Topic: Libraries
Past Event
April 19, 2022
Assessing the Evolution of the Community College Library Mission
Conversations on Community College Library Strategy and Collaboration
Join us on Tuesday, April 19 , from 2-3:00 PM, for the third webinar in our Conversations on Community College Library Strategy and Collaboration series. Assessing the evolution of the community college library mission Thursday, April 19, 2022, 2:00-3:00 PM (ET) REGISTER The past two decades have seen dramatic changes within the academic library community. Many libraries have expanded partnerships, both within their community college and with the wider community. More recently, upheaval…
Past Event
April 5, 2022
“When in Doubt, Go to the Library”: Navigating the Community College Ecosystem
Conversations on Community College Library Strategy and Collaboration
Join us on Tuesday, April 5, from 2-3:00 PM, for the second webinar in our Conversations on Community College Library Strategy and Collaboration series. “When in doubt, go to the library”: Navigating the community college ecosystem Tuesday, April 5, 2022, 2:00-3:00 PM (ET) REGISTER Community college libraries are a key part of the academic and student services ecosystem and contribute broadly to student success through their provision of scholarly resources and technologies. A…
Blog Post
March 11, 2022
Conversations on Community College Library Strategy and Collaboration
Announcing Three Upcoming Virtual Convenings
In 2019, Ithaka S+R began a three-year IMLS-funded research initiative to help community colleges and their academic libraries more effectively support their students. The initiative, known as Community College Academic and Student Support Ecosystems (CCASSE), involved two surveys, one of academic and student affairs leaders and one of library directors, to identify trends shaping student support and perspectives on the impact of COVID-19, as well as a series…
Past Event
March 22, 2022
Emergency and Emerging Technology Programs at Community College Libraries
Conversations on Community College Library Strategy and Collaboration
Join us on Tuesday, March 22, from 2-3:00 PM for the first webinar in our Conversations on Community College Library Strategy and Collaboration series Emergency and emerging technology programs at community college libraries Tuesday, March 22, 2022, 2:00-3:00 PM (ET) REGISTER During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, many community college libraries stepped up, developing new programs and technology lending services to assist students who would otherwise not have access. These libraries…
Past Event
March 28, 2022
Aligning Data Support Services to Researchers’ Needs
Danielle Cooper and Dylan Ruediger at CNI Spring 2022 Membership Meeting
Danielle Cooper and Dylan Ruediger will present on “Aligning Data Support Services to Researchers’ Needs” at the CNI Spring 2022 Membership Meeting in San Diego. About the session As data-intensive research has become the norm in an expanding number of academic fields, universities have adapted by offering a wider range of data support services. Previous research by Ithaka S+R has demonstrated that university libraries have been especially active in this space and are now the largest single…
Past Event
March 17, 2022
Data Support Services Needs in the DIY Era
Dylan Ruediger at the RDAP Summit
On March 17th, from 12:45 – 1:45 PM, Dylan Ruediger will moderate a panel on “Data Support Services in the DYI Era” at the RDAP Summit. For more information about the Summit, please see the RDAP website. Abstract This panel will highlight findings from a recent national study of the research practices of fresearchers working with big data. Our findings suggest that many researchers prefer to learn new skills and tools using internet resources and tutorials rather than…
Blog Post
March 2, 2022
The A*CENSUS II: Archives Administrators Survey is Live
The A*CENSUS II: Archives Administrators Survey launched this week! In 2004, the original A*CENSUS broke ground by surveying archivists from across the country. It had a tremendous impact on the archives profession. The findings empowered archival institutions to advocate for resources and benchmark against peers, allowed researchers to study trends in the workforce, and informed curricula and educational offerings by academic institutions and professional organizations. A*CENSUS II builds upon the foundation of the original…
Blog Post
March 1, 2022
How to Navigate Remote Learning when Teaching with Cultural Heritage Materials
When the COVID-19 pandemic reached the United States, instructors had to adapt quickly to new teaching and learning environments. For those instructors who teach with cultural heritage materials, the shift to remote learning was even more complex. They had to discover new ways to incorporate archives, museum collections, special collections and place based learning within restricted learning environments, and often they had to contend with uneven levels of access to adequate technology while doing so. Through these challenges,…
Research Report
March 1, 2022
Teaching with Cultural Heritage Materials During the Pandemic
Cultural heritage materials can offer rewarding learning opportunities and impactful experiences for students across a variety of disciplines, especially in the humanities and social sciences. These learning opportunities create important historical and/or cultural context within a discipline, allowing students to deepen their engagement with a discipline, or see themselves, perhaps for the first time, as a scholar. However, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the attendant move to online instruction at many colleges and universities, disrupted pedagogical practices and the ways that…
Blog Post
January 18, 2022
Ithaka S+R is Growing: Join Us!
