EBSCO has received multiple reports of customers unable to access their eBook collection. Their engineering teams are currently investigating the issue and we will update you when more information is available.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Webcast: Combating “Predatory” Publishers
SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, is a global coalition that advocates for open access, open data, and open education. They are hosting a webcast free for all individuals from SPARC member institutions (yes, Dalhousie is a member). Registration is required: https://sparcarldc.memberzone.com/eventregistration/register/25
Here is some information from SPARC about predatory publishers:
The problem of “predatory” publishers is often the first issue raised by faculty in conversations about Open Access. Authors (rightly) complain of being spammed with solicitations to publish in questionable journals. Attempts to combat the problem with “blacklists” and similar tactics have met with only limited success. However, there are emerging efforts to provide the community with reliable information on how to distinguish low-quality predatory publications from legitimate Open Access journals.
These efforts include work by the well-known Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), which has undergone a rigorous process of strengthening its criteria for inclusion in its index to ensure that those journals listed meet stringent editorial standards. At the same time, the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), the international trade association of Open Access publishers, is enforcing similar standards before a publisher qualifies for membership. A multi-lingual, cross-industry collaboration called “Think. Check. Submit.” has also been launched to provide a resource directly to authors to walk them through reviewing potential publishing venues and weed out predatory journal options.
Please join us on Thursday, March 1 at 3 p.m. for a SPARC webcast on community-based efforts to combat “predatory” publishing with representatives from these three initiatives. The discussion will focus on equipping librarians to address these quality concerns as they come up on campus.
Registration is free but required, and all individuals from SPARC member institutions are invited to attend. You can register by clicking here.
Upgrade Old Browsers to Access Taylor & Francis
Taylor & Francis Online will be upgrading the security settings on their platform beginning January 31st. If you use an older browser, specifically IE10 or earlier, you will receive an error message when trying to access the platform. Many other vendors are making similar changes so they can continue to offer a secure online experience.
If you do use an older browser, we encourage you to upgrade it now to continue to access our online resources seamlessly and securely. If you have any questions about how to upgrade your browser, please contact one of the IT Help Desks https://libraries.dal.ca/help/it-help-desk.html
Dalhousie Now a Member of SPARC: Open Access, Open Data, and Open Education
SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) is a global coalition that advocates for open access, open data, and open education. They are committed to making “Open” the default for research and education.
SPARC works to enable the open sharing of research outputs and educational materials with the goals of democratizing access to knowledge, accelerating discovery, and increasing the return on our investment in research and education.
How do they do this?
The Internet has changed the way we create and interact with knowledge. No longer do we have to be a world where knowledge is accessible by only the privileged few.
SPARC collaborates with stakeholders—authors, publishers, libraries, students, funders, policymakers and the public. As advocates, they build on the opportunities created by the Internet to promote changes to infrastructure and culture to make research and education Open.
With over a decade of experience and more than 200 members that are primarily academic and research libraries in the U.S. and Canada, SPARC members use its resources and support to promote Open Access to scholarly articles, the open sharing of research data, and the creation and adoption of Open Educational Resources on their campuses.
“Publishing models that restrict access to knowledge for the sake of profit limit everyone’s potential. Widespread adoption of SPARC’s Open Agenda will speed the pace of discovery, benefiting society in many ways, including medical breakthroughs, employment opportunities, and environmental solutions. As a research institution, Dalhousie has a responsibility to participate in this global movement,” said Donna Bourne-Tyson, University Librarian.
CARL’s Statement on Net Neutrality
Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers must treat all data on the Internet the same, and not discriminate or charge differently by user, content, website, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or method of communication.[4] For instance, under these principles, internet service providers are unable to intentionally block, slow down or charge money for specific websites and online content. (Wikipedia)
This is an important issue for Canadians and libraries. Recently, the Canadian Association of Research Libraries released a statement on net neutrality. Read it here: http://www.carl-abrc.ca/news/carl-statement-net-neutrality/
Shirreff Hall Library Collection
In the spring of 2017, the Dal Libraries began a collaboration with Ancillary Services to inventory and rearrange the Shirreff Hall Library collection. Two recent graduates of the NSCC Library Technician program, Guy LeLievre and Kendra Gauvin, performed the work. Guy and Kendra entered 1,560 titles in LibraryThing (an online service that allows anyone to create a catalogue of their books) arranged in the categories of fiction, non fiction, biography, and sets. The books in the library were also rearranged into these four categories. Staff at the Sexton Library did four boxes-worth of repairs to books. With contents of the existing collection known, purchase decisions about new acquisitions could then be made.
