Category: Libraries

Academic Publishing, Libraries, Open Access, Webinar

Free the Books! The Path towards Open Access Monographs

Gold Leaf

30th March 2023, 2.30pm-4.15pm BST
(15.30-17.15 CET)

Webinar hosted by Gold Leaf, sponsored by De Gruyter

We would like to invite our readers to the new 2023 webinar series “Challenging the Status Quo: Taking Libraries into the Future”, run by Gold Leaf and sponsored by De Gruyter.

This webinar explores the knotty world of Open Access books. In principle, most people agree that OA books are a “good thing”; but the associated issues are complex for everyone in the Scholarly Communications industry.

Speakers include Niels Stern, Director of OAPEN, who will give the keynote; Wilhelm Widmark, Library Director at the University of Stockholm and Assistant Director of BIBSAM; and Sarah Thompson, Head of Content and Open Access Librarian at the University of York.

The webinar is the first of a series sponsored by De Gruyter and will be moderated by Linda Bennett of Gold Leaf. Registration is free of charge.
For more details and to book your place on the seminar, click here.

Who should attend

The webinar will be very inclusive. It will be of interest to librarians, including student librarians, information scientists, funders, publishers, academics interested in Open Access and anyone involved in the current period of rapid change in the library and publishing industries.

The series

In this new De Gruyter Webinar Series, we invite library & information scientists, researchers, and industry experts to share their insights and wisdom into latest developments, emerging trends and best practices in the library and publishing services.

Agenda

15.30-15.35 Introduction and Welcome
Andrea Gregor-Adams, Marketing Manager EMEA, De Gruyter
15.35-16.05 Free the Books!
Keynote talk: Niels Stern, Director of OAPEN
16.05-16.45 Librarian Panel session
Two panellists will each speak for 10 – 15 minutes, followed by Q & A
Selling Open Access for books to the country.
Wilhelm Widmark, Library Director, University of Stockholm; Vice-Chairman of BIBSAM
At the coal face: the acquisition and payment issues
Sarah Thompson, Head of Content and Open Access, University of York
16.45-17.10 Plenary Session: What next?
The three speakers and the audience will be invited to discuss what the future will bring for Open
Access for books and share their hopes and concerns.
17.10-17.15 Wrap-up

Niels Stern is director of OAPEN. He began his career in scholarly book publishing in 2003. In this capacity he became a co-founder of the OAPEN project in 2008. Since 2014 Niels Stern has also acted as independent expert for the European Commission on open science and e-infrastructures. Leaving publishing for a few years, he joined the Royal Danish Library in 2017 as director of licensing for five universities and chief negotiator for the national licence consortium.

Wilhelm Widmark is the Library Director of Stockholm University since 2012. Since 2020 he is also Senior Adviser for Open Science to the President of Stockholm University. He has a Master of Arts in Literature and a Master of Arts in Library and information science from Uppsala University. Wilhelm is active in the Open Science movement in Sweden and Europe. He is the Vice-Chairman of the Swedish Bibsam consortia and a member of the Swedish Rectors conference Open Science group. He is also a member of EUAs Expert Group on Open Science and one of the Directors of EOSC Association. During the years he has been a member of several publishers Library Advisory Boards. In year 2016 he got an assignment from the president to start an Open Access academic press for books and journals at Stockholm University. Stockholm University Press was created in 2017 and has published more than 50 Open Access books and host 12 journals. He is also the publisher of Stockholm University Press. Wilhelm is a well-known speaker at both national and international conferences.

Sarah Thompson is Assistant Director for Library, Archives and Learning Services at the University of York, where she has responsibility for Content and Open Research. She takes an active role in the RLUK Collection Strategy Network and in the White Rose Libraries Partnership, and is a member of the White Rose University Press Management Board. She also participates in a number of different national and international consortia groups and publisher and supplier advisory boards.
Sarah has strategic oversight of the Library’s content budget for both paywalled and open access content, and is steering a gradual transition towards the latter. This is being achieved by the Library financially supporting different models of open access monograph publishing; for example, it has signed up to a number of diamond open access monograph initiatives and has recently created an institutional OA fund which pays book processing charges (BPCs). She is also involved in White Rose University Press, which is a non-profit, open access digital publisher of peer-reviewed academic journals and books, run jointly by the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York.

