UPDATE: Access restored (11:49 a.m. on Thursday, November 7)
Wiley Online Library is currently experiencing network problems and is therefore unavailable. Their technical team is working to restore access as a matter of urgency. We will post an update when access has been restored.
They apologize for the inconvenience this causes their users.
Members of the Dalhousie Libraries Health & wellness team accept the Healthy Workplace Award on behalf of the Dal Libraries. From l to r: Carolene Robertson (Sexton Library), Carol Richardson (Killam Library), Angela Hersey (Kellogg Library), Sandra Dwyer (Dal Libraries), Dr. Richard Florizone, Alice Stover (Killam Library), Kellie Hawley (Killam Library), Anne-Marie White (Dunn Law Library). Not pictured: Verna Mingo (MacRae Library)
Update, April 4, 2014: The Dalhousie Libraries now have the trophy on display in the administration office of the Killam Library. Facilities Management, who we shared this award with, had the trophy for the first half of the year.
The Dalhousie Libraries are this year’s winner of the Healthy Workplace Award! We are sharing this honour with Facilities Management.
The Libraries’ Health & Wellness Committee nominated the Dalhousie Libraries for this award based on the libraries’ staff participation in various health and wellness initiatives, including initiatives of the libraries’ committee and larger Dalhousie initiatives.
A truly healthy workplace involves the six dimensions of wellness: physical, emotional, intellectual, interpersonal/social, spiritual, and environmental. This includes taking part in events like Pink Day and the Pride Parade.
Staff from the Dal Libraries with Dalhousie’s new President and his family. From left to right: Stephen Murray (Sir James Dunn Law Library), Marlo MacKay (Dal Libraries), Judy MacDonald (Hardware Services, Killam Library), Cindy Miller (W. K. Kellogg Health Sciences Library), Dr. Richard Florizone, daughters Elinor and Zoë, his wife Dr. Mona Holmlund, and Sandra Dwyer (Dal Libraries).
Image source: FreeDigitalPhotos.net
“Carpet of Poppies” by Tina Phillips
All of our libraries have decided to open after 11 a.m. on Remembrance Day, Monday, November 11. The eleventh hour on Remembrance Day is significant because it is the time Canadians are asked to pause in memory of the thousands of men and women who sacrificed their lives in military service. There are also many Remembrance Day services happening around HRM at 11 a.m., and by delaying our opening time we hope more people will be available to attend these services.
From Today @ Dal: 11 ways to remember on November 11
Changing our hours to open after 11 a.m. was a recent decision, so please see the hours of the libraries below. Please note, no hours have been lost as a result of this change, each library is still scheduled to be open for same amount of hours, we’ve just delayed opening by an hour or two in some cases. We’ll be open later into the evening to make up for the change.
The Remembrance Day hours for the Dalhousie Libraries are as follows:
Sir James Dunn Law Library: Noon-10:45 p.m.
W. K. Kellogg Health Sciences Library: Noon-8 p.m.
Killam Memorial Library: 1-9 p.m.
MacRae Library: 1-10:30 p.m.
Sexton Design & Technology Library: 1-9 p.m.
Food Services Hours in the Killam atrium from Friday, November 8-Tuesday, November 12:
click to enlarge
Over the past few weeks, students and faculty have provided a lot of valuable feedback regarding library cuts. We appreciate your concerns, and we understand the important role that the Dal Libraries plays in your academic work.
To recap, this is the current situation: The acquisitions budget has sustained a 1% cut this year. In addition to the cut, external factors have put additional pressures on the acquisitions budget, making the cut feel larger. The cost of electronic resources is inflating at a rate of 4-8% annually and many of the resources are purchased in American funds, resulting in an unfavourable exchange rate on the US dollar.
Yesterday, Dr. Carolyn Watters, Vice-President Academic and Provost of Dalhousie, announced the University will provide funds to cover the urgent shortfall this year and that they will work with the Library to review the acquisitions budget to ensure that it is sustainable over the longer term. This funding will help to ensure all course-related and student research-related library needs are being met.
Here is the memo:
MEMORANDUM
To: The Dalhousie University community
From: Carolyn Watters, Vice-President Academic and Provost
Date: October 28, 2013
Re: Dalhousie Library budget
I am writing to update you on the Dalhousie Library’s budget situation, of which there has been some significant discussion recently among both students and faculty.
The University Library has a $5.7 million acquisitions budget. The purchasing power of the acquisitions budget has been reduced this year due to a combination of factors: the decrease in the value of the Canadian dollar, inflationary costs and a one per cent budget cut. Because of this, the acquisitions budget has ended up in shortfall.
