helibtech

News archive

See below for details of previous news stories covered in HELibTech:

2023

Project Reshare and OpenRS: differing approaches to open source resource sharing. Library Technology Newsletter [December 2023] by Marshall Breeding.

OpenRS separates from Project ReShare

In recent months, a schism has erupted in the open source resource sharing realm. Two open source resource sharing projects that previously resided within a single organization have separated, due not only to the differing functional models of their products, but also because of differences in styles of collaboration.The DCB project stakeholders chose to separate from ReShare and to launch a new initiative now known as the Open Resource Sharing Coalitionopens new tab, or OpenRS. EBSCO, Knowledge Integration, MOBIUS, MCLS, and Marmot each withdrew from Project ReShare and are now aligned with OpenRS. This new organization is developing new resource sharing solutions based on FOLIO technology and designed for unmediated patron borrowing requests and fulfillment.

OpenRS, was launched in 2023 as a new initiative to develop, support, and promote a new open source direct consortial borrowing solution. Though a relatively new project, OpenRS moves forward with a well defined development agenda, backed by two commercial vendors, EBSCO Information Services and Knowledge Integration, with substantial involvement of MOBIUS as its first planned implementor. GALILEO and other consortia participating in the coalition have also announced intentions to implement OpenRS. In addition to direct consortial borrowing, the OpenRS development roadmap also includes controlled digital lending and interlibrary loan integrations, which is supported in its current codebase.

Subject: interlending; resource sharing

If we don’t make textbooks cheaper, students will just rely on chatbots
Academics could cooperate to decommercialise publishing so that all students have affordable access to reliable information, says Michael Wynn-Williams. Times Higher Education. October 25, 2023
I“t will probably be down to academics to cut the publishers out of the picture. But that isn’t easy. My own experience of doing so may serve to highlight the opportunities – and the opportunity costs.Having long been troubled by the pricing of my own international business textbook and the understandably low purchase rate, I was glad to be able to reclaim its copyright recently. My plan was to republish it with a certain well-known online retailer so that students could buy it for the price of a coffee and a muffin.”

Subject: learning & teaching; etextbooks

Ex Libris Leganto has launched a new user interface (UI) for its platform.

Ex Libris Press Release, August 2023: This development marks a significant shift in optimizing the experience within the learning management system (LMS) environment.With the latest UI overhaul, Leganto, list management system has strategically focused on catering to the unique expectations and requirements of instructors and students accessing Leganto from within their courses in the LMS.

Subject: learning & teaching; reading & resource lists

ClarivatepartnerswithA121Labs
In June 2023–ClarivatePlcannounced‘astrategicpartnershipwithAI21 Labs, a pioneer in generative artificial intelligence (AI). The collaboration will integrate large language models into solutions from Clarivate, to enable intuitive academic conversational search and discovery, specifically designed to foster researcher excellence and drive success for researchers and students, while adhering to core academic principles and values..Clarivate [Press Release]. 23 June 2023

Subject: Artificial Intelligence

29th March 2023. Controlled Digital Lending Takes a Blow in Court. By Todd A Carpenter. Scholarly Kitchen [blog]

“oral arguments were heard in the summary judgment phase of the lawsuit brought by four commercial publishers against the Internet Archive (IA) for its National Emergency Library digital lending program. In prompt fashion, Federal Judge John Koeltl ruled on the motions for summary judgement only five days later. The resulting opinion was a stern rebuke of the Internet Archive and a significant victory for the four publishers.Controlled digital lending (CDL) is really at the heart of this suit.”

Subject: interlending; controlled digital lending

Solus introduce an App for academic libraries

From the website: 14 March 2023. At SOLUS we are well known for our mobile app in public libraries and our newly introduced events and room booking platform. We are now entering the US academic market with our debut at the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) conference in Pittsburgh in 15th – 17th March. SOLUS currently has approximately 20 academic customers with our mobile app in Australia, UK and USA and are now more than ready for expansion.The academic library app features include:

• Integration with 15 ILS/LSP platforms
• Authentication options include Shibboleth, CAS, SAML and Azure Active Directory
• Format roll-up, FRBR-ized display of available resources
• Push, emergency and event notifications to students, faculty and admin
• RFID and barcode self-check out/in
• Consortia support
• 30 languages with new support for right to left languages (Arabic, Hebrew & Urdu)
• Reading and wish list functionality
• Virtual and on-campus events
• Events integration directly into the app (register/cancel reminder notifications, history, etc.)