General, Learning from Libraries, Libraries

Librarians: the quiet and unsung professionals battling Covid every day

Gold Leaf

We have heard a great deal about front line workers this year – nurses and doctors and all those working for the NHS and its counterpart national and medical organisations throughout the world; teachers; members of the armed forces; delivery men; and those who toil at jobs in retail when they’re allowed to go to work and put a brave face on it every time there’s another lockdown and they have to stay at home and forego some or all of their wages and contend with the ever-present threat of redundancy.  Like everyone, we are full of awe and respect for all of them; but there are people who are not working in the front line who have also been performing incredible feats of industry, endurance and imagination to secure benefits for others throughout this strange and exhausting year.

Top of our list at Gold Leaf are academic librarians.  We are familiar with their activities because we work with them all the time; and their achievements this year have been truly astonishing. Within a week – and sometimes within 48 hours – of the first lockdown in their respective countries, academic librarians the world over swung into action.  They arranged for students, lecturers and researchers to access online resources remotely; they arranged click-and-collect and scanning services for those reliant on print; they opened up space for research and study in the library as soon as they were able for those who were disadvantaged by having to work from home.

This might all sound quite routine: surely academic librarians have been moving to online resource provision for the best part of twenty years, and with ever-escalating rapidity during the last decade? It may be true that this is the case; but it doesn’t detract from what they have had to accomplish in the past nine or ten months.

In the first place, the Covid restrictions have perforce alerted them to the proficiency – or otherwise – of library users when discovering, accessing and using online products.  This includes library users at all levels, from senior academics and researchers to first year students. Librarians have discovered that certain very eminent academics, including those who have been extolling the virtues of digital publications for years, have had very little direct experience of using them. As for students – many librarians smile at the use of the term “digital natives”.  It seems that people of all generations vary massively in their online capabilities – one librarian even said that some of her younger librarian colleagues did not know how to use all their library’s digital holdings; but in the main it is the librarians who have been teaching everyone else.

Instruction from librarians to other university colleagues has not been limited to advice on how to access and use digital products; a more time-consuming and far-reaching task they have shouldered is to help academics design online lectures and seminars.  Last spring it quickly became clear that taking a routine face-to-face lecture online as it stands does not work, particularly in Arts and Humanities subjects, where many lectures are scheduled to last for more than an hour.  Librarians have been coaching academics in how to combine technologies – video streaming with ordinary Zoom and Powerpoint, for example – to make online lectures more interesting; and finding ways of covering topics “shorter but with a deeper dive” to accommodate digital attention spans.  Some initiatives have been so successful that at universities where some students in a cohort have been invited to a face-to-face meeting while the rest of the cohort joins it online, many have preferred to ask for the online option.

The digital products themselves have also required attention.  Despite the ever-increasing, ever-accelerating demand for digital resources – many universities now have an “e-first” policy, some even and “e-only” one – catering for remote resource provision has highlighted the fact that many resources are still not available in e-format, particularly textbooks; therefore, librarians have had to work hard to find viable alternatives. This may include investigation into open textbooks, which are increasingly becoming of interest to both academics and librarians.  Publisher-provided e-textbooks sometimes present a further challenge once they have been located: the business models employed do not always work for library budgets, so librarians may not be able to purchase all they would like to; again, the only option is to spend time looking for alternatives.

Despite all these obstacles, difficulties and challenges, as they reach the end of this year academic librarians everywhere have earned massive gratitude from the communities they support by solving every problem that has been thrown at them, usually with great tolerance, humour and ingenuity. In 2020 academia has suffered many blows and setbacks, but one hugely positive outcome of the Covid pandemic is that having to address it on behalf of their patrons has raised the profile of librarians.  The value of the work they do has now been properly acknowledged, in many instances for the first time. Librarians of the world, we salute you!

We wish all the readers of this blog a very happy Christmas and a happy, healthy and successful New Year.  We have been massively grateful for all your interest and support during this strange and difficult year and look forward very much to engaging with you again in 2021, when hopefully the future will look a little brighter for all of us.

Linda, Annika and James

Learning from Libraries, Libraries, Universities

Learning from Libraries – an interview with Roxanne Missingham

Gold Leaf

Roxanne Missingham, University Librarian and the Australian National University (ANU) describes what it means to her to be a librarian

Tell us a bit about your career.  Did you always want to be a librarian?  Where was your first job?  Where did you get your library qualification?

My mother says that I wanted to be a librarian when I was in primary school! My first degree at university was a Bachelor of Science.  I studied at ANU: lots of Maths and Psychology, with a minor in English.

