Reflection on the center for digital scholarship in China: a case study on space redesign

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiandong Zhu
Keyword(s):  
Participant Observation ◽  
Academic Library ◽  
Service Center ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Association Of Research Libraries ◽  
Future Design ◽  
Digital Scholarship ◽  
Reservation System ◽  
Usage Analysis ◽  
Observation Method

Purpose Focusing on two particularly challenging issues facing Chinese academic libraries – space constraints and the trending of digital scholarship services, this paper aims to explore which spaces students and faculty wanted and how to leverage low-use spaces and growing digital scholarship services to build the Center for Digital Scholarship (CDS) to meet their demands. Design/methodology/approach The participant observation method was used in the launch stage of the space redesign from May 2016 to October 2018. The usage analysis method was used to reveal the use of the renovated spaces and assess the success of the space redesign when CDS was open to users between October 1, 2017 and September 30, 2018. The usage was gathered from the space reservation system. Findings A hybrid academic service center combining information commons, a collaborative workplace, social spaces and digital scholarship services, the CDS is able to meet the complexity and diversity of users’ needs and fulfill the mission of its university in the context of insufficient funds, space and specialists. While it approaches the goal of the space redesign project, some deficiencies remain to be addressed in the future design and service plan, including separating quiet and noisy areas, flexible arrangements and business process reengineering. Practical implications This study shows a hybrid academic service center can meet the complexity and diversity of users’ needs, despite insufficient funds, space and specialists. To ensure sustainability, digital scholarship services should adapt to local users’ needs and expectations. While the author’s patent service and subject development analysis are local and popular with the users and sectors in his university, they make their services somewhat different from those of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) members. Originality/value This is one of the few, recent studies on space redesign incorporating digital scholarship services in a well-known academic library in China.

First steps for a library publisher

2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 76-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Somaly Kim Wu ◽  
Heather McCullough
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Electronic Publishing ◽  
Academic Library ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Journal Publishing ◽  
Digital Scholarship ◽  
Publishing Services ◽  
Communication Policies ◽  
The University

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to presents the very recent development of e-journal publishing services at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Charlotte. In 2011, the J. Murrey Atkins Library at UNC Charlotte created a new unit in the library, the Digital Scholarship Lab (DSL), which partners with faculty and graduate students in the use of digital and networked research tools to create, disseminate and store new knowledge. E-journal publishing and hosting are among the suite of services offered by the DSL, and we currently publish three journals (https://journals.uncc.edu/). Design/methodology/approach – This report provides an overview of the context of our library’s decision to begin publishing journals, including a discussion of our university’s becoming more research-intensive, our university system mandating increased efficiencies and sharing research with the state citizens, and the library’s own goals of raising awareness of and supporting open access. Also outlined are the technical and procedural choices made, important activities undertaken to develop, define and publicize the new services, campus response to the service and next steps. Findings – This report provides detailed accounting of how a large academic library implemented an electronic publishing service to support open access scholarship. Important activities such as marketing communication, policies development and technical/procedural activities are defined and results described. The report provides observation and lessons learned for academic libraries in development and support of electronic journals. Originality/value – Library as the publisher is a new concept. This report will be of interest to many libraries who are considering offering publishing services and to libraries that currently offer publishing services.

Assessment committees: good practices from ARL libraries

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 224-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle H. Brannen ◽  
Sojourna J. Cunningham ◽  
Regina Mays
Keyword(s):  
Academic Libraries ◽  
Academic Library ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Good Practices ◽  
Research Libraries ◽  
Association Of Research Libraries ◽  
Library Assessment ◽  
Current State ◽  
Survey Results ◽  
Assessment Activities

Purpose Assessment activities in academic libraries continue to grow as libraries explore assessment endeavors. Ranging from basic stats gathering and reporting to surveys, focus groups, and usability studies and beyond. Many practitioners are finding it necessary to create new processes and programs, with little guidance. The purpose of this paper is to paint a broad picture of assessment activities in Association of Research Libraries (ARL) university libraries with the goal of creating a resource for libraries developing or improving their assessment programs. Design/methodology/approach A survey was developed that asked questions about assessment personnel, activities, mission, and website. A total of 113 surveys were sent to academic library members of ARL. Survey results were analyzed to compile a list of recommended good practices for assessment and working with assessment committees in academic libraries. Findings The investigators had a response rate of 43 percent. The open-ended nature of the survey questions allowed for the respondents to specifically narrow down the problems and opportunities inherent in library assessment committees. Originality/value This study takes the temperature of the current state of assessment programs in ARL libraries, demonstrating the growth of assessment programs. It begins to document the practices of these libraries, particularly in regards to the sometimes informal and hard to track use of committees and other in-house collaborations, as a first step toward developing best practices for the field. The results illuminate productive areas for further study, including investigating how to measure a culture of assessment and maximizing impact of assessment information presented on assessment websites.

