Episode 64 – Year in Review 2010
20 December, 20102 comments
It’s time once again for the tuxedos, red dresses, and closely guarded envelopes as the Digital Campus team reveals the top stories of 2010. In a twist this year, each co-host unveils their biggest flop and biggest hit of the year. Amanda, Tom, Mills, and Dan also gaze into their trusty crystal balls—which we can proudly say have been incredibly accurate in years past—for their predictions for 2011. The wait is over—tune in for the cheers and jeers, the laughter and the tears.
Running time: 58:09
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Mills Kelly
Sarah Shreeves : 20th December, 2010
Listening to the discussion around libraries and open access and journal prices, I was trying very hard not to be overly defensive since I am a librarian and have been very much involved on the open access front. I would refer to Dorothea’s post in the Book of Trogool – in particular the section on libraries and open access – http://scientopia.org/blogs/bookoftrogool/2010/12/08/themes-from-idcc-2010/ – to get an idea of why.
I definitely agree that libraries need to be more aggressive about revealing costs to faculty and in engaging with faculty about costs. But I’ll say that from my experience (5 years now of running an IR) that many just don’t care or believe that high journals costs just come with territory (this is in the STM area in particular). We also face enormous pressures from university administrations to provide these resources as well.
It’s easy to point to the back and forth between libraries and publishers and the lack of transparency of costs – all things that need to be improved. Dorothea is right about SPARC (who supported the Rights to Research site and is heavily funded by libraries) and ARL needing to push their membership forward. But what I think really continues to be a problem is the paucity of faculty discussion and engagement with their colleagues across disciplines as well as campus level administrators in this discussion. It’s one thing for me as a librarian to talk to faculty about costs; it’s another thing entirely for another faculty member to have that discussion. Frankly, that’s when I think we’d begin to have more movement in the form of OA policies (like MIT), infrastructure development to support faculty experiments in OA, etc, as well as much more informed conversations about costs.
Looking toward 2011 | Book of Trogool : 30th December, 2010
[…] those damn librarians…” grumbling. If you’d like to hear some, pre-2011, have a listen to Amanda French and Tom Scheinfeldt in this episode of the Digital Campus podcast. Those damn librarians. Why don’t they just fix this? Where’s their damn […]