There weren’t many jobs for women in science and so I did a postgraduate qualification in librarianship at what is now the University of Canberra. I was inspired by such amazingly dedicated lecturers as Maxine Rochester and John Balnaves and was extremely fortunately to be recruited to what was essentially a graduate trainee program at the National Library of Australia.

I loved my colleagues, helping to build the library collection and the ethos of making a national difference through libraries. The diversity of work is fabulous – as are the regular challenges and opportunities.

Tell us about your present job.  What do you like most about it?  And least?

I have been at the Australian National Library as University Librarian for almost 9 years. It is my first job in the higher education sector. When I was interviewed (there were 9 on the panel!) my key points, as I recall, were a passion for inspiring excellence through student experience and an ability to deal with complex clients. I had been Parliamentary Librarian for 7 years.  The interviewing panel thought there might be some similarities between serving members of parliament and serving academics.

At the university my portfolio includes libraries, archives, digital scholarship, the ANU Press and digital literacy. The team is amazing: we work with everyone in the university in some way. My passion is connecting people to knowledge and pretty much all aspects of this are included in the work of the Division.

I love working with my colleagues on new ways to open up access to knowledge and ideas.

Now for the confession, I would love to do less paperwork and use more of that time to work with the team!

Tell us a bit more about ANU Press, why it was set up, your own role.

ANU Press was established in 2003 and officially launched in 2004, with the aim of exploring and enabling new modes of scholarly publishing. It was Australia’s first fully open access scholarly press. We have worked through various strategic changes to foster innovation in scholarly publishing, find new ways to engage with authors and students and move beyond the concept of knowledge trapped behind paywalls.  We were initially focused on communicating the research of ANU scholars and have now increased the eligibility authors who may publish and steadily added other new dimensions.

I am very fortunate to be head of the division in which the ANU Press sits and to work on the Advisory Committee.

What has the pandemic meant for you? What have been its highs and lows?

Life in 2020 has been an endless parade of calamities. We have had bushfires, campus closures owing to smoke, hailstorms which destroyed library and other roofs and very many cars and then COVID-19.

I think a big high is the fantastic support within our teams for colleagues, assisting and caring for each other in times of stress.  The strong team approach across the whole university has been very inspiring.

As we reach the end of the year, perhaps the two lows are having to say farewell to many staff owing to the university’s downsizing; and the fact that having to endure so many disasters in such a short space of time has been wearing on the heart and soul of the community. We have not been able to engage as deeply or personally because of the time we’ve had to spend off campus and the move to digital communication, even though under the circumstances that was, of course, very appropriate.

What is the most challenging thing you’ve had to deal with in your career; and the thing that makes you most proud?

I think the most challenging matter this year has been the separation of so many staff from our team, people whose contribution to the university and division has been terrific over a sustained period. They remain part of our family but have found that financially it was the right time for them to go.

I am extremely proud of the achievements of the team in working together and keeping the heart and soul of the university alive through all the work of the division. We have created new relationships with students and academics to make the university a success in 2020.

If you look into your crystal ball, what do you think will happen to librarianship in Australia (or everywhere if you prefer) in the next 3 – 5 years?

Given the changes taking place in teaching, I think that academic librarianship will focus on contributions to education with a greater sense of partnership, driven partly by the need to foster the digital education of staff and the academic community as a whole. This also brings to the fore the imperative for greater experimentation in digital delivery, discovery and scholarship. The spirit of partnership needs to extend to our work with publishers. I think OA will mature and that new models must be supported that will have disciplinary nuances and deep library involvement.

Library education is up for major debate. The evolution of micro-credentials and new forms of skilling must focus on “snack packs” to upgrade our knowledge and build stronger partnerships with employers.

Finally linking up the GLAM sector to tackle fundamental policy issues – such as copyright – is essential

Would you mind saying a little more about your personal life – children, hobbies, etc.?

Life provides many challenges and the joy of my husband’s and my life are our two grandchildren, who are aged 2 and 7 – princesses with a lot of energy. Not to forget our three grown up children!  I am a keen quilter – every time I complete a quilt I swear not to buy more fabric as the stash is overtaking the spare room. My current project is a quilt for the youngest grandchild, which has an image from Totoro of May: Saski, Totoro and the two small animals are appliquéd in the middle.  And the garden and chickens are calling too!

