentrate on the information literacy skills of undergraduates, particularly in major fields of study, has been started. The other initiative focuses on understanding the current information gathering behaviors of graduate students. Outcomes from this study are being incorporated into services directed at graduate students. Questions about how to address these needs from an operational perspective and their potential on library staffing are noted

Collaborating with executable content across space and time

Executable content is of growing importance in many domains. How does one share and archive such content at Internet-scale for spatial and temporal collaboration? Spatial collaboration refers to the classic concept of user collaboration: two or more users who are at different Internet locations performing a task using shared context. Temporal collaboration refers to the archiving of context by one user and use of that context by another user, possibly many years or decades later. The term “shared context” has typically meant shared documents or a shared workspace such as a whiteboard. However, executable content forces us to think differently. Just specifying a standardized data format is not sufficient; one has to accurately reproduce computation. We observe that the precise encapsulation of computing state provided by a virtual machine (VM) may help us solve this problem. We can cope with large VM size through a streaming mechanism that demand fetches memory and disk state during execution. Based on our positive initial experience with VMs for archiving execution state, we propose the creation of Olive, an Internet ecosystem of curated VM image collections