Breakout A: UK Research Reserve [UKRR]: where we are and where to go from here?

Presented by: Daryl Yang (Imperial College London - UKRR manager since 2011)
Website: https://www.ukrr.ac.uk/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/UKRRphase2
Slideshare link: (talk not posted as of 23/4/14 - will add when available)
 
Daryl started with an exploration of the environment in which modern librarians operate.  Their challenges include physical space, internet issues, technology in general, the information explosion and user expectations.  The 10 key challenges of the sector were identified by Deloitte as: funding, rivalry, set priorities, technology, infrastructure, link to outcomes, attracting talent, sustainability (green policies), widening access and regulation.

She compared space issues to the migration of people to cities - lots of people are moving to very densely populated areas.  100 years ago, 20% of people lived in cities, but by 2010, it was over 50%, then by 2030, it should be 60%, then up to 70% 20 years later.  Also, in the 1950s, roughly 400,000 students were in higher education in the UK, but this number is now 2.3 million!  So it's no surprise that libraries are exploding too.  The Harvard libraries were first set up in the 1700s with 400 books; now they hold over 17.9 MILLION items and are still expanding.  Every 2 days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilisation until 2003; users want information now and want it delivered quickly.  The weekday edition of the New York Times contains more information than the average person would see in a lifetime in 17th century England!  If we did nothing about library shelf space by the end of the 21st century, we would be short by about 450 linear kilometres - never mind that space costs libraries on average £63/sq meter per year.  Plus there are other space issues; she showed an example of students setting up a Facebook group to lobby for more study space in one UK university; library management acceded to their wishes, they are after all the customers/consumers.  Daryl quoted a university librarian, who said to a British Library librarian: ‘We have so much stuff and so little space’.

The UK Research Reserve (UKRR) is a collaborative coordinated sustainable approach to long-term retention, storage and access to low use print research journals.  Its objectives: de-duplication to release space & realise savings, while preserving research material & providing access.
 
However, this meant a cultural change in the way that member libraries work.  It works with a core approach: all member libraries are viewed as one, with one retained core collection (not many pips!).  UKRR oversees offering, to processing (on a 6 month cycle), to creating the core collection.  The British Library provides (or is given) one copy for circulation, with 2 backup copies held in member libraries.  UKRR is funded by HEFCE and now in phase 2 with 29 members along with a continued partnership with the British Library.  87,000 meters' worth of holdings, or 74,000 holdings, have been offered, with 81% (70,470 meters) disposed of; 18% were to be retained by member libraries.  This results in a £2 million estate savings per annum, with ~£21million capital savings.  Daryl showed the process of UKRR identification, starting with shelf checking (with the British Library) and scarcity checking (across member collections).  They use LARCH (Linked Automated Register of Collaborative Holdings), a tailor made system, for this work.

The 'long tail' as a business model has been adopted by Amazon amongst others: it says that, if you sell less of more with a large enough distribution channel, you will still make an effective profit.  In the UKRR model, popularity equates to cost and products equate to titles; for a single institution, it would be costly to maintain, but it’s effective across many institutions in this context.  A certain few titles are offered very often (50+ times) where over 10,000 titles have only been offered once; for the institutions who deal with those 10,000 titles, it would be too costly to deal with them on their own but it’s easier as a group exercise.  Daryl showed a chart of topics for the UKRR top 50 titles - these were mostly sci-med titles.

UKRR member benefits include: £26.16 for each meter of in-scope material offered to UKRR; premium delivery service from the British Library; clear aims and targets; coherent approach; spring cleaning; advocacy; a platform to share experience and best practices; also, support in ‘crisis’ situations (i.e., accidental discard or loss).

HEFCE support is likely to end in 2015, but organisations who didn’t join when UKRR was first launched are still expressing interest.  An internal member survey, along with external consultation, shows there may be potential for a new phase with a new business model - changing from a top-down programme to a grass-roots initiative.  It is hoped that a new phase would begin in 2015, just after the current phase.  It is proposed to have 2 types of membership - premier and access (for current members who wish to continue to access member benefits, but do not want to offer new titles) - with all current benefits remaining.  One modification for the new model might be the removal of the scarcity checking process.  What other issues could be addressed? Further de-duplication with new policies? Data sharing? Best practices? International initiatives?  There will be a meeting at this year’s IFLA to think about these issues.  Daryl mentioned similar initiatives in Finland, France, Spain and Norway and showed comparisons of these with UKRR.