[This interview was conducted by Linda Bennett, Gold Leaf]

Learning from Libraries, Libraries

Mrs Lee Cheng Ean: a profile

Gold Leaf

I first met Mrs Lee Cheng Ean in January 2013 at dual advisory board meetings which I facilitated in Shanghai and Beijing, but her reputation long preceded that.  She is extremely well-known in both the East and the West as one of the world’s most competent and inspired librarians.  I have since met her at least once each year, and sometimes several times; each time she has been unfailingly courteous and kind; and passionate about all aspects of librarianship.  Between our meetings, she never fails to offer help, advice and insight to research projects or respond when requested to supply information.  She is an important global influencer as well as an impeccable source of knowledge about all matters connected with librarianship.

As an advisory board member, she is an excellent contributor, always abreast of new developments in libraries globally and shrewd at seeing how they can be applied both at the National University of Singapore, of which she is the University Librarian, and more widely across S E Asia and by the other world-class universities in all parts of the globe with which she is in contact. 

In all her dealings, she never forgets that, first and foremost, her role is to support researchers, academics and students at NUS and to supply the ambience and materials that help them to achieve and even surpass their very best.  She is constantly aware of the pivotal role the Library plays in pushing out the boundaries of research; and she equally understands the importance of equipping tomorrow’s graduates with state-of-the-art scholarship to enable them to excel.

She is kind and encouraging both to librarians from other libraries (across many regions) and gracious but firmly professional in her dealings with publishers.  She wears her workload lightly, but it is evident that she must devote long hours to her job every day in order to achieve the fine results that she always produces.  She has a good sense of humour, but at the same time makes it clear that she will stand for no nonsense.  Her integrity shines out; she has no time for equivocation or false dealing.

Mrs Lee is a librarian at the top of her profession, one of a handful of truly outstanding librarians across the world who have changed the face of librarianship in the twenty-first century. She has achieved well-deserved acclaim both within her profession and outside it, in the wider communities of academia and publishing.

Linda Bennett, founder of Gold Leaf
Facilitator of several librarian advisory boards; industry researcher. 

Academic Publishing, Learning from Libraries, Libraries, Open Access

White Rose University Press: the Library as Publisher

Gold Leaf

Triggered in part by the Open Access movement and also by the desire of early-career researchers and students (undergraduates as well as postgraduates) to find reputable publishing outlets for their work, in recent years there has been a steep increase in the number of university libraries setting up or encouraging the foundation of presses for their own universities.  (In 2015-16, Gold Leaf conducted research to determine the feasibility of one such project, on behalf of the University of Manchester.)

Most of these presses support the publication of new journals. Less common, but also steadily increasing, are publishing projects started by university libraries for the creation of Open Access monographs.  White Rose University Press [WRUP], founded jointly by the libraries of the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York, publishes both journals and monographs.  WRUP was created to ensure academic quality, support Open Access and support innovation in publishing. It welcomes proposals across all disciplines and from across the academic community, not just from its host universities.

There are four live WRUP journals (JACHS, JESLA, UJPIR and BIOJ), with another on Contemporary Chinese Writing in development. Each journal has its own website, from which articles are available to access and download without charge. 

WRUP’s first monograph, Star Carr, published in two stunning volumes, was released in April 2018 and has now had more than 20,000 views/downloads.  Three more monographs have since been released with the most recent, Voices and Practices in Applied Linguistics, seeing nearly 1000 views/downloads since publication in Sept 2019. Further monographs have been commissioned, with three expected to be published in 2020.

Books are made available in a variety of e-formats, (HTML and downloadable PDF, ePUB and MOBI files). These are offered through the book listing page on the WRUP website, as well as via other content providers like JSTOR, and are free to access, download, etc. WRUP also offers print versions (via POD), so that for a modest fee people can obtain a hard copy of the book.  This means there is no embargo period; authors retain copyright; the Open Access version is the published Version of Record; charges apply: both APCs and BPCs; and, as WRUP is not-for-profit, the charges levied are enough to cover production costs only.

Sarah Thompson, Head of Content and Open Research at the University of York, was involved in early conversations about the possibility of establishing a shared university open access press and is also one of its board members.  She says that setting up and working with the Press has been very exciting and has involved a steep learning curve.  In common with more commercial publishers, WRUP has found that monograph publication schedules are hard to stick to.  Many academics have still to get to grips with the concept of Open Access and need support in navigating the choice of OA licences and in e.g. securing the right permissions for images. 

Sarah says: “White Rose University Press has been a very worthwhile enterprise.  We are fortunate in having been able to secure the support of our Vice-Chancellors and other senior administrators at the WRUP universities.  We were also lucky to be able to supply the relevant expertise in-house.  We are looking forward to continuing the White Rose University Press adventure in 2020.”