Over the past few years, the scope and breadth of Ithaka S+R’s work has grown substantially. The Libraries, Scholarly Communication, and Museums program has seen increases in cohort projects that explore critical issues facing libraries; grant funded initiatives focused on digital preservation, higher education in prison, student success, and museum leadership; national surveys of faculty, community college administrators, and archivists; and sponsored work on topics including the health of the research enterprise and diversifying collections. To…
Past Event
February 17, 2022
Melissa Blankstein at the DREAM 2022 conference
On Thursday, February 17, from 3:00-3:30 pm EST, Melissa Blankstein will present on “Leveraging the 21st Century Academic Library: Opportunities for Collaboration for Student Success” at the DREAM 2022 conference. Abstract How can your library best position itself to support students holistically? Current library programs often straddle both missions of academic and student affairs–how can this unique role be maximized to enhance both institutional and student success? Join representatives from Bunker Hill Community College and the Community College of Rhode…
Past Event
January 25, 2022
Melissa Blankstein Presents on Collaborating to Support Student Success
ACRL Choice Webinar
On, Tuesday, January 25th at 2:00 pm EST, Melissa is speaking at an ACRL Choice Webinar, “Leveraging the 21st Century Library: Opportunities for Collaboration to Support Student Success.” To register for this free webinar, please visit the ACRL Choice website. About the webinar The library is well positioned to play a key role in supporting student success—helping to increase student learning, develop a sense of community, provide technological resources, and act as a hub for many other services. How…
Blog Post
January 12, 2022
Preprints: Their Evolving Role in Science Communication
New Publication
We are pleased to announce the publication of Preprints: Their Evolving Role in Science Communication by Iratxe Puebla and Jessica Polka, both of ASAPbio, and Ithaka S+R’s Oya Y. Rieger. It is part of the Charleston Briefings: Trending Topics for Information Professionals series. This briefing discusses the history and role of preprints—scholarly manuscripts posted by the author(s) to a repository or platform to facilitate open and broad sharing of early work without any limitations…
Blog Post
January 5, 2022
Providing Library Services for Higher Education in Prison
An Interview with Jessica Licklider and Jeannie Colson
In a previous blog post I interviewed Jeanie Austin of the San Francisco Public Library about their new book on providing library services to incarcerated people. With the restoration of Pell funding for incarcerated students set to take place in 2023, the field of higher education in prison (HEP) is currently grappling with how to prepare for this long-awaited expansion of funding and opportunity, and academic libraries that wish to serve this student group must likewise prepare to meet…
Blog Post
December 20, 2021
Leading by Diversifying Collections
Announcing a New Project to Support Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Academic Libraries
As academic libraries seek to meaningfully engage with calls to improve practices related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) it is important that the library’s collections align with that mission. Yet, Ithaka S+R’s recent survey of library directors found that most libraries have not developed criteria for evaluating and making decisions related to the diversity of their collections. A library-wide strategy for diversifying collections also involves leveraging staff and resources in new ways…
Blog Post
December 15, 2021
Building Sustainable Data Sharing Communities
Announcing the Participants in an NSF-Funded Incubation Workshop
Across the country and around the world, communities of researchers are voluntarily sharing data across disciplinary and institutional borders. Understanding the motivations, practices, and challenges faced by members of these communities is important to the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other funders seeking to promote and normalize data sharing and reuse. However, questions remain about how to best support data communities as they emerge and mature. Some of the most urgent issues involve documentation,…
Blog Post
December 7, 2021
Providing Library Services to the Incarcerated
An Interview with Jeanie Austin on Their New Book
Providing library services to people held in prisons and jails can be a challenging endeavor. Those who take on this work will need to navigate complex, and not always welcoming, corrections’ bureaucracies and face censorship or be themselves co-opted into censoring in ways that are antithetical to the ethical tenets of librarianship. Yet the information needs among incarcerated and detained people are immense given their limited access to the internet or other technologies…
Research Report
December 6, 2021
What Is a Research Core?
A Primer on a Critical Component of the Research Enterprise
As clusters of state-of-the-art instruments and research enablement services, research cores are not only the cornerstone of research activities at university campuses but also critical assets that provide competitive differentiation for their host institutions. However, these research cores are highly expensive for academic institutions to manage. Despite the growing recognition and impact of these research cores, there are few studies that describe the business models for sustaining and funding research cores or their increasing significance to the larger academic community.
Blog Post
December 1, 2021
Supporting Big Data Research
New Report Offers Recommendations for Stakeholders
As “big data” has moved from the margins to the center of a growing number of academic disciplines, how well are universities, funders, and publishers supporting researchers? To better understand how big data research is pursued in academic contexts, Ithaka S+R partnered with librarians at more than 20 colleges and universities, interviewing over 200 faculty members, to explore how researchers work with big data and identify the challenges they face. “Big Data Infrastructure at the Crossroads:…
Research Report
December 1, 2021
Big Data Infrastructure at the Crossroads
Support Needs and Challenges for Universities
Ithaka S+R’s Research Support Services program explores current trends and support needs in academic research. Our most recent project in this program, “Supporting Big Data Research,” focused specifically on the rapidly emerging use of big data in research across disciplines and fields. As part of our study, we partnered with librarians from more than 20 colleges and universities, who then conducted over 200 interviews with faculty. These interviews provided insights into the research methodologies and support needs of researchers working…