Another area for UKRR to explore would be monographs; in 2011, they held a Strategic Management of Monographs discussion forum which seemed to indicate there wasn’t a need, but it keeps coming up time and again (the White Rose initiative in Yorkshire is a smaller scale monographs de-dup project).  A working group will be set up to consider this.

They are hoping to hear back from current UKRR members by the end of April 2014 re. joining phase 3, and are looking at a 3-year period from February 2015 for continuing members as well as new ones.  They will also try to open up UKRR data for the benefit of the whole community.  Finally, Daryl reminded us this is a time of change, with a wide range of challenges and uncertainties surrounding digital content.  Some argue print has even more value in the digital era for users and libraries - it still gives us control and absolute ownership of content.  Also, studies have shown that academics in scientific fields are happier with electronic provision of their journals (than those in humanities which is understandable), but when asked if they were totally comfortable with this and whether they would be happy to see hard copies go, they were not as positive.  The UKRR mission to support UK libraries with print journal issues has not been completed in their opinion - they will see if others feel the same way.

During the Q&A, there was discussion about UKRR USPs (unique selling points) - shelf/scarcity checking is a major part of the benefit, along with libraries promising retention, so perhaps this should be continued into phase 3.  Also, the British Library takes in less than 2% of what is offered to fill gaps, showing they have been working well with covering UK HE needs - however, it’s less clear whether there are enough copies to fill in 2-3 collections!

Breakout A: JiscLAMP: shining a light on our analytics and usage data

Presented by: Ben Showers (Jisc), Joy Palmer (Mimas) and Graham Stone (University of Huddersfield)
LAMP blog: http://jisclamp.mimas.ac.uk
Slideshare link: http://www.slideshare.net/UKSG/qs1-group-a

Ben’s role at this breakout session was to introduce the topic and the 2 speakers.  He pointed out that most of the session's topics aren’t absolutely new; Jisc has been working with library data since 2007 (projects with Huddersfield, Mimas etc).  JiscLAMP (Library Analytics and Metrics project) or LAMP has the same aims but a much bigger scale.  Also, the terminology has changed - activity data has become analytics.  The aims include supporting service development and improving user experience, as well as lowering the barriers to use of this data.

Graham Stone then gave context for LAMP and information on the last year in the project.  It has been about 10 years at Huddersfield since Dave Pattern’s been in post messing about with the added value features of sites like Amazon and Tesco, wondering why library sites can’t be more like them.  4 years ago, Graham and the Huddersfield library director presented data from their library equality review (and from the Huddersfield registry), stating that they believed they'd found a link between library usage (analytics) and student attainment; however, others wanted more proof.

Not long after this, they were funded by Jisc for a Library Impact Data Project (across 8 universities).  The hypothesis was that there was a signification correlation across universities between library activity data and student attainment, via looking at final grade achieved, books borrowed, e-resource accesses, school or faculty of each student etc.  The project showed a statistical significance between grade and library usage across the project, with 33,000 students included).  It is important to note that this is NOT a cause and effect relationship!  Also, it is NOT a correlation, the hypothesis wasn’t workable under the given wording - this has been more carefully considered since!  They then got Phase 2 money from Jisc to delve more deeply into the Huddersfield data for 2000 FT undergraduates.  The additional data included for Phase 2 covered demographics, academic disciplines, retention data, on/off campus use, breadth and depth of e-resource use, UCAS points (entry data) - all of this supported the findings of Phase 1.  Their conclusions: there is a statistical significance for demographics such as age, gender, ethnicity & country of origin (example: Chinese students used e-resources less); there is a statistical significance across top level subjects and within these disciplines; there is a connection between library use and retention; the depth/breadth of a collection may make a difference. At the same time, other surveys were also looking at the importance of analytics to academic libraries, as well as the issues of sharing data about usage with other institutions [most institutions (91%) do not mind if institutions are anonymised or benchmarked].

All of this was the jumping-off point for LAMP, a joint project between Mimas and Huddersfield (with assistance from Ellen Collins).  Joy came in to talk about LAMP.  She is also involved with Copac at Mimas and had studied using activity data to drive functions.
 
The main question of the project is: can they collect data from institutions and create tools that allow libraries to analyse how their resources are being used, when and by whom?  Many services include dashboards for subscribers to see analytics, but they are not really answering this question. LAMP is also looking at what can be automated to assist users.  What about the benefits of scale?  This is especially important with issues of benchmarking (some reservations about this) against other institutions; no benchmarking without a critical mass of data, and it’s too early for that yet.  What data can they use/get hold of? UCAS data, loan data, eResource logins etc. but not data on usage of individual items… yet.  They need to look at this for the future (as this data would be important for collections management), but for the moment, the focus is on users not items.