For more information about White Rose University Press, please go to https://universitypress.whiterose.ac.uk/

Sincere thanks to Sarah Thompson and Kate Petheridge, WRUP Manager, for providing the information for this article.

Sarah Thompson
Academic Publishing, Learning from Libraries, Libraries

Changing sides: From Publisher to Library

Gold Leaf

In the academic publishing world, every now and again you meet librarians who have moved across to work for a publisher, or vice versa. We wondered about their motivations and experiences, so we decided to talk to some of them.
Three weeks ago, we spoke to Tash Edmonds, who left her job as a librarian to join ProQuest. This week, we spoke to someone who used to work for Cambridge University Press and moved from the UK to Sweden to become a librarian.

Jonathan McCrow

  • Please give us your name and describe your role.

Jonathan McCrow
License Coordinator – Librarian
Licenssamordnare – Bibliotekarie
Stockholm University Library

  • What makes your library a special place to work?

At Stockholm University we all work in diverse working groups in order to meet the needs of our patrons and to support the university. My working group is the Licensing Group – looking after all e-resource acquisition and Open Access. I, fortunately, get to work within a small team of very experienced librarians with a wealth of knowledge for me to slowly steal, bit by bit.
Within the license group, we aim to meet our Media Plan strategy as best we can. A strategy that we treat as our standards guideline – laid out by the library director and steering committee. With a straight-forward strategy focussing on patron and usage-driven acquisition, we have a clear pathway and game plan as to how we will meet our users’ needs with regards to academic resources. This, of course, doesn’t fend off the usual challenges acquisition teams typically face – budget restraints, inflexible sales models, etc. – but it does give us reasoning and focus.

  • Why did you choose to become / what do you enjoy about being a librarian?

Brexit. If the UK had not voted for us to leave the European Union, then I would not have applied to Information Science MSc courses in Europe – wishing to squeeze in some last-minute free studying as an EU citizen. Without one thing leading to another, I would not have studied for a librarianship master’s degree and I would not have ended up in Stockholm, Sweden.
The work I now do as a librarian has been a true eye-opener. Although there were many practices on this side of the fence that I have always known about, it has been a joy to watch them in motion. With the knowledge and experience I garnered in Academic Publishing I now get to discuss the industry of academic research/publishing without any blinkers on – this is quite refreshing.

  • What was your responsibility when you worked in publishing?

During my years working in academic publishing, I have almost exclusively worked in e-resource sales. The years spent selling e-resources in the Nordics were a particular highlight for me, as I got to meet many nice librarians and visit many gorgeous libraries.
Following my years as a sales rep, I worked as the development manager for the journals team – sat in between the sales teams and the journals editorial teams. Half of my work was assisting sales teams globally with transitions to new sales models. The other half of my work was to assist the editorial teams with the management of the academic journals from a sales and financial point of view. With so much change going on, it was imperative the two teams had a bridging employee to direct conversations and link working practices together.
My work with journals was extensive – as was the sales work for ebooks, with a strong focus on Evidence-Based Acquisition. Working with a varied set of different tasks and slightly different fields of interest gave me a nice balance to keep me interested and on my toes.

  • How does your experience of working in publishing help you in your current role?

My years of following the journal editorial and production processes allowed me the good fortune of learning all the general intricacies of journal publishing, plus many irregular matters. Trying as we are to transition to a world of Open Access publishing, we in my working group are tasked with assisting researchers as they attempt to author their articles as Open Access. My previous experiences with journals publishing and knowledge of Open Access has given me a real boost in this field, allowing me to assist our authors as best I can.

  • How does the work as a librarian compare to what you used to do in a publishing company?

Working for an academic institution feels quite different from working for a commercial publisher. Not to suggest things are more relaxed working in a library, but there sure are fewer people rushing and whizzing around – darting from one meeting to the next. We are of course kept extremely busy, working within similar cycles as academic publishers and sales teams – tied almost strictly to the terms of the academic year. Even during the ‘quiet’ months over summer outside of the academic year, we still had plenty of work to do to prepare for the new term starting in September. I remember doing similar things and waiting for the new term to start when I was working for a publishing company – not much has changed in that respect.

  • What are the particular challenges you face as a librarian?

In very similar fashion to publishers, we on the library side have to keep ourselves up to date with so many different aspects of scholarly communications. It is not just Open Access – although this does top the bill. The management of our catalogues and acquisition portfolios really does keep us busy, as we are expected to keep abreast of model changes and the different approaches publishers have. More so when adjustments to how e-resources are offered changes in one way or another – especially when we are not informed until after the fact. When it comes to data and information sharing, we all need to make improvements and streamline our information channels.

