Monday, October 08, 2018

Digital Humanities: Implications for Librarians, Libraries, and Librarianship in Journal of College & Undergraduate Libraries #DH

Although it's been out for almost a year now, I'm excited to have read the DH-themed issue in College & Undergraduate Libraries.  Volume 24's Digital Humanities: Implications for Librarians, Libraries, and Librarianship is a special issue that reflects some of the current challenges that occupy librarians who are engaging the academic community in the digital humanities.  Some of the authors are familiar names and that's not surprising as many are at the top of their fields in DH.

In College & Undergraduate Libraries, this special issue has thirty articles on various topics that have been organized around six main themes: theoretical and critical issues, transforming traditional collections, models of collaboration, planning and project management, the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, and embedded librarian instruction.   I enjoyed all of these pieces and it is a reflection of the work that is emerging at the intersection of academic libraries and digital scholarship in the humanities and social sciences.   It's good timing as Megan Meredity-Lobay and my DH-themed issue in Digital Library Perspectives is coming out soon, too.  Stay tuned for more on that.  In the meantime, take a look at the following articles!
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Sunday, August 12, 2018

Open Access, APC's, and the Pop-Up Restaurant

Recently, a Canadian economics professor ventured into the dark world of predatory publishing and got punished by his university and is now banned and suspended without pay. What's an academic to do when all he's doing is exposing the "deceptive scholarship" of fellow academics (that happens to be from his own university) seeking to advance their careers whose articles have been published for a fee in suspicious and fraudulent journals?

Predatory journals claim to be refereed but in reality, they publish articles in exchange for the payment of fees by authors.  Even Jeffrey Beall, the librarian who first coined the term and highlighted the negative aspects of predatory journals with his now eponymous Beall's List taken down due to pressure from his own university.

To be clear, scholarly publishing is a high stakes business, with tenure and promotion, skyrocketing journal subscriptions, and shrinking college budgets solidly inter-woven. The solution (and problem) proposed by librarians and academics (and publishing companies albeit begrudgingly) is to "open" up research outputs distributed online for free of cost or other barriers now popularly known as open access in order to counter the inequitable and unsustainable practice of charging institutions for ever-increasing subscription prices on scholarship that should be for the public good.   Open access is important; but we must face the problems of its outgrowth.

The unintended consequence is that that other than self-archiving them in institutional repositories, open access journals often require article processing charges paid by authors or research sponsors -- the "Gold OA path".  This has a prevalent byproduct: the predatory publisher that takes advantage of the desperate researcher whose job prospects depend on how many articles get accepted and published in journals.  As more journals have jumped on board to go open access, even wealthy publishers have gotten into the game by offering open access.  By clinging their hopes in this broken scholarly ecosystem, the situation reminds me of the "pop-up" dinner phenomenon.  This happened at the turn of the century when dining out became so exorbitantly expensive that consumers wanted to find an alternative, more sustainable ecology of gourmet.    

Pop-up restaurants have been popular since the 2000's and such diners typically make use of social media to communicate to its audiences.   No doubt the hospitality business is lucrative as such pop-up restaurants has become effective methods for young professionals to gain exposure, seeking investors, and experimenting with new culinary concepts.  It has gotten so successful that Restaurant Day takes place worldwide with even traditional restaurants participating.  The problem is that there is high turnover, with the most successful pop-up operations burning brightly, then quietly and quickly disappearing to make room for something new.   Does this sound familiar?   

This is not to say that the pop-up is a failure, nor is it a perfect analogy of scholarly publishing, but there is a similarity with how much disruption is happening in a traditional business with a mad scramble by entrepreneurs (and both traditional and predatory publishers are certainly that) to take advantage of those hungry to eat and get published.   Though some academics ignore OA altogether as tenure requires publication in a "global brand" of an exclusive journal or press and go where the money is, those who choose to publish in OA tend to do so out of altruism or academic disciplines who aren't tied to a prestigious publication.    To be sure the big luxury brands will not disappear anytime soon, and there will always be those who prefer to the Michelin-star experience over the home-cooked potluck.  