6 institutions are contributing data: Huddersfield, Salford, Wolverhampton, Exeter, De Montfort and Manchester.  There are barriers to providing data; it is a very mixed picture across UK of where data sits at an institution and how easy it is to provide it for a project like this (business cases should incentivise provision).  Also, the data wrangling to get this sorted was not glamorous - getting, analysing, cleaning and providing.

Joy added a brief (important) word on ethics: should they be holding/analysing this type of data?  There are concerns about Big Brother and data protection issues, telling the wrong types of stories etc… also, all students pay the same fees, shouldn’t they be treated the same?  But what if they didn’t do this? What would the reaction be if institutions had this data but didn’t act on it?  They have a duty to care for the individual wellbeing of their students.  The project can also show how it complies with data protection issues.

Working with an API to present the data also brings up questions: how should users work with data? What do they want to be able to do with it? Also: what do users do? What does the system do?  There are many 'epic user stories' and use cases to cite; they don’t always help with the day-to-day uses of the data but they can still lead in the right direction.

Joy showed sketches for ideas of the interface - not glamorous but some interesting ideas came out.  There are also 'job stories' - step-by-step workflows of how those in different positions might want to work with the data.  They showed that the idea of a shared library analytics service was feasible via working with data from these first universities.  Also, they are continuing to demonstrate correlations between usage and attainment / usage and cohort (and attainment and cohort).

Charts and graphs from the included data were shown, including pie chart using live data of male vs. female students and number of library loans.  This can be taken out of context to tell a certain story, so is it always accurate?  They can potentially signal if findings are statistically significant or not. Where exactly does user journey or workflow begin? How much do we assume users are analysing the data?  Joy went through a test query created by Ellen Collins: ‘Here’s a simple question: how do humanities are social science students use books?’.  It showed the different ways you can pitch this question, including mean book borrowing, or just by discipline (irregardless of relative size of discipline), which can inform different types of decisions (other factors may need to be considered, including who’s not borrowing, part time vs. full time etc.).

There is now funding for Phase 2 of LAMP and they are now testing the ‘ugly prototype’ and working through ideas.  LAMP wants to make data beautiful and compelling and they dashboard UI will be created through iterative testing/development.  Other issues being looked at include ‘profiling’ individuals (what are ethical or legal issues?), whether Shibboleth can be used to more fully understand e-resource usage, integration of NSS (student satisfaction) data and SCONUL statistics, data literacy (what does it mean in this context? who needs it? what needs to be automated and what needs to be taught as a skill set?) and benchmarking (is it the killer app? is there a business case for the service if it doesn’t provide the capability to compare across institutions? if you do it, how does it work?).  LAMP will be holding a workshop with SCONUL on 7 May, and will continue to work on business case after that.  For now, they are focusing on the user interface but looking for more data contributors (and holding more LAMP workshops in future).

There was a question and answer session at the end which was very lively - I will include a few queries here.  When asked about using RAPTOR, Graham said he had thought it could be a key, but it anonymises too much via Shibboleth (EZProxy is less anonymising) - it could work if tweaked slightly; Ben said there was an attempt to bring JUSP and RAPTOR together but it didn’t work fully.  Another person mentioned the flip side: re-presenting the anonymised data back to students could be very useful, had the team thought of this?  Graham mentioned Library Game; Joy talked about knowledge infrastructures and visualisations as well as routes through information - this is ambitious but there is so much more that can be done for research purposes; Ben said the student view on data had been considered since the beginning, but the current project needs to be tackled first.  A publisher asked: would the data be fed back to publishers? This is what they would love to have and are unable to get!  Graham said this is not the first publisher to say that - Joy agreed that they can start to think about how this would connect with REF and provision of resources.  Someone asked about tracking the impact of materials in repositories, OA resources etc; Joy mentioned that IRUS is aggregating access to Open Access resources.  The repository is still seen by many academics as a step or hurdle, not so much as a benefit - you would need to use other metrics to measure that impact in the brave new world of the web.  Finally, one person asked whether there are certain types of data that would be too difficult to track, with too many confounding factors - how do you identify the ‘right’ kind of data?  Joy says this comes back to data literacy - it is always very important to highlight that data is NOT truth and not a scientific object in its own right.  That’s why it’s important to train, share, discuss etc - we have to be more like social scientists in considering variances and how watertight the visualisations are.  Ben pointed out that LAMP isn’t the answer, more part of the dialogue; Graham agreed, and pointed out with all of this it’s not an absolute - don’t cancel a journal immediately if the stats are low, you must ask why first!