  • Is there anything else you would like our readers to know (about yourself or your library)?

Librarians are cool. Never forget it. Librarians in Sweden more so than all the others – with all further librarians worldwide coming a close second.

Academic Publishing, Digital Publishing, Libraries

How to make your publications more discoverable: tips from Lone Ramy Katberg, Special Adviser to Aalborg University Library and the Royal Danish Library

Gold Leaf

In today’s academic library world, there are scores if not hundreds of companies offering every possible kind of solution for cataloguing, displaying and making the library’s holdings discoverable.  However, some of these are very expensive; and, as Lone Ramy Katberg, Special Adviser to Aalborg University Library and the Royal Danish Library points out, few will work unless publishers prepare carefully first.  Here are some tips from Lone on how to make publications more discoverable.  They are even more pertinent this week, which is Open Access Week.

Be distinctive 

Lone says it is a good idea to choose titles that stand out. Adopting the identical title other publishers have also used – e.g., Economics – will only work if the author is very famous in his or her discipline.  Subtitles are sometimes crucial: they are an easy way of directing content expectation. If the title covers some new or unusual ground, creating the right metadata becomes all-important.

Bibliographical descriptors must be accurate, but at the same time not “drown in detail”; e.g., Life in Cyberspace – is it about social media, cybercrime, psychology?

Think in buzzwords

Crafting the correct metadata to underpin a snazzy or challenging title is key. The short description or blurb, especially its first two lines, is also very important. There can’t be too many keywords listed, as long as they are a true reflection of the content.

My Google does not look like your Google

Google uses a lot of knowledge about the user individual when displaying search results.  This is information it derives from gmail, bookmarks and interactions.  Consequently, the list of articles a user gets from searches differs according to that user’s behaviour. The language used by the searcher also makes a huge difference to the search results. 

Google is easy, but is it enough?

Libraries have gone full circle in their approach to Google.  At first, librarians discouraged students and academics from using it; after some years, they realised that, in order to achieve maximum discoverability, their holdings had to appear on Google.  But is Google enough?  No, it is not… Google fathomed this quite early on and introduced Google Scholar to the market.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar was launched in 2004. If you feed “Dolly” into the Google search engine, you come up with information about a sheep and not a country-and-western singer: from the outset, academia was and still is its focus. But what is included in it and what is not is still a big issue.  It is by no means comprehensive.

Library systems and workflows

In an academic library setting there are two ways of being found.

  1. Via a link resolver which discovers via basic metadata – title, author and ISBN.
  2. By direct indexing, where you let your content be indexed by the provider.

If a publisher does not use link resolvers, although the publications may be indexed in Google Scholar, Web of Science, and so on, libraries can’t connect the reference to the content if no direct URL is provided. Addressing this issue is especially important for publishers wishing to make Open Access content discoverable, because otherwise libraries can’t switch on access and display the content as available.

Direct linking/indexing

There are several off-the-shelf discovery systems now available.  Each has its drawbacks: in some, the hierarchy of display order seems illogical, some are difficult for consortia to use, some seem to favour certain publishers over others.  In addition, these are add-ons and not necessarily an integrated part of the library system environment.  Nevertheless, unless publishers are brave enough and have sufficient resources to take on a great deal of discovery work themselves, working with third party discovery system providers may at present be the only practical way forward to maximise discovery.

Academic Publishing, Learning from Libraries, Libraries

Changing sides: From Library to Publisher

Gold Leaf

In the academic publishing world, every now and again you meet librarians who have moved across to work for a publisher, or vice versa. We wondered about their motivations and experiences, so we decided to talk to some of them.

Tash Edmonds

  • Please give us your name and describe your role.

Tash Edmonds, Senior Book Sales Specialist at ProQuest

My role involves working very closely with library teams to aid them with their collection and acquisitions strategies and key purchasing decisions for books, both print and electronic. This can range from helping support Print to E initiatives, reviewing procurement policies and implementing new acquisition models. I am expected to have a very high level of sector expertise and product knowledge and the skills to be able to ascertain what is the right solution for a specific library to help them achieve their departmental and institution-wide goals.

  • What makes your company a special place to work?

ProQuest take a very customer focused approach and that appealed greatly to me and is one of the reasons I have stayed for the past four years and am proud to work here. We do listen to the market and endeavour to be as responsive to change and innovative with our products, as much as our libraries require us to be.