scholarly journals International business research challenges in Africa

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2/3) ◽  
pp. 188-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdoulkadre Ado ◽  
Roseline Wanjiru
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Creation ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Culturally Sensitive ◽  
Government Support ◽  
Business Research ◽  
Global Knowledge ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Research Challenges ◽  
Conducting Research ◽  
Observation Method

Purpose This paper aims to explore the challenges researchers in/on Africa face when conducting research on the continent. It examines the reasons behind Africans’ relatively limited contribution to the business literature in the global sphere and why not culturally sensitive and nuanced research on Africa is spreading unchallenged. Design/methodology/approach The study combines knowledge creation and institutional theories to explain why African business scholars struggle in researching the continent and in contributing significantly to global knowledge creation. It also explores the debate about why Africa’s narratives in business seem dominated by not culturally sensitive and nuanced voices and approaches. It uses a participant observation method. Findings The study found that African scholars have not yet contributed significantly to global knowledge creation because of Africa’s institutional weaknesses and lack of government support for research, coupled with challenges at the interviewing, organizational and scholars’ levels. The study points to the specificities of the continent as well as to African interviewees’ particularities and the type of interactions with the researchers. The paper proposes new avenues to address those multilevel challenges and offers key lessons for future studies. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to systematically investigate the fundamental reasons behind business research challenges in/on Africa from knowledge creation and institutional standpoints. This study also contributes to the growing debate on Africans’ meager contribution to business literature as well as the controversy regarding culturally sensitive vs not culturally sensitive knowledge creation on Africa. Finally, it proposes avenues to understanding and overcoming those challenges.

The role of digital scholarship in academic libraries, the case of university of cape coast: opportunities and challenges

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Theophilus Kwamena Ocran ◽  
Paulina Afful-Arthur
Keyword(s):  
Learning Style ◽  
Academic Libraries ◽  
Academic Library ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Teaching Staff ◽  
Cape Coast ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Digital Scholarship ◽  
The University

PurposeThe purpose of the study is to assess the role of academic libraries in digital scholarship at the University of Cape Coast. The study adopted the descriptive survey design and used teaching staff (lecturers) as the population of the study.Design/methodology/approachA sample size of 278 was used for the study. The study used questionnaires to obtain data from participants. The study revealed that faculty members appreciate digital scholarship through the services offered by Sam Jonah Library are relevant to the current higher education context, reliable information, preservation of information resources and facilitating the integration of library services into the learning process are closely integrated into the library service, transform scholarly communication, teaching and learning style and research paradigm.FindingsThe study revealed that digital scholarship contributes to faculty members' delivery at the University of Cape Coast through the provision of information literacy training for new students, provision of reference lists of materials available in the library and provision of lists of new materials. The study revealed that faculty members face inadequate facilities to enhance digital scholarship, inadequate open access to reading materials (articles, books, etc.), inadequate platforms or suite of tools for librarians to take faculty.Practical implicationsThe application of digital scholarship provides an expansion to the core competitiveness of librarians new services which enables innovativeness and transformation of libraries. Students will be equipped with digital literacy skills; it affords instructors to approach teaching with innovation and scholars are also engaged to perform novel practices in scholarship acquisition. Digital scholarship is the umbrella under which all academic technologies comes under to foster collaboration and better learning experience.Originality/valueThis paper offers an insight of the role digital scholarship in promoting and advancing scholarship in the academic environment. It highlights a number of digital scholarship platform available in the library. It is observed that digital scholarship practices must be encouraged in the library because it facilitates the role of academic library which is to support teaching, learning and research.