Discovery: Plenary session 4

The first plenary session of the last day of UKSG offered 4 perspectives on discovery. Below is a summary of each of the presentations followed by a round up of the discussion.

Discovery or Displacement?: a large-scale longitudinal study of the effect of discovery systems on online journal usage

Michael Levine-Clark, University of Denver and John McDonald, University of Southern California.

The survey focused on whether implementing a discovery tool within a library increases usage of content. It looked at measuring if there is an effect, not why. The survey focused on the use of Primo, Summon, EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) and WorldCat Local.

Methodology:

Contacted libraries they knew had implemented a discovery system; asked implementation date, search box location and marketing effort used to promote the service.

Selected 33 libraries for 1st phase; 6 from each of 4 major discovery services and 9 control libraries with no discovery service. Of these 28 were in the US, 2 in CA, 1 in UK,1 in AUS and in 1 NZ, most of whom had implemented discovery services in 2011. 

The survey included data from 6 publishers and 9,206 journals, with 36% of observations from the largest publisher. Usage was compared using the COUNTER JR1 (full text downloads per title) reports the year before and the year after implementation of the discovery service. 

All publishers available in all of the discovery services and to all of the libraries. 

Each library only had one discovery service.

Findings:

• Within 6 of the libraries usage actually went down, this included one of the control libraries
•  97% confident that discovery tools have an impact on usage
• Journal usage at Summon and Primo institutions increased more than with other services
• Control group shows usage naturally increases over time

Next steps:

• Design and test for additional items including;
• Aggregator full text availability
• Size of publisher
• Journal subject
• Overall usage trends
• Configuration options in discovery services; Direct linking, altering algorithm etc.
• Expand pool of libraries
• Perhaps explore why

See http://www.slideshare.net/MichaelLevineClark/niso-dda-uksg-2014-33587193 for the full slides from the presentation.

Impact of Library discovery technology

Varlérie Spezi, LISU Loughbrough University

Presented the key findings of the UKSG/Jisc funded research project, 'Impact of library discovery technologies'. The study was UK focused. Work started in July 2013. Report released in Dec 2013.

Objectives:
Evaluation of the impact of a RDS (Research Discovery Systems) on usage

Methodology:

Phase 1: Survey of UK HE libraries

62 respondents

Phase 2: Case studies of libraries and publishers

Collected JR1, BR2 and DB1 COUNTER reports

Phase 3: Interviews with stakeholders

Findings:

• 77% of UK HE libraries who responded are already using an RDS
• Further 11% in process of implementing one
• Summon, Primo and EDS accounted for 76% of systems in use
• Libraries reported high levels of satisfactory;  liked one stop shop experience  (Google like experience), felt they were getting better use of subscriptions – no silos
• Undergraduates are seen as primary users of services

Overall a RDS may positively influence content usage especially for ebooks, although this usage varies across institutions. For ebooks the impact was positive, for journals it was a mixed picture and for databases the results were inconclusive.Many other factor can influence usage e.g. changes in titles and more data is needed to pick up trends and isolate these other  factors.

Problems/challenges:

•  Libraries unable to see how libraries subscriptions match coverage by RDS systems
• Interoperability between systems difficult - There are problems if don't use the RDS system from the vendor you already work with for other systems within the library
• Incomplete metadata
• Publisher's concern about dilution of publisher brand when content is made available via a RDS system
• Lack of feedback/communication from the RDS vendor
• Lack of clarity about how the results are displayed e.g. the relevance ranking

Recommendations:

Collaboration key to success

Libraries

• Work with bodies such as UKSG, Jisc to drive development in RDS community
• Consider issues of interoperability between products from different vendors
• Engage in cross-sectional talks to understand how minor changes in settings can affect usage

RDS supplier

• Work towards open communication
• User testing for publisher and content providers
• Provide clearer information on relevance ranking

Publishers

• Engage with library and RDS to optimise discovery
• Voice need for more communication and feedback

Other stakeholders

•  Inclusion of RDS usage in JUSP and/or KB+
• Development of COUNTER code for RDS usage

The full study is available from http://www.uksg.org/researchstudy

Libraries in the cloud, on the ground and in between

Birte Christensen-Dalsgaard, Royal Library Denmark

At the start of her presentation Birte emaphasised that her presentation had been strongly influenced by other talks at the conference.