Subject: mobile apps; library systems

Springshare is excited to announce the new LibAnswers Chatbot functionality

Press Release: February 15, 2023. “Springshare is excited to announce the new LibAnswers Chatbot functionality, launching next week with general availability to all worldwide customers by the end of February. LibAnswers Chatbot can serve as the first point of contact for chat patrons, guiding them through search options, assisting with finding common FAQs and general library information, and passing them off to live chat operators whenever needed. Chatbot functionality combined with 24/7/365 Chat Cooperative Coverage gives patrons an option for self-service while providing on-demand live help whenever they need it – at any time of day or night”.

Subject: enquiry management; chatbots

2022

The State of Ebooks in Academic Libraries: 2022 (US report). How libraries are continuing the pivot toward a growing array of digital resources. A survey and analysis that examines the current environment of ebooks in academic libraries and updates data collected in 2020. OverDrive Academic and Choice (a publishing unit of the Association of College and Research Libraries) 2023

Key Findings
• The vast majority of academic libraries currently include ebooks and digital audiobooks in their collections.
• While curriculum support continues to be the dominant element in ebook collection development, survey results indicate that non-curriculum-based ebooks are a growing portion of academic library digital collections.
• Ebook purchasing in almost all subject areas is up, with a noticeable jump in popular fiction/nonfiction reading materials.
• Despite the budgetary challenges and service/ material cuts of the past two years, a surprising majority of college and university libraries added digital resources to their collections including, most notably, ebooks and streaming media.
• While the desire to serve and accommodate the needs of students is a primary factor in determining institutions’ distance learning approach, COVID remains an influential outside determinant. However, such initially pandemic-driven remote learning efforts are gradually shifting to support new academic initiatives.

Subject: learning & teaching; etextbooks

How the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated an e-book crisis and the #ebooksos campaign for reform.

Anderson, Y. and McCauley, C. Insights, 35, p.13. 27 Jul 2022, DOI: http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.586

“This article sets out the problems with the e-book market and the origins and work to date of #ebooksos, a librarian-led campaign for a fairer e-book market for libraries. While many of the issues identified predated the Covid-19 pandemic, the rapid pivot to remote teaching and learning and the subsequent change in working cultures it precipitated brought these issues to a head. The article is primarily about the academic context as the authors are academic librarians, but the e-book library crisis applies to all sectors and the #ebooksos campaign aims to represent them all. While it is recognized that change will take time, as with related change in areas such as open access and the movement of journals from print to online, this underlines, rather than diminishes, the need for the campaign to keep highlighting the problems and to work with colleagues and stakeholders to deliver an approach to e-books that is equitable and sustainable. The #ebooksos campaign is in its infancy and thus this article presents a snapshot of a work in progress at the vanguard of librarianship and information work”.

Subject: learning & teaching; etextbooks

Is there a systemic problem with ebooks?

James Gray. Research Information. 23 May 2022.

From the article: “The main concern librarians share with me is that buying a set number of eTextbook licenses, restricted to a single person, that expire after a year, is a lot more expensive than buying paper copies that can be re-used on a bookshelf. Similarly, students don’t always understand some of the restrictions on digital content, considering digital, by its very nature, as synonymous with quick and easy access. Students expect seamless online access to their course content that is both fair and affordable – and, ideally, free.Meanwhile, the primary issue for academic publishers is they can only continue to exist if they find a way to sell their intellectual property digitally for a price that covers their costs”.

Subject: learning & teaching; etextbooks

The academic e-Book Market in Higher Education: the Good, the Bad, and the Confusing. Gavin Phillips. Southern Universities Purchasing Consortium (SUPC). [Blog] January 2022
“The academic e-book market was complex and thorny long before COVID-19, but the severe disruption to education around the world has exacerbated issues around pricing and, access to teaching and learning resources. Here, SUPC Category Manager for Academic Services, Gavin Phillips, explores the positives, negatives and opportunities within the e-book market and offers some suggestions for universities looking to deliver value to students.”