On a personal level, I have always felt that every colleague, regardless of role or position within the company does have a voice and there are channels through which you can be heard to make suggestions and share ideas. That’s so important when working for a large organisation and is something that I believe is a core value at ProQuest and makes it a special place to work.

  • Why did you choose / what do you enjoy about working for a publishing company?

I was intrigued about the inner mechanics of an aggregator and how the relationship with libraries worked from their perspective. As a librarian in HE I saw so many changes in the sector in terms of content, platforms, licensing etc, some which I found positive, confusing and at times, downright irritating, and so I wanted to gain some insight into the rationale behind certain decisions.  My interest was with ebooks and the advantages that they can offer researchers and library users in terms of access and collaboration, and I liked the direction ProQuest was heading with their ebook platform.  I’m an inquisitive person so it did feel like being in The Wizard of Oz and seeing what was behind the curtain!

My biggest enjoyment is getting to work with my libraries and trying in some small way to help them with their day to day roles, as well as supporting them with larger initiatives and collection polices that they are working towards within their institutions. Librarians have a high level of expertise and tend to be very generous with sharing knowledge so I’m lucky to be able to learn a lot from them as well.

  • What was your responsibility when you worked in a library?

I was a member of the Acquisitions Team, starting off as a library assistant before becoming one of the team leaders. I worked on pretty much all aspects of Collections from managing access and resourcing material types for print and electronic journals and books, administering DDA programs and having responsibility for the accessible formats service which supported students with a variety of learning differences. I also was an active member of the library’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion group working on ways to make the collection and library space as inclusive as possible for all users. My commitment to equality led me to take part in the Race Equality Charter Award where I worked as a lead on the area of professional staff recruitment and progression.

  • How does your experience of working as a librarian help you in your current role?

I think it has been a huge help to me during the past four years and made the transition easier, as it was a sector, I was familiar with and there were many friendly faces that I had either worked with or knew from conferences and courses attended over the years.

On a day to day level I think being able to share my own library experiences such as restructures, moving collections from print to electronic, implementing shelf ready, managing a DDA or coping with a flood have hopefully been a benefit to the libraries I work with. My background really helps with my conversations and building close relationships as I can emphasise and share their pain when things don’t go to plan! Thankfully, I’m also able to draw on many successful projects I was able to work on during my time in libraries, share advice and offer support when required.

  • How does the work for a publishing company compare to what you used to do as a librarian?

Overall it is very different as each day tends to be very different to the next which is one of the best aspects of my role.  I travel quite a lot so there are certain periods of time where I am never in the office and I’m sure I can regularly be seen with my travel bag trying to get a train out of Paddington or Euston. The variety and autonomy are probably the two main differences from the work I did in libraries which tended to have more of a rigid structure. I do miss my old library team but I’m thankfully still in touch with a lot of them.

  • What are the particular challenges you face in your role?

I would say that I am by nature someone who likes to fix things and find answers to a problem or a conundrum (which probably explains why I became a librarian), so if I can’t find a speedy solution, I can become frustrated. I have however learned to accept that not all fixes are quick, and patience is required, but I believe that’s a useful life lesson to use outside of work as well as in it.

  • Is there anything else you would like our readers to know (about yourself or your company)?

ProQuest is a great company to work for and if you are a librarian looking to gain some insight into “the other side” so to speak, it offers so many career opportunities. There are a large group of librarians working throughout the company in a variety of roles so the probability of running into one is highly likely!

(Edit 7 November 2019: You may also be interested in our interview with Jonathan McCrow, whom we asked the same questions. He made the move the other way: he left his job with an Academic Publisher to become a Librarian)

Digital Publishing, Learning from Libraries, Libraries

Libraries Week – “Celebrating Libraries in a Digital World”

Gold Leaf

It is Libraries Week in the UK – a “celebration of […] the role of libraries in the digital world” (CILIP’s words).  CILIP is organising and coordinating a series of events to mark the occasion.

Libraries up and down the country are organising events and activities around the celebrations, and the hashtag #librariesweek is trending on Twitter this week. The role of public libraries in a digital world is one that seems to need a lot of PR. More and more libraries are being forced to close down or reduce their services: services which go much beyond the mere lending of books.

Libraries are hubs of information, learning and social interaction on multiple levels. They certainly still provide information and entertainment via books, but they also allow access to multimedia content and games; provide events and courses; and offer opportunities for different communities to get together. More and more libraries are being turned into “community hubs” by their local authorities.