Deviation of community savings groups from their apparent methodology

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 326-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Maliti
Keyword(s):  
Financial Intermediation ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Social Implications ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Enforcement Mechanisms ◽  
Observation Method ◽  
The Village ◽  
Weekly Group

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide generalised views on ways in which field practice in Tanzania deviates from the village savings and lending associations (VSLA) methodology. Design/methodology/approach The research applied “participant observation method” involving actual participation in the weekly meetings of the surveyed savings groups. Findings Field practices deviate from the VSLA methodology. Deviations include the tendency for the savings groups to simplify financial intermediation by regressing from using loan guarantors, relying on external enforcement to recover debts from group members (rather than depending on within group enforcement mechanisms), use of social funds to recover loans, limited attendance in weekly group meetings and accumulation of debts towards share-out dates. Research limitations/implications Results from this study are relevant to Ilala district where VSLA groups were sampled from. Cautious reading is therefore necessary when attempting to generalise findings to other areas with different social, economic and institution settings. Practical implications VSLA model needs to consider a number of issues. They include devising means to accommodate field realities; from simplification of financial intermediation activities to the dependence of the savings groups on external enforcement. Social implications Social implications include a possible improved VSLA model based on the findings from this study, to further advance the performance of community-based savings groups. Originality/value By revealing the deviation of the VSLA methodology from the practice, the study adds value to the literature which is largely dominated by economic and poverty impact of savings groups.

How assessment websites of academic libraries convey information and show value

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 203-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Clunie ◽  
Darlene Ann Parrish
Keyword(s):  
Academic Libraries ◽  
Performance Metrics ◽  
Academic Library ◽  
Public Access ◽  
Black College ◽  
Important Indicator ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Research Libraries ◽  
Association Of Research Libraries ◽  
Canadian Association

Purpose As libraries are required to become more accountable and demonstrate that they are meeting performance metrics, an assessment website can be a means for providing data for evidence-based decision making and an important indicator of how a library interacts with its constituents. The purpose of this paper is to share the results of a review of websites of academic libraries from four countries, including the UK, Canada, Australia and the USA. Design/methodology/approach The academic library websites included in the sample were selected from the Canadian Association of Research Libraries, Research Libraries of the United Kingdom, Council of Australian University Libraries, Historically Black College & Universities Library Alliance, Association of Research Libraries and American Indian Higher Education Consortium. The websites were evaluated according to the absence or presence of nine predetermined characteristics related to assessment. Findings It was discovered that “one size does not fit all” and found several innovative ways institutions are listening to their constituents and making improvements to help users succeed in their academic studies, research and creative endeavors. Research limitations/implications Only a sample of academic libraries from each of the four countries were analyzed. Additionally, some of the academic libraries were using password protected intranets unavailable for public access. The influences of institutional history and country-specific practices also became compelling factors during the analysis. Originality/value This paper seeks to broaden the factors for what is thought of as academic library assessment with the addition of qualitative and contextual considerations.

Toward a theory on workplaces for smart workers

Facilities ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 298-315
Author(s):  
Luisa Errichiello ◽  
Tommasina Pianese
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Innovative Design ◽  
Content Type ◽  
New Type ◽  
Smart Working ◽  
Research Propositions

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the main features of smart work centers (SWCs) and show how these innovative offices would support the implementation of smart working and related changes in workspaces (“bricks”), technologies (“bytes”) and organizational practices (“behaviors”). Design/methodology/approach In this study, scientific literature is combined with white papers and business reports and visits to 14 workplaces, including offices designed as SWCs, co-working spaces, one telecenter, one accelerator and one fab lab. Primary data were collected through interviews with managers and users and non-participant observation, whereas secondary data included web-sites, brochures, presentations, press releases and official documents. Findings The authors developed research propositions about how the design of spaces and the availability of technology within SWCs would support the “bricks” and “bytes” levers of smart working. More importantly, the authors assumed that this new type of workplace would sustain changes in employees’ behaviors and managers’ practices, thus helping to overcome several challenges traditionally associated with remote working. Research limitations/implications The exploratory nature of the research only provides preliminary information about the role of SWCs within smart working programs. Additional qualitative and quantitative empirical investigation is required. Practical implications This study provides valuable knowledge about how the design of corporate offices can be leveraged to sustain the implementation of smart working. Originality/value This study advances knowledge on workplaces by focusing on an innovative design of traditional offices (SWC). It also lays the foundations for future investigation aimed at testing the developed propositions.

scholarly journals Complete Sequence of pOZ176, a 500-Kilobase IncP-2 Plasmid Encoding IMP-9-Mediated Carbapenem Resistance, from Outbreak Isolate Pseudomonas aeruginosa 96