In the fall of 2017, four Faculty of Mangement SIM students, Rebekah Prette, Sarah Davis, Alicia Whidden, and Victoria Roberts, enrolled in Dr. Joylene Makani’s Information Resources Management Course created a collections policy for the Shirreff Hall Library. The policy outlines collection criteria, acquisitions, collection maintenance, and disaster planning, while remaining true to the mission and values of the Shirreff Hall Library. Rebekah, Sarah, Alicia and Victoria have volunteered to continue their collaboration with the Shirreff Hall Library in 2018, by identifying specific new purchases and updating the LibraryThing catalogue.
Managing Your Research Data
The Dalhousie Libraries would like to give researchers one less thing to worry about when it comes to your datasets — let us store it for you, locally. Dataverse, the Harvard-developed open-source data repository software, has come to Dalhousie.
“As researchers, we are increasingly called upon to share the data that underlies our research — or even to publish the data as a standalone product,” says Dr. Mike Smit, Acting Associate Dean Research and associate professor in the School of Information Management. “Having a Dal Dataverse ensures every Dal researcher in every field of study has a place to deposit their data, to describe and document it, and to share it with the world. Students graduate, projects end, researchers retire — a data repository is a way to ensure the data lives on.”
Hosted by the Dalhousie Libraries, this free service allows a researcher to create and manage their own account on the Dalhousie Dataverse and manage their own project files (dataverses within Dataverse) and datasets. “Dataverses are also the names of the individual containers that are set up in the space to hold datasets. A dataverse can be set up
for an individual researcher, project, lab or even entire department. The individual
dataverse contains datasets, which include the code, documentation, and metadata that goes along with your data,” explained Sarah Stevenson, Associate University Librarian Research Services and Head of Killam Library.
Why should I store my data in this repository?
Besides the obvious convenience of this service, there are other reasons to consider:
- Shareability and discoverability of your data (open access)
- Protect against data loss by depositing in Dataverse
- Currently, the Tri-agency Statement of Principles on Digital Data Management states that it is expected that grant-funded research data be stored on a publicly accessible repository
What if my data is not ready to be publicized yet?
You can still start using Dataverse now and keep your data private until you are ready to share it, by restricting the permissions on your data files. Dataverse has a User Guide that explains how to create an account, add datasets, manage permissions, adding terms and much more. In addition, you must adhere to the Dalhousie University Dataverse Account Terms of Use, which outlines responsibilities with respect to user submissions and more.
More information on this free service and related research data management (RDM) services offered by the Dalhousie Libraries is available here: http://dal.ca.libguides.com/rdm/daldataverse and here: https://libraries.dal.ca/services/data-management-services.html
Contact the Dal Libraries RDM team at data.managemet@dal.ca for more information, or get started using Dataverse: dataverse.library.dal.ca.
You can learn more about RDM on the Portage website https://portagenetwork.ca/resource-library/, a service provided by the Canadian Association of Research Libraries.
Ongoing Issues for Students Accessing Room Booking and Software Pages
Many students are currently unable to log in to the library study room booking system, roombooking.library.dal.ca, and also the library software download page, software.library.dal.ca. Students currently off-campus wanting to access journals and databases will also experience issues.
We are investigating this problem and apologize for the inconvenience.
UPDATE, 3:33 p.m.: This issue has been resolved. If you are still experiencing issues, go the Help Desk in person, or contact them at support@dal.ca or 494-HELP (4357), ext. 1.
Access Problems: Duke University Press Journals
Duke University Press journals moved to a new platform earlier this week and we have been experiencing intermittent access problems since the change. The publisher has been contacted and we hope to have access restored soon. We apologize for the disruption.
Project Euclid Glitches
The Project Euclid site came back online last night. Access has been restored; however, the access icons (green checkmarks and red padlocks) may not be displaying correctly. Despite the presence of a red padlock icon, your users can proceed to download the full-text PDFs of articles to which your institution has access.
The publisher apologizes for this confusing glitch and is working to display accurate icons as quickly as possible.