The digital equation

In 1998, the UK Government introduced the People’s Network, which recognised the need for everyone to have access to computers (and ultimately the internet). £100 million of lottery funding was invested to create an IT-based public library network, an objective fulfilled in 2002. The project equipped all public libraries with hardware and software which they could make accessible to their users. Over the past 20 years, countless users have relied on these services in a world that has become more and more digital. This has meant that the more vulnerable members of our society – the elderly, unemployed and those who cannot afford to pay for IT equipment themselves – have been able to participate in the digital world, not only by using the libraries’ equipment, but also by being given support and help on how to make most of the opportunities that present themselves online. Many libraries report that although the borrowing of books is going down, footfall is increasing; they say they can never have too many IT workstations. This is demonstrated also by the increase in use of online resources such as E-Books, subscription websites and downloadable audiobooks. Public libraries therefore occupy a big role in a digital world!

Budget cuts and lack of resources have put this system under a lot of strain recent years: the money for the People’s Network has dried up at a time when the equipment held by the libraries is in desperate need of being replaced. More modern computers are needed, as well as faster software and the resources to train staff to keep abreast of new developments. Some library authorities (e.g., Cambridgeshire) have decided the only option is to charge the users of IT equipment.  This leaves those unable to pay in an impossible position: in a world where Universal Credit can only be applied for online, those who need it most are being denied the means to apply for it. In 2017 and 2018 Lorensberg’s, the online resource booking company, commissioned a series of case studies from Gold Leaf on this precise topic. 20 years after the launch of the People’s Network, we examined the current IT situation in public libraries and the challenges of digital resource provision they face. These case studies are available as freely downloadable E-Books: “Short Stories from the People’s Network” (2017) and “More Short Stories from the People’s Network” (2018).

Libraries have come a long way and have achieved so much – especially in providing digital inclusion, and we should not stop celebrating this at the end of this week!

Libraries, Services

The British Library: literally a national treasure

Gold Leaf

Today the British Library is housed in what from the outside is a very a non-descript building.  Resembling a giant warehouse, it stands on Euston Road in London next to St Pancras station, its much more imposing neighbour, and is a stone’s throw from both Euston and King’s Cross stations.  It therefore enjoys an ideal location in terms of accessibility.

Rather amazingly, the current building was opened twenty years ago last year: there are posters inside that celebrate this.  And, in contrast to its dull exterior, inside the building is magnificent.  A majestic staircase sweeps ever upwards (there is an escalator for the lazy or less fit), each floor an ingenious showcase to shelves full of books behind glass from George III’s peerless library. There are comfortable working areas on every floor, available to anyone who needs to nip in to find a place of work for a few minutes – or a few hours – before catching a train.  Often these are occupied by students – interestingly, mainly overseas students – are they more aware of this national resource than the home-grown variety?  There’s a restaurant, cafés and a shop; and everywhere it’s light and bright and warm, the antithesis to poky, stuffy and forbidding, facilitation of modern scholarship made vibrant. 

Beyond are the reading rooms.  Anyone who can provide the right credentials can get a reader’s card.  It does involve quite a lot of waiting about – and being turned away if you haven’t brought the right documents with you.  You need a passport and recent proof of your address on a utility bill or bank statement.  Security is tight – partly because St Pancras is viewed as a possible terrorist target – but the bag searches are quick and this care taken over readers’ safety is reassuring.  Once the reader’s card has been secured, it provides access to the reading rooms, accompanied by a wonderfully efficient book selection service.  Books may be ordered online in advance of turning up at the library, and they will be waiting for you when you arrive.

All this is free.  But for a payment of £80 a year, you can become a member of the British Library as well as a reader. This provides many benefits, including free access to the exhibitions for you and a friend, free access to up to four events per year and discounts on purchases from the shop, cafés and restaurant.  The current exhibition (it closes on Sunday) is Leonardo da Vinci: a Mind in Motion, and features a collection of Leonardo’s scientific writings, drawn from three major collections.  It is well worth a visit if you happen to be in London today or over the weekend.

Even if you are only an occasional visitor to London, you are likely to get your membership ‘moneysworth’ over the year.  More importantly, you will be supporting one of the world’s greatest libraries, a national treasure of which we can unequivocally be proud in these times of turmoil and political farce.  So this short post is meant as a little nudge: if you aren’t yet familiar with the British Library, and can make time for a visit – or go to its plainer but as a provider of scholarly resources equally munificent sister at Boston Spa – our betting is that your life will be enriched.