Enhancing Access to Rare Journals: Cover Images and Contents in the Online Catalog

Abstract

At the University of Colorado at Boulder University Libraries, the Special Collections and Cataloging and Metadata Services Departments have been testing Innovative Interfaces' Millennium Media. In a recent project, librarians and staff digitized cover images and tables of contents for issues of selected journals from the Tippit Collection and linked the digitized enhancements to the catalog records for the associated titles. This article reviews the steps involved with the project, shows the results, and describes where this now ongoing effort will fit in the workflow of the departments involved.     

TEEAL and AGORA: Improving Access to Agricultural Journals in Low-Income Countries

The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library (TEEAL) and Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA) are programs that will provide low-income countries with access to agricultural journal literature that advances their agricultural research and education objectives. Developed by Cornell University's Mann Library and launched in 1999, TEEAL is a self-contained agricultural research library with full-text articles and graphics of 140 major journals related to agriculture from 1993 through 2003, stored and indexed on over 400 CD-ROMs. In mid-2005, most of the collection also became available for use over local area networks. Launched in October 2003, AGORA is an Internet-based journal delivery system led by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), with Mann Library as a principal partner. AGORA offers almost 800 journals from twenty-seven international publishers to 113 low-income countries and territories for free or a nominal fee.     

Electronic Access to Agricultural Journals: An Agronomy Case Study

Abstract

This study examines the electronic availability of agronomy journals at eight ARL (Association of Research Libraries) member institutions with doctoral programs in agronomy. Of the forty-seven journals examined, twelve were not available electronically at any of the institutions. On average, institutions provided access to thirty of the titles, with twenty-seven of these being unembargoed. In terms of depth of access, much of the older literature which is important to the agricultural sciences was not available electronically. Librarians can use these results to communicate to researchers the importance of not relying solely on electronically available research materials.     

The Access/Impact Problem and the Green and Gold Roads to Open Access: An Update

The research access/impact problem arises because journal articles are not accessible to all of their would-be users; hence, they are losing potential research impact. The solution is to make all articles open access (OA, i.e., accessible online, free for all). OA articles have significantly higher citation impact than non-OA articles. There are two roads to OA: the “golden” road (publish your article in an OA journal) and the “green” road (publish your article in a non-OA journal but also self-archive it in an OA archive). About 10% of journals are gold, but over 90% are already green (i.e., they have given their authors the green light to self-archive); yet only about 10–20% of articles have been self-archived. To reach 100% OA, self-archiving needs to be mandated by researchers’ employers and funders, as they are now increasingly beginning to do.     

The Access/Impact Problem and the Green and Gold Roads to Open Access

Abstract

The research access/impact problem arises because journal articles are not accessible to all of their would-be users; hence, they are losing potential research impact. The solution is to make all articles Open Access (OA; i.e., accessible online, free for all). OA articles have significantly higher citation impact than non-OA articles. There are two roads to OA: the “golden” road (publish your article in an OA journal) and the “green” road (publish your article in a non-OA journal but also self-archive it in an OA archive). Only 5% of journals are gold, but over 90% are already green (i.e., they have given their authors the green light to self-archive); yet only about 10–20% of articles have been self-archived. To reach 100% OA, self-archiving needs to be mandated by researchers' employers and funders, as the United Kingdom and the United States have recently recommended, and universities need to implement that mandate.     

The Access/Impact Problem and the Green and Gold Roads to Open Access

The research access/impact problem arises because journal articles are not accessible to all of their would-be users; hence, they are losing potential research impact. The solution is to make all articles Open Access (OA; i.e., accessible online, free for all). OA articles have significantly higher citation impact than non-OA articles. There are two roads to OA: the “golden” road (publish your article in an OA journal) and the “green” road (publish your article in a non-OA journal but also self-archive it in an OA archive). Only 5% of journals are gold, but over 90% are already green (i.e., they have given their authors the green light to self-archive); yet only about 10–20% of articles have been self-archived. To reach 100% OA, self-archiving needs to be mandated by researchers' employers and funders, as the United Kingdom and the United States have recently recommended, and universities need to implement that mandate.     

Electronic Journals: Cataloging and Management Practices in Academic Libraries

The growth and availability of electronic journals offer libraries the opportunity to provide end users with quick and easy access to more journals than ever before, thereby creating a complex new workload in academic libraries. Libraries have addressed the evolving challenges unique to electronic resources by creating new policies and workflows and dedicating staff to work on the processes, despite the lack of best practices. In the fall of 2009, a survey was distributed to ninety-five libraries at peer institutions to gather information about their policies and practices for cataloging and managing electronic journals in order to gauge the current status of electronic journal management among these peer institutions. This paper reports on the survey findings related to cataloging approach, sources for bibliographic records, methods for identifying problems, and the staff and staff hours dedicated to electronic journals.     

