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Author Archives: Anne Powell
When marketing e-resources…
This post was written by Ruth Gibendi. Ruth is currently the Senior Librarian at Meru University College of Science and Technology, Kenya, a constituent college of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. She has shared her experience in marketing electronic resources and given us some excellent ‘top tips’. The information below is drawn from her own experience and similar experiences of colleagues at Strathmore University library.
Tagged Access, E-resources, Kenya, Marketing, Use
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As we approach the close of Open Access Week…
This week has been a very interesting as we hear the stories of how librarians (and in many cases students) have embraced Open Access Week. While I have not attended any events in person, I have been able to share in many — some supported through the INASP competition, others managed and financed entirely by the host libraries. A common theme and realisation coming out of the activities this year is around the increased visibility researchers get from publishing in Open Access journals and depositing their papers in repositories. There have also been many comments about the value of using OA articles and an increasing awareness that these are of a high quality as they have usually gone through stringent peer review processes.
Tagged Open access, Open Access Week
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Open Access Week — Day 2 at Lupane State University
Lupane State University was awarded one of the INASP Open Access Competition grants for their stakeholder meeting and workshop proposal. This aimed to bring together a range of stakeholders including librarians, researchers, academics and university administrators. This also aimed to create awareness of the importance of Open Access and highlight the need, importance and requirements of an institutional repository. Their Librarian, Sheila Ndlovu, shared this report of yesterday’s event. The Open access week continued today with a presentation highlighting the importance of Open Access. It was argued that OA is about unlocking doors to information and the removal of restrictive copyright laws to help build knowledge sharing communities. The speaker implored academics that support of OA requires global support for research and creativity which would aid in developing our nation socially, economically and politically thereby bridging the gap between developed and developing nations. He then chronicled the stages of OA from … Continue reading
Tagged Lupane State University, Open access, Open Access Week, Zimbabwe
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Open Access Week 2012
From 22-28 October, libraries throughout the world will be taking part in Open Access Week (OAW) activities. This week, we will feature a number of posts focused around this event. For the most part, these will be taken from the winners of the 2012 INASP/UNESCO OAW Competition. This is the third year the competition has run, providing institutions in developing countries small grants to supplement their Open Access (OA) activities. Over the years we have received a wide variety of proposals and this year was no different. Some of the applications have focused on raising awareness of OA sources, others on the value of contributing to OA repositories, but all have the potential to make a significant difference to their community and indicate institutional commitment to sustainability.
Tagged Competition, Grant, Open access
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Does usage of electronic resources by researchers plateau?
Several years ago I was discussing usage statistics with Ann Snoyenbos from ProjectMUSE during a break in a conference. We concluded that there would very likely come a point when usage (as measured by full text downloads) would plateau and we would no longer see increases in the number of documents being opened from any specific electronic resource. Would that reflect a situation where all researchers in the institution are fully aware of the resource and are using it in the most effective way to support their research?
Tagged E-resources, Monitoring, Statistics, Usage
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Spreadsheets – a waste of time or a means to an end?
I was one of a number of people in the room who sat up smartly when Ross MacIntyre opened his presentation at the 2012 UKSG conference by saying that spreadsheets are a waste of intellectual ability. Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) is crucial, and we need the appropriate information to inform and support our decisions, but this information is a means to an end and it is all too easy to get so involved in collecting and storing the information that we run out of time or energy to do anything with it. Librarians have moved beyond the point where just having the data is enough, we now see this a way to improving our library service. Time and effort needs to be focussed on interpretation and use, not downloading statistics and finding our own methods (usually in Excel) to produce comparable reports.
Tagged Evaluation, Monitoring, Spreadsheets, Statistics, UKSG, Usage
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