2013 ◽  
Vol 57 (8) ◽  
pp. 3775-3782 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianhui Xiong ◽  
David C. Alexander ◽  
Jennifer H. Ma ◽  
Maxime Déraspe ◽  
Donald E. Low ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Pseudomonas Aeruginosa ◽  
Carbapenem Resistance ◽  
Complete Sequence ◽  
Open Reading Frames ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Conserved Sequence ◽  
Carbapenem Resistant ◽  
Class 1 ◽  
Usage Analysis ◽  
Type 3

ABSTRACTPseudomonas aeruginosa96 (PA96) was isolated during a multicenter surveillance study in Guangzhou, China, in 2000. Whole-genome sequencing of this outbreak strain facilitated analysis of its IncP-2 carbapenem-resistant plasmid, pOZ176. The plasmid had a length of 500,839 bp and an average percent G+C content of 57%. Of the 618 predicted open reading frames, 65% encode hypothetical proteins. The pOZ176 backbone is not closely related to any plasmids thus far sequenced, but some similarity to pQBR103 ofPseudomonas fluorescensSBW25 was observed. Two multiresistant class 1 integrons and several insertion sequences were identified. TheblaIMP-9-carrying integron containedaacA4→blaIMP-9→aacA4, flanked upstream by Tn21 tnpMRAand downstream by a completetnioperon of Tn402and amermodule, named Tn6016. The second integron carriedaacA4→catB8a→blaOXA-10and was flanked by Tn1403-liketnpRAand asul1-type 3′ conserved sequence (3′-CS), named Tn6217. Other features include three resistance genes similar to those of Tn5, a tellurite resistance operon, and twopiloperons. The replication and maintenance systems exhibit similarity to a genomic island ofRalstonia solanacearumGM1000. Codon usage analysis suggests the recent acquisition ofblaIMP-9. The origins of the integrons on pOZ176 indicated separate horizontal gene transfer events driven by antibiotic selection. The novel mosaic structure of pOZ176 suggests that it is derived from environmental bacteria.

Extended and experimenting: library learning commons service strategy and sustainability

2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (4/5) ◽  
pp. 265-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Gunter King
Keyword(s):  
Planning Process ◽  
Academic Library ◽  
Historical Review ◽  
Academic Librarians ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Research Engagement ◽  
Learning Commons ◽  
Library Research ◽  
The Commons

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to share a compelling example of a library’s willingness to develop and design itself as an open-ended process. Design/methodology/approach – The case study provides a historical review of the library’s founding design, and an overview of the process and approach to redesign. The study contextualizes the library within current academic library research and literature. Findings – This paper explores the research, engagement and planning process behind the library’s exploration of new models and service configurations. The project was an engaged, inclusive, transparent, library-led process. The commons reestablishes the library as the “nerve center” of the campus. Originality/value – The paper offers an update to a 1969 report, and later book by Robert Taylor on the Harold F. Johnson Library at Hampshire College, designed as a prototype of an academic library. This paper will be of value to academic librarians, administrators, and historians.

scholarly journals User agreements and makerspaces: a content analysis

2015 ◽  
Vol 116 (7/8) ◽  
pp. 358-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Michele Moorefield-Lang
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Academic Libraries ◽  
Technology Use ◽  
Academic Library ◽  
The Body ◽  
Library Science ◽  
Learning Space ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Qualitative Data Analysis Software

Abstract – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the user agreements of makerspaces in public and academic libraries. User agreements, also known as maker agreements, user forms and liability forms, can be very important documents between library patrons, staff and faculty. User agreements are similar to the earlier creation of acceptable use policies for technology use in libraries. The author of this study will delve into the user agreements created for public and academic libraries across the USA. Design/methodology/approach – The researcher used content analysis to investigate 24 different user agreements written for public and academic library makerspaces. NVivo qualitative data analysis software was integrated into this research to aid in the breakdown of commonalities across terms, themes and purpose within the user agreements. Findings – Although makerspaces are a very exciting topic in the field of library science at this time, the implementation of a maker learning space is still new to many libraries. Creating a user agreement for a makerspace is newer still. Most user agreements in this study were six months to a year old. Some consistencies found across makerspace user agreements include liability waivers, permissions for minors, safety, copyright and technology replacement costs. Originality/value – At this time, most publications on makerspaces are held in the realm of popular publications (blogs, magazines, zines, etc.). The body of peer-reviewed and scholarly research on makerspaces is growing. Makerspace user agreements are new to this growing field of interest, and a content analysis of these documents will pave the way for the writing of future forms.

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