Libraries live within RDS system, Students/researcher live in different worlds
Things have changed, but still closer to the cards (library cards) than the bots

Google results are much richer and provide a better user experience than library catalogue

Google using semantics (schema.org), but libraries can do the same AND can evaluate quality control through author profile (ORCID's) and FoF (Friend of Friend) networks.
Authoritative information needs to be created locally or obtained through mining

Search needs to be more than just a word-match. More services are taking user behaviour into account for example bX from ExLibris, but due to privacy rules libraries can’t use a lot of data e.g. what user has borrowed.

Libraries need to add value, this can include supporting users to judge value, big data, semantics, collaborations, supporting different delivery channels and local tailoring.

Thinking the unthinkable - doing away with the library catalogue

Simone Kortekaas, Utrecht University

In 2012 Utrecht University built their own discovery tools, called Omega. Since then have found that more users reaching content from Scopus, Google Scholar etc. Library catologue usage dropping, but usage of content increasing suggesting that users are finding other routes into content. Patrons switching faster than libraries; a 2010 survey revealed that 83% students start research from a search engine. In 2012 Utrecht University concluded they could shut down their own discovery service and not replace it; needed to rethink role of library.

A survey of users within the University revealed that most started research in Google Scholar. Before switched off of the library catalogue they had to prepare the students. Needed to offer them an alternative, so in 2013 started communicating better ways of finding content, much of which has been done via social media. As part of the changes they removed the search box, changed instruction/support, added libguides on effective use of search engines.  When the system was switched off there were no major complaints, but there was an enormous increase in searches from Google Scholar from their Proxy Server, so much so that Google thought there was crawler activity!

To ensure their users are finding the correct content Utrecht University has added holding information to discovery tools e.g. Dutch national catolugue and WorldCat, shared SFX knowledge bases with Google Scholar and Scopuus, opened the repository for harvesting and support easy authentication for off campus access; developed a bookmarklet (using Javascript) to browser to allow login via University.  Kortekaas said there is a lot of other work to be done by libraries rather than worrying about discovery systems.

Discussion

The idea of a library doing away with the library catalogue and relying on Google Scholar was quite a controversial one with many librarians feeling very uncomfortable with this idea. Kortekaas responded to say that you have to look outside library and see what is going on and how users finding are the content; the library didn't choose to go with Google, the users did! This change is responding to real user behaviour rather than what they think their users want; it is silly to try and pull them back into library discovery system, better to educate them on platforms already using.

Joe Waas from CrossRef asked what would happen if Google Scholar just gave a month’s notice and shut down (as they have done with other services). From my experience Google Scholar actually only drives a small percentage of traffic to content compared to Google Web Search, but it offers an easy way to find scholarly content, allows libraries to flag holdings information to their users and most importantly Google Scholar provides publishers and libraries with a communication channel with Google.

There was also a lot of discussion about what libraries can add to bring the users back and how experimentation and really understanding what your users want is key.

Open access monographs: what have we learnt?

During my first UKSG conference, I was excited to see the wide variety of sessions on offer. One which really stood out for me was ‘Open access monographs: what have we learnt?’ having previously worked on the marketing of Palgrave Macmillan’s first open access monograph, Fungal Disease in Britain and the United States, 1850 – 2000, and having started my career in open access publishing.

Ellen Collins impressively provided a comprehensive overview of OAPEN-UK’s work in her lightning talk, offering a snapshot of the ways in which open access fits into the monograph environment, as well as the changing attitudes of all stakeholders involved in the process. In an industry where open access has traditionally been associated with those working in the STM arena, it is encouraging to now see those working in the HSS communities beginning to embrace this option.

Key themes of Ellen’s talk included:

A change for all stakeholders involved in the process of publishing an open access monograph

Whilst the fundamental editorial, production and writing processes will no doubt stay the same, the attitudes of researchers, funders and publishers should change, when concerning how they should engage with the open access model.

Supply chain issues

The publication of open access monographs creates a number of problems – how should the publisher deal with DRM issues, work around creative commons in metadata to encourage the best discoverability and access, and work around the zero price of the title in systems used by librarians?

An enthusiasm for change, but no concrete roadmap

Ellen noted that humanities researchers are beginning to now recognize that the open access monograph could present a real solution to issues surrounding the visibility of their research. Likewise, funders and publishers are willing to experiment and explore various model types. How can we now integrate open access with other changes in the monograph environment in the least disruptive way, for all involved?

The key point to come out of Ellen’s talk was the need for continued experimentation and diversity of the open access model.