教育公平与收入公平：1994—2007年数据实证分析

收入分配问题是一个重要的经济问题,在研究收入分配不公平的成因时国内外学者普遍认为教育与人力资本对收入分配有重要影响.教育基尼系数通常用于测度教育不公平程度,中国的不同级别教育公平程度与地区教育公平程度有较大的一致性.利用1994-2007年中国教育基尼系数与收入分配系数以及其他相关指标,构造计量模型,在比较影响收入分配差距的各因素中发现教育基尼系数与收入分配基尼系数具有显著的正相关性,这一特征为和谐社会建设中加大对农村地区基础教育投入增加了理论依据,具有重要的实践意义.而实证与现实的矛盾更深层次地揭示了中国教育投入及回报不公平是影响当前收入分配不公平的重要因素.     

From Amazon to Apple: Modeling Online Retail Sales,Purchase Incidence,and Visit Behavior

In this study, we propose a multivariate stochastic model for Web site visit duration, page views, purchase incidence, and the sale amount for online retailers. The model is constructed by composition from carefully selected distributions and involves copula components. It allows for the strong nonlinear relationships between the sales and visit variables to be explored in detail, and can be used to construct sales predictions. The model is readily estimated using maximum likelihood, making it an attractive choice in practice given the large sample sizes that are commonplace in online retail studies. We examine a number of top-ranked U.S. online retailers, and find that the visit duration and the number of pages viewed are both related to sales, but in very different ways for different products. Using Bayesian methodology, we show how the model can be extended to a finite mixture model to account for consumer heterogeneity via latent household segmentation. The model can also be adjusted to accommodate a more accurate analysis of online retailers like apple.com that sell products at a very limited number of price points. In a validation study across a range of different Web sites, we find that the purchase incidence and sales amount are both forecast more accurately using our model, when compared to regression, probit regression, a popular data-mining method, and a survival model employed previously in an online retail study. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.     

Dispersing the Serials Collection and Measuring Paper: Cooperative Storage Efforts and Legacy Journals Management in a University Library

This article discusses workflows involved with contributing print journal back runs to scanning and storage efforts. The purpose of these efforts was to alleviate space problems in a library by consolidating stacks that were formerly used to house runs of bound journals. This article contributes to the literature on serials withdrawal projects by demonstrating database designs for tracking contributions made to cooperative storage facilities as well as highlighting an innovative solution for tracking the required linear feet for housing bound print collections.     

Coping with Hobgoblins: Rethinking Journals Processing in the E-Journals Environment at the University of South Florida

Many libraries grapple with how to develop new skills for processing electronic journals, while still handling the print format. Journals in a print format have always been complex, and adding the electronic component has made them more so. Few libraries are increasing staff to handle this workload. The University of South Florida Tampa Library has tried a number of workflow changes - not always successfully - to handle this transition. This paper will explore these changes, explain why some were not successful and why others have resulted in efficiencies, and will conclude with lessons learned that could benefit others.     

网上调查利弊的方法论权衡和评估

从方法论的角度对网上调查的利弊进行权衡，可得出结论：当前的网上调查弊大于利，改进网上调查是应用这一技术的前提。当前改进网上调查的措施可分为三类：软环境的建设、网上调查技术的改进和减小非抽样误差，其中第三类措施在方法论上最具挑战。减少抽样框误差、降低无回答误差是减小非抽样误差的有效途径，但在实施过程中依然存在着两难的境地，有必要对当前网上调查的目标、功能进行重新定位。     

Open Access,Equity, and Strong Economy in Developing and Transition Countries: Policy Perspective

Since January 2007, Ukraine has a law mandating open access to publicly funded research. Most of the Parliament members supported it. The law is already the second parliamentary inquiry mandating the Cabinet of Ministers to take actions on creating favorable conditions for developing open access repositories in archives, libraries, museums, and scientific and research institutions with open access conditions to publicly funded research. Nevertheless, the “bottom-up” approaches of Ukrainian universities and research centers as well as political support from the principle legislative body in the country, have still not resulted in a network of well-functioning institutional repositories. The article highlights recent open access developments and presents the lists of open access benefits for the developing and transition countries and regions.