The University will provide funds to cover the urgent shortfall this year. At the same time, we will work with the Library to review the acquisitions budget to ensure that it is sustainable over the longer term.
Carolyn Watters
Vice-President Academic and Provost
How important to you is the future of libraries and archives? You are invited to join a discussion on Friday, November 8 from 2-4 p.m. in University Hall, in the MacDonald Building.
This event is sponsored by the Royal Society of Canada. Join the conversation! RSVP to janice.slauenwhite@dal.ca
Most scholars want their research to make an impact with both their peer group and beyond. For authors who publish in open access journals, there are many complementary social media tools that can help promote their scholarship. Dr Melissa Terras discovered that blogging and tweeting about a paper resulted in a dramatic increase in readership. To read more, see Dr Melissa Terras: open access and the Twitter effect.
Subject-specific open access repositories continue to grow. Physicists have been depositing their work in arXiv for more than two decades with nearly 880,000 papers uploaded. In fields such as particle physics, nearly 100% of the content is now openly accessible. Social Science Research Network (SSRN) now holds more than 400,000 items, and PubMed Central, the medical research repository, now holds 2.8 million items. The WAC Clearinghouse has thrived for more than twenty years and publishes journals, books, and other content to support teachers who teach writing.
The Public Library of Science (PLoS), founded nearly a decade ago, established a new and successful business model. All the papers appear online and are free to read and share with the costs of running the journals covered by author fees. PLoS One, an entirely web-based journal, launched in 2006, is now the largest journal in the world and publishes 23,000 articles a year.
There has been some misunderstanding of our initial attempts to communicate the recent cuts to the library budget, which has resulted in the misperception that the Dal Libraries will be not be purchasing any new materials this year.
To be clear – in spite of the planned 1% cut to the acquisitions budget we plan to spend $5,741,510 on new acquisitions this year and we will continue to invest in our collection next year. It is true that some lines in the acquisitions budget have already been spent out for this year, but that is because we have already purchased access to 84,000 e-journals, approximately 1,000 print and e-books, and more than 50 materials in other formats, such as DVDs, maps, etc.
For context, this year, a cut of 3.5% was made to all departments at Dalhousie, including the Dal Libraries. The cuts made are reflective of our reduced provincial governmental funding. In addition to the 3.5% cut to the Dal Libraries’ operating budget, there was a 1% cut made to the acquisitions budget, a budget that had been protected from cuts in the past. Students and faculty are understandably concerned about the scope of the cuts to the acquisitions budget, and we appreciate their concern.
In addition to the 1% cut, there are some external factors putting additional pressures on the acquisitions budget, making the cut feel larger. The cost of electronic resources is inflating at a rate of 4-8% annually and many of the resources are purchased in American funds, resulting in an unfavourable exchange rate on the US dollar. A number of database and e-journal subscriptions had to be cancelled as a result of these factors.
It is reassuring to know that the library has many supporters across Dalhousie and we will continue to serve your academic needs. We are committed to providing the very best library service through our collections, spaces, technology, and personnel.
There are eight quiet study spaces on the fourth floor of the Killam Library. We first opened these study spaces in April, when we removed the doors from some former office space to turn them into study spaces.
The rooms are found off the atrium hallway, on the LeMarchant Street side of the building (east side). Most of the rooms contain a couple of chairs, a desk-height counter top, an Ethernet cable and an electrical outlet. These spaces are available on a first-come, first-served basis. The rooms can comfortably accommodate up two or three people.
Quiet conversation is permitted in the rooms. Please respect those working quietly around you.
Please do not leave valuables in the rooms and please remember to properly dispose of your recyclables and organics when leaving the space.
Happy studying!
Open Access mandates are on the rise. This means that some institutions and funding agencies are implementing policies that require researchers to make their work available in a publicly accessible and free repository. Why are these mandates on the rise? Because in a non-open access model, taxpayers are paying to read the results of research they have already funded.
In 2008, faculty at Harvard voted 100% in favour to make their work openly accessible through the Harvard institutional repository. The University of California adopted a similar mandate in July 2013.
In Canada, many funding agencies are implementing open access policies. This fall, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Council (NSERC) will consult with researchers about a harmonized tri-agency open access policy.
The draft policy was released for comment earlier this week and is based on the CIHR policy. The proposed policy applies to journal articles and requires researchers to publish their articles in journals that offer either immediate open access or access on the publisher’s website within 12 months of publication. A second option that doesn’t rely on publishers’ websites is proposed and will require researchers to place their peer-reviewed manuscript in an open access repository such as DalSpace.
Not sure what your agency’s policy is? Check it in Sherpa Juliet
Not sure what publishers’ requirements are? Check it in Sherpa Romeo