One issue that has become clear is that one size doesn’t fit all for open access. What works for those in the STM community isn’t necessarily the best model for humanities and social sciences researchers. Whilst open access monographs may receive a high number of downloads, will HSS researchers embrace a POD print option? As an increasing number of publishers begin to explore open access options, it will be interesting to see the various open access options on offer, and how these fit and complement the traditional monograph.

I look forward to seeing OAPEN-UK’s findings next year, especially when concerning usage and the impact of open access, at a time where so much emphasis is placed upon visibility, measurability and impact of research. In such a fast-paced environment, I wonder what conversations we will be having around open access monographs at UKSG in Glasgow next year?

Emma Hedington

Assistant Marketing Manager

Nature Publishing Group/ Palgrave Macmillan 

Theory Into Practice: How Is KB+ Being Used? - Damyanti Patel, Sonia Wilson & Phil Hall

Knowledge Base+ (KB+) is a shared service from Jisc to help institutions manage their e-resources more efficiently. This session consisted of a panel of speakers from a range of stakeholders across the supply chain talking about their experience of KB+.

Damyanti Patel (Data Manager KB+)

KB+ started back in 2011. Now freely available and is a core Jisc offering. Numerous collections from publishers have been added to KB+. Collaboration is key. There have been several releases. Release 4.1 is coming out in Easter. Another is due in summer time. They want to work with all stakeholders involved. It is a user-focused service, collaborating with libraries. Quick fixes, enhancements, improvements are picking through a voting system.

KB+ supports university workflows. Knowledge Base and Related Tools (KBART) list is downloadable on the KB+ website. Publisher information (lots of packages), e.g. ISSN, is also available. It is possible to:

• Set up a subscription and add additional information, e.g. core, print, e-only, print and e, renewals, link resolver exports
• Create, manage and store licences. Add document information.
• Check data of the title lists, e.g. NESLi. 
• Add Jisc subscription data to your account. 
• Get support and guidance. 
• Up-date titles lists. 
• Share information from publishers.
• Get information on site visits. 
• Get some guides on how to use KB+ and workflow ideas.
• Can compare two title lists.

Sonia Wilson (University or Stirling)

Their involvement with KB+ started back in 2010 - taking part in a case study. They found a lot of duplication of work and so thought that KB+ would be a great resource to get involved in. There was a discussion on how they could use KB+. Publishers couldn't say for definite what they had given access to in the packages. KB+ is part of the solution to manage the data. They wanted to reduce time and was enthused by the possibilities of KB+ - the ability to integrate with value-added tools and services; access accurate data for UK; reduce cost of data management, creation and exchange; start to build entitlements lists; collaboration; managing you own data. The integration of services starting now to be seen.

E-resources team - Amend data sets, adding information. Dashboard in KB+ updates the institution if any changes or action is needed, e.g. if a journal is no longer in a package. Links to discussion board - automatic updates to additions in the discussion. Very valuable and useful.

Librarians - Internal marketing to librarians. Read-only access. Can check SHEDL deals,  compare packages. Hope this will save time of e-resources team and librarians.

SHEDL Consortium - Focus on making sure the SHEDL information is up-to-date. The SHEDL administrator has done some work on this.

Where to go from here?

• User interface. Vast improvement. Still a bit clunky to navigate.
• Addition of JUSP stats (as well as ecat).
• Ability to export data - link to link resolvers. Want the systems to talk to one another.
• Individual subscriptions they want to add and the uploading of relevant documentation. (There is an area for this.)
• Creation of focus groups.

There is talk about being able to share journal lists. It is very time-intensive to add the data. Need to manage the population of data as things change. At the University of Stirling there has been some stopping and starting, which has not been a good thing as data changes rapidly and processes need to be re-familiarised. Would like Onyx comparison extended to other comparisons. e.g. access rights. User guides a bit difficult to follow at first. Need financial data - that would make it a more powerful service.

Phil Hall (ProQuest)

Some work has been done on how ProQuest Workflow Solutions can work with KB+. Looking at global and local knowledge bases. How to bring all these together in one platform?
Take a look at the Hike Project at the University of Huddersfield.

There are two groups of data in the ProQuest system-

• Collections data
• Licence data, .e.g terms of use.

They are managed separately and then brought together. Want good quality data. Respecting KBART standard and data quality. Matched with their normalisation.
Proquest has worked with KB+ for quite a few years.  Want to minimise data transfer in libraries. KB+ data is brought through to the Intota platform (not quite launched yet) and drives all the tools the library uses. A-Z list from KB+ is available, as well as license data e.g. from NESLi2. There are 180-190 different licences.
How are the collection and license data brought together? Can connect them. Get the bib data and click on the right license to be put in your ERM. Any changes to automatically change in future.
'Go KB' - is more US-based. They want to work with KB+ data. Have been collaborating with 'Go KB'. Need national and international collaboration.