So let's return to the economist Derek Pyne's current ethical dilemma of his research: reveal the complicity of institutions and be punished or stay silent and conform to the dubious cycle.  Of course, he chose the former, and though we don't know the full context of the case, what we do know now is that one researcher's findings has provoked enough impact for it to be designated as dangerous.


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Sunday, May 13, 2018

The Learning Gardens at the Chinese University of Hong Kong

During my sabbatical, Patrick Lo, Dickson Chiu, and I were fortunate to interview Louise Jones, the University Librarian of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) for an upcoming book project.  The Chinese University of Hong Kong Library is one of the leading research libraries in East Asia, and has a significant Special Collections ranging from Shang dynasty oracle bones to modern Chinese literary archives.  With ongoing digitization initiatives, the Library makes available over 5 million digital images/objects and making content openly accessible to the local and global research community.

While CUHK Library comprises seven libraries, I had the most fun with the tour of the Learning Garden, which is an inspirational space that has won awards.  The Learning Garden is combined effort of librarians, architects, and the university community.   As far back as 2014, when the Learning Garden first opened, it introduced 3D Printing and 3D Scanning services with the idea of bringing design concepts to life.  In inspiring students to explore new interests in design and helping them to bring their creations and design concepts to life, the library provides two desktop level of 3D printers, including the Structure Sensor and Next Engine 3D scanners.

Clearly, with the trend in academic libraries is the shifting relationship between space and collections, physical collections increasingly across academia are being moved to storage or lesser used facilities, freeing up of space for collaborative learning and study spaces.   With specific spaces opened for 24 hours a day during term time, how does the Learning Garden provides flexible seating and facilities to support teaching and learning activities.  In addition to face-to-face teaching, collaborative learning through discussion among peers to generate ideas is increasingly important; in addition, with the needs of group projects for coursework, a 24-hour library space is necessary for the needs of students, particularly those who live on campus.   On average, the Learning Garden has up to 300 patrons just after the library closes at 10.00pm.



How does the Learning Garden differ from the Research Commons in the University Library though?  Both the Learning Garden and Research Commons are open spaces for students, undergraduate graduate students.  While the same number of group study rooms are also available for bookings at Research Commons on the first floor of the University Library complex, the services arranged by the Research Commons librarian are specifically focused for graduate and postgraduate students as well as researchers; such services include research consultation services, research café events, thesis writing skills, authoring workshop, and citation management.  However, the services for Postgraduates are not restricted to the Research Commons area; for example, the Research Cafe (presentations by Ph.D. candidates) are held in a small open space on the ground floor of the library. Activities conducted in open spaces aim to cultivate a learning ambiance and scholarly exchange and dialogue between students and scholars.

What's interesting about the Learning Garden is the emphasis of short-term flexibility with such things as movable furniture and temporary wall partitions.  The Learning Garden is an open plan design, uniquely with no temporary wall partitions; thus, its events are conducted in an entirely open setting. As its name conveys as a "garden," patrons can find their own favourite spot for individual study, for chatting, for relaxation in the refreshment zone, having group discussions or joining a talk in the Open Forum. Except for the bubble group study room, all of these activities co-exist in the Learning Garden in a harmonious, collaborative manner. The Learning Path is designed as two 50 meters long desks and S-shape curve creates natural bays for groups to study together or individual. For flexibility, the designer architect selected more light-weighted and robust furniture for students to freely move and group various tables together to fit their purpose of learning.  Smart whiteboards are movable as well.

The library is an important selling point for the university, and the Learning Garden has fast become the major attraction to University guests, students and visiting scholars.  As a building, it has won several awards.  The large whiteboard are full of students’ comments, drawing, traces of idea exchange and even poems, the students have indeed made the place their home and welcoming in their own way.  Here's the past UL Colin Storey's recap of how it all started in 2012.  


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