Academic librarians are increasingly engaging in data curation by providing infrastructure (e.g., institutional repositories) and offering services (e.g., data management plan consultations) to support the management of research data on their campuses. Efforts to develop these resources may benefit from a greater understanding of disciplinary differences in research data management needs. After conducting a survey of data management practices and perspectives at our research university, we categorized faculty members into four research domains—arts and humanities, social sciences, medical sciences, and basic sciences—and analyzed variations in their patterns of survey responses. We found statistically significant differences among the four research domains for nearly every survey item, revealing important disciplinary distinctions in data management actions, attitudes, and interest in support services. Serious consideration of both the similarities and dissimilarities among disciplines will help guide academic librarians and other data curation professionals in developing a range of data-management services that can be tailored to the unique needs of different scholarly researchers.

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Disciplinary Differences in Faculty Research Data Management Practices and Perspectives

https://wiki.lib.sun.ac.za/images/2/26/2014-raju-skills.pdf

Knowledge and skills for the digital era academic library

This paper describes data literacy and emphasizes its importance. Data literacy is vital for researchers who need to become data literate science workers and also for (potential) data management pr...

/pdf/data-literacy-for-researchers-and-data-librarians-doi3ldlg44.pdf

Data literacy for researchers and data librarians

The article employs deep log analysis (DLA) techniques, a more sophisticated form of transaction log analysis, to demonstrate what usage data can disclose about information seeking behaviour of virtual scholars - academics, and researchers. DLA works with the raw server log data, not the processed, pre-defined and selective data provided by journal publishers. It can generate types of analysis that are not generally available via proprietary web logging software because the software filters out relevant data and makes unhelpful assumptions about the meaning of the data. DLA also enables usage data to be associated with search/navigational and/or user demographic data, hence the name 'deep'. In this connection the usage of two digital journal libraries, those of Emerald Insight, and Blackwell Synergy are investigated. The information seeking behaviour of nearly three million users is analyzed in respect to the extent to which they penetrate the site, the number of visits made, as well as the type of items and content they view. The users are broken down by occupation, place of work, type of subscriber ("Big Deal", non-subscriber, etc.), geographical location, type of university (old and new), referrer link used, and number of items viewed in a session.

The information seeking behaviour of the users of digital scholarly journals

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog

The ACRL Research Planning and Review Committee is responsible for creating and updating a continuous and dynamic environmental scan for the association that encompasses trends in academic librarianship, higher education, and the broader environment, e.g., economic, demographic, political; providing an annual environmental scan “snapshot.” The committee also is responsible for identifying the ACRL “top ten trends” for release every two years. In order to identify the trends, the com

2012 top ten trends in academic libraries A review of the trends and issues affecting academic libraries in higher education

This paper provides information on a research project undertaken at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville to study publications by the campus researchers with an emphasis on the STEM (agricultural sciences, physical science, biological sciences, engineering and mathematics, etc.) disciplines at the macro level for a 3-year period. The overall objective of the study was to provide evidence-based data of periodical use to assist with collection decisions and to identify collection strengths at the university level. We used the Web of Knowledge database (Science Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index, and Arts and Humanities Citation Index) to identify the periodical literature in which our researchers published and those that they cite in their publications. We also determined the extent to which our researchers are publishing in and citing periodicals from the Elsevier, Wiley, and IEEE journal packages. A methodology for extracting citations from Web of Knowledge into an Excel spreadsheet is al...

The Use of Web of Knowledge to Study Publishing and Citation Use for Local Researchers at the Campus Level

This article provides an in-depth analysis of one academic library's experience with a modest sample of titles and 15-month results of a patron-driven acquisition program. We report on the analysis of the books purchased and used based on the ebrary patron-driven acquisition titles loaded in the University of Arkansas Libraries’ catalog from June 1, 2012 to September 4, 2013. This article presents an overview of the project, the objectives and methodology used in the study, and an analysis of the characteristics of the books that were used and purchased. It also includes a comparative evaluation of the titles selected by patrons to those selected by other libraries to determine whether the patrons made good choices, and recommendations on whether it is advantageous to buy the books on the first or subsequent uses.

Just in Case or Just in Time? Outcomes of a 15-Month Patron-Driven Acquisition of E-Books at the University of Arkansas Libraries

We used the faculty publications published in fully open access and non-open access journals that are indexed in the Web of Science core collections to study the extent our researchers are publishing in these fully open access journals and to identify the relative impact of their open access (OA) versus non-OA publications, to identify their h-indexes, and to explore the citation advantages. Overall, the average citation is higher for non-OA papers. When the data were examined by year of publication, citations were higher for non-OA papers six of the eleven years under study. The other years show no citation advantage. On examination of the science and technology material in the Web of Science and Google Scholar databases, the field of physics had a citation advantage for non-OA articles for all the years under study, and in entomology, except for one year, non-OA also had a citation advantage. For biological sciences, in Web of science, five of the eleven years OA citations were higher, and in Go...

Faculty Publications from a Research University: The Scholarly Impact of Open Access versus Non-Open Access

With many students owning mobile devices and gadgets that they use for various purposes, it seems logical to investigate whether the use of these devices has the potential to facilitate seamless access to library resources. Using an online survey administered to 489 students, this study aimed to determine: the percentage of the undergraduate population primarily in science and technology disciplines who own small mobile devices; the pattern of use of mobile devices with emphasis on accessing library resources, scholarly information, or other academic content; effect of attending previous library instruction session on students’ use of mobile devices to access educational content; and variation in the pattern of ownership and use among academic and gender categories.The study found that mobile devices have become widely common, with 100 percent of the female respondents and 98 percent of the male respondents owning at least one small mobile device. Among the different academic disciplines, engineering stud...

Lutishoor Salisbury

Papers

2012 top ten trends in academic libraries A review of the trends and issues affecting academic libraries in higher education

The Use of Web of Knowledge to Study Publishing and Citation Use for Local Researchers at the Campus Level

Just in Case or Just in Time? Outcomes of a 15-Month Patron-Driven Acquisition of E-Books at the University of Arkansas Libraries

Faculty Publications from a Research University: The Scholarly Impact of Open Access versus Non-Open Access

Undergraduate Ownership of Small Mobile Devices: Engagement and Use in an Academic Environment