Variety of ways to work with licences, e.g. if the license is a unique one. KB+ is looking into this. KB+ does feedback errors to the publishers, but KB+ doesn't follow this up.

Knowledge Unlatched: One Year on - Frances Pinter

Knowledge Unlatched is a not-or-profit collaborative initiative between libraries and publishers that enables books to be published on open access. It is helping stakeholders to work together for a sustainable open future for specialist scholarly books. This session reported on the pilot and plans for scaling.

First of all a short video on 'Knowledge Unlatched' was shown. It is clear that there is a need for open access monographs, as well as journals, but a way to do this needs to be worked out. 'Knowledge Unlatched' is a consortium of libraries which pays a Title Fee which gives them unrestricted Creative Commons access to Open Access monograph books, allowing people to access scholarly publications to downloaded and read. The more libraries join and pay the fixed amount Title Fee, the cheaper the book. Its aim is to find a sustainable route to monograph OA, especially for the Humanities and Social Sciences sector, spreading costs across many institutions globally.

Firstly, a small proof of concept pilot was conducted, using 28 new books from 13 publishers, in literature, history, politics, media and communications with an average title fee being $12000, split amongst the 200 libraries who needed to sign up. In the end, nearly 300 libraries in 24 countries joined the pilot, taking the cost down to $40 per title per library, with an average title fee of £8,000. Knowledge Unlatched has become a real community of libraries and publishers and includes 77 UK libraries.

Now the results are being reviewed and a report will be made available in June this year. It is now planned that:
- The cycle will be repeated with more publishers and titles involved;
- Small single subject specific options will be developed and offered;
- More libraries will be recruited;
- Work more with existing consortia.

'Implementing E-Resources Access for Alumni at King's College London' - Anna Franca (Subscriptions & access manager, KCL)

King's College London (KCL) is a multidisciplinary research-led university with a long history of notable and prominent alumni worldwide, who act as ambassadors for the college. KCL Library Services offers to its alumni a wide range of benefits, including the option to apply for library membership. However, this was ‘traditional’, i.e. focus on walk-in physical access and print borrowing for an extra fee. There are increasing numbers of international students & alumni not based in the UK, and walk-in access is not so practical. Therefore, Library Services started to explore the options to provide e-resource access to alumni and so met with the Alumni Relations team representatives to try and find a way forward.

In June 2012 King's Library Services began participation in the JSTOR Alumni Access pilot project, which gave alumni access to JSTOR. As a result of this, there was an unprecedented number of new requests for alumni benefits, with over 700 requests for Alumni Online membership in first day after the announcement of the trial! Indeed, there was over 14,000 accesses in the first year. JSTOR can also provide access statistics by collection, title, etc which helps with collection development.

There were a number of challenges to overcome in offering this benefit to alumni. The Library Service had to carry out investigative work to identify what publishers had to offer, but was pleased to see that many suppliers are adding alumni access (either as standard or for small fee). However, authentication was a particular problem. KCL uses both ezproxy and Shibboleth. It would have to add data on alumni to Shibboleth, which would be too much of an undertaking. Therefore, it was reliant on the publishers allowing different authentication routes. There was also the question of funding the work. JSTOR access is funded by library services, but access to additional services means looking at long-term funding options.

This pilot project showed how giving alumni access to e-resources can work, with a key learning point being to maintain good relations with the Alumni Relations team. It has also helped give JSTOR and the participating libraries an understanding of how to implement and develop an approach that is valuable and sustainable (http://about.jstor.org/service/access-alumni).

Gaining a deeper understanding of students and their needs: the SAGE Undergraduate Scholars at the University of Sussex

Suzanne Tatham, University of Sussex

and

Eva Brittin-Snell (BA International Relations)

Lenart Celar (BSc Psychology with Neuroscience)

Lucy Hensher (BA Geography)

 

Suzanne, Eva, Lenart and Lucy gave us an overview of the novel approach SAGE and the Library are working to get a better understanding of how students develop their research skills and where and how they research.  The idea was to offer three scholarships for students who would help provide insight on the student journey during their time at university. 

They were looking for student who would:

• write regular posts
• engage closely with library and SAGE
• work up to 2hours per week on library events and promotional activity
• have enthusiasm and commitment to the project
• drive the project, so it would be fully student led

In exchange for this, the students would get:

• The opportunity to develop communication, networking and presentation skills
• The chance to work with an international academic publisher
• The change to use social media tools in a professional environment

Getting the project up and running

Timing was difficult as need to get them from the start, and it would take time to get them up and running.  They used Freshers’ Week to advertise these positions, inviting students to submit a blog-style post, a CV and a statement as to why they would be good for the role. 