Subject: learning & teaching; etextbooks

2021

Where next for the e-textbook market?

Price rises, changes in models, changes in student demand - the textbook market is still not working well. James Gray, Libby Homer, and Rod Bristow ask what will come next. Wonkhe 6 December 2021
[NOTE: This article was published in association with Kortext. The authors of this piece spoke at at Kortext’s “Winter Webinar” on 8 December.]

Extracts from the article:

James Gray, Kortext: There’s broad agreement that the current digital textbook market is not working. It’s impossible to argue that huge price increases or multiple subscriptions are sustainable, or that models of procurement and collection development designed in a hard copy world will work when more and more libraries are moving to digital first strategies.

Libby Homer, Anglia Ruskin University: And longer term there are more ambitious ideas in play. Driven in part by open access mandates around monographs, university presses are once again becoming major players – many providers are now publishing their own textbooks, and some of these are open access. This has also sparked conversations with academics – the people who write textbooks – about different approaches to their rights as authors.

Rod Bristow, formerly of Pearson: At the same time, many students will continue to take control of their own learning and continue to buy resources they need to support it, themselves. The more that can be provided centrally the better, but I think student purchase will always be a part of the model, even alongside provider-level deals on e-resources.

Subject: learning & teaching; etextbooks

Controlled Digital Lending to Play a Larger Role in Ex Libris Products. Ex Libris Press Release 19 August 2021

Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, is happy to announce the development of new functions that will increase the compatibility of the company’s library software solutions with controlled digital lending. Controlled digital lending (CDL) is a practice that enables libraries to lend a digital copy of a physical resource in a “lend like print” manner—that is, in the same way in which they lend the physical resource itself.

The Controlled Digital Lending by Libraries group has defined three “core principles” of CDL: “A library must own a legal copy of the physical book, either by purchase or gift; the library must maintain an ‘owned to loaned’ ratio, simultaneously lending no more copies than it legally owns; the library must use technical measures to ensure that the digital file cannot be copied or redistributed”.

Subject: resource sharing & interlending; controlled digital lending (CDL)

IFLA releases a statement on Controlled Digital Lending.16 June 2021

From the statement: “Controlled Digital Lending can represent an important tool for libraries. IFLA therefore supports this, underlining its ability to offer libraries the freedom to provide access to their collections, both during the pandemic and beyond. To achieve this, IFLA argues that all countries should recognise the possibility for libraries to lend works, that laws should be adapted to the digital environment so that libraries can continue their mission to provide access to information and knowledge in the modern age, and that the combination of exceptions – for example to digitise and lend – should not be restricted unnecessarily.”

Subject: resource sharing & interlending; controlled digital lending (CDL)

EBSCO Information Services to Support Resource Sharing and Development of Controlled Digital Lending in FOLIO Ebsco Press Release 15 June 2021“Ebsco Information Services (EBSCO) is increasing its development commitment to Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) and resource sharing on the FOLIO Library Services Platform (LSP). Collaborating with Knowledge Integration (K-Int), EBSCO will advance the development of these solutions for libraries worldwide.”

Subject: resource sharing & interlending; controlled digital lending (CDL)

'Price gouging from Covid': student ebooks costing up to 500% more than in print, Fazackerley, A. (2021), The Guardian. 29.1.21

Guardian story on price increases in etextbooks and feature on the ebooks SOS campaign

Subject: learning & teaching; etextbooks

2020

Loughborough University's Institutional Repository migration to Figshare. Case study (November 2020)

Loughborough University implemented and configured Figshare to be used as a data repository in 2014. In 2018, work began to restructure the data repository to be used as an all-in-one multidisciplinary institutional repository that included a wide range of research outputs types including data, journal papers, theses and media. This required a collaborative rethink of the Figshare group structure, metadata, and ingest workflows, as well as a revised integration with LUPIN (Loughborough’s instance of Symplectic Elements) and a migration of records from their existing DSpace repository into Figshare

“The metadata component of the migration was probably the most complex and lengthy task of the project”

Subject: research systems; research data management (RDM)