It has taken 2 terms to get the project up and running, and the library has been working with Sage at all stages, including interview panel. They developed a non-prescriptive schedule to ensure things would happen, but ensuring it was student-led.

Creating a new blog

They worked with sage to look at various topics for the blog, some of which have already been covered, others which are up and coming.  Examples included:

• How did you prepare for university, including pre-arrival reading?
• How did you find your first term?
• When did you first look for something that wasn’t on your reading list?
• What were your first impressions of the library?
• How you feel about ebooks?

The students then discussed three projects they have worked on to date.

Survey on pre-arrival reading

They wrote and ran a survey to compile different experiences of undergraduates.  They got 160 respondents, the majority of whom were <20 years of age from across a wide range of study.  Findings included:

• 60% of students were give a pre-arrival list, 79% of those used it
• The majority bought all or the most relevant books
• Some only bought the core books or those that weren’t in the library
• Those who didn’t receive a pre-arrival reading list were asked how they found books.  In the main they didn’t, but those who did went to the library, or asked peers.
• When asked what else would be useful, responses included a relevant list (too many books that aren’t then used in the course) and reminders of essay writing techniques.
• When asked what other types of preparation they used, answers included newspapers, tv shows etc.

The SAGE scholars found it easy to find students for survey, using personal connections and social media.

Focus group to explore research done, resources and devices used

The Scholars ran two focus groups and the library stayed away, so people could feel they could speak openly.  Both groups gave good insight and opinions.  Findings include:

• Most students have smartphones and use them for music and Facebook
• Some have Kindles and use them for reading course books
• Laptop users had a wide range of activities, including reading, leisure activities and taking notes in lectures.
• Laptop users often preferred using campus computers, due to bigger screens and faster internets.
• When asked where they looked for data, they used Wikipedia et al for quick definitions, but used more “trusted” sources for marked assignments.
• Use lecture notes and recordings, and read more widely via library search, the VLE or Google Scholar
• Students could tell reliability of source if tutor recommended/peer reviewed. 
• Most students decided what to read depending on if they could get away with not reading it.
• Students were more likely to read short pieces.
• They mainly preferred paper books but if needed they used ebooks to complete assignments at last minute.
• Student read lots of news aticles/shared information online
• Short articles can be read on a phone, but some materials will only be read on a laptop .
• There is a need for a mix of ebooks and paper copies.

The SAGE scholars found the focus groups easy to set up and communicate, and participants could speak honestly, so will use this method again.

Conference attendance

The SAGE Scholars attended APS in Brighton and met people who valued their opinions.  They sat on a panel with students from Greenwich University and were asked questions on how gather information, their opinion of ebooks and how can publishers make books more appealing for students to buy.  Key discussions included:

• The common reason for ebook use was price and availability .  The library is investing more in ebooks to provide wider availability, which is important for students who are competing for copies.
• The students felt that printed books remain a key part of reading, with the majority still preferring to read in paper, but they acknowleged that ebooks are more efficient. 
• It was felt that ebooks are useful for quick reads and referring back, while printed books serve a different purpose as a text book.
• Online journals were seen as a good resource, as they bring something new, are more up to date and are much quicker to read than a book. 

What has been learned so far about information and learning behaviours?

The SAGE Scholars are first years, so their behaviours are likely to change.  But so far they have got an interesting picture of student activity.  Learning points to date include:

• There’s a lot of work to do around pre-arrival reading – many students are not getting list and those that do contain non relevant titles.
• The focus group showed that students use wide range of resources to access material, but when comes to academic work, is a narrow focus and is tutor recommended. Books and articles not on reading lists are not likely to be read, but this might change over the next few years.
• Print is still a popular choice, but there is an increase in use of ebooks.  This is more so graduates, but starting to increase for undergrads.
• Students use Google and Wikipedia but are aware of what tutors want to see on bibliography, and don’t venture too far from lecture notes. 

Future plans for the SAGE Scholars

• They want to raise the profile of their blog internally and externally
• The students will present to SAGE in their second year
• The project will evaluate changes in perceptions and behaviour
• SAGE will do a day of shadowing, to see how students go about their day and study
• Develop networks to increase engagement with peers across social science
• More student-led activities eg “shut up and write”

Find out more about the project at http://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/sagestudents/