TEALS (Tool for Evaluation of Academic Library Spaces) project : evaluating physical library spaces

The aim of TEALS project was to establish a setting for evaluation of academic library spaces. The outcomes of such evaluation were anticipated to provide insights into the impacts of library spaces on students’ learning experiences, faculty’s teaching and research and lead to identifying the area of weakness and strength, developing improvement plans and defining specific goals and means for project decision-makers.

Informing decision-making in libraries: informetric research as input to LIS education and practice.(Library and Information Science).

Findings from informetric research represent an important background resource to add to the mix of information useful for resolving difficult and ongoing problems in specific library environments or information service settings. This paper provides examples of informetric research that can be useful input to decision-making in the field of library management and information service provision. This overview takes four of the challenges that Michael Buckland outlined for library research as a way of guiding the discussion of ways that informetric work can be used to inform library decision-making. (1) References are made to relevant informetric work undertaken or conducted in Australia, by Australian researchers, or with Australian data.

Informetrics includes both quantitative and qualitative methods, which when used in combination can provide a rounded set of findings that has great validity for management, policy and service applications. Quantitative methodologies are generally based on bibliometric techniques, such as mining and analysis of data from various bibliographic and textual databases. Qualitative methods include survey, case study and historical approaches. Used in combination, each set of findings adds richness and other perspectives to an analysis.

Mind the gap 2014 : research to inform the next five years of library development

Libraries have a long history of gathering evidence of performance. The results of regular client satisfaction surveys directly inform the continuous improvement of library and information services. Staff and student input is critical for improving library physical and virtual spaces, facilities and resources, and also to learn how the university community may approach information discovery into the future.

At Deakin University Library we are investigating, developing and integrating Web 2.0 applications into our service delivery. At the same time, designs for next generation physical learning spaces are being developed and implemented. These will extend the opportunities for students to contribute to a connected network of learners and teachers, to develop social networks, and to enrich experience of university life. Both the online and spaces strategies support the University’s distinctive advantage in flexible education.

But what of the future? How can the Library ensure that its support of research, teaching and learning aligns with changes in the behaviour and preferences of the university community in the next five years? This paper reviews Deakin University Library’s recent achievements, exposes an important gap and previews its plans to ensure its reliable support to the university community continues.

Classifying Australian PhD theses : linking research and library practices

This paper draws on the findings from, and the methods and approach used, in the provision of a database of Australian PhD thesis records for the period 1987 to 2006, coded by Research Fields, Courses and Disciplines (RFCD) fields of study. The project was funded by the Research Excellence Branch of the Australian Research Council. Importantly, the project was not merely the creation of yet another database but constitutes a valuable research resource in its own right. It provides an alternative source of data about research training with a focus on research output and research capacity building rather than input as does data on enrolment. The database is significant as it can be used to track knowledge production in Australia over a twenty year period and contains approximately 54,000 bibliographic records. The database of Australian PhDs has been constructed from downloaded bibliographic records from Libraries Australia. Recommendations for practice relate to university libraries, doctoral candidates, and the coded database. We suggest that libraries are more consistent with cataloguing procedures, including the thesis ‘publication’ date, and that they are more timely in uploading their thesis records to Libraries Australia or, alternatively, Australian Research Online. We also suggest that PhD candidates code their own theses using the new ANZSRC scheme (which replaced the RFCD classification in 2008), and also use clear and communicative thesis titles and thesis abstracts. With regard to the coded database, we suggest it becomes a requirement for universities to provide the ANZSRC coding of submitted theses

Academic libraries

Academic libraries are taken to refer here to two particular types of library: university libraries and those libraries which serve the vocational education and training (VET) sector through colleges or institutes of technical and further education (TAFE). (School libraries are dealt with in a separate chapter.) Universities cover undergraduate programs, principally Bachelors degrees, and postgraduate programs such as the Graduate Certificate, Graduate Diploma, Masters degrees and doctoral programs. The main TAFE awards are Certificate, Diploma and Advanced Diploma. Universities are largely funded by national government - the federal Commonwealth Government in Australia's case - although, as elsewhere, an increasing amount of university funding needs to come from non-government sources, particularly research funding. In Australia institutes of TAFE are funded by state and territory governments, although from 2005 the Federal Government began providing funding for the development of technical colleges outside the TAFE sector that would provide vocational education for secondary school age students. This latter development may well be affected by the change in federal government in late 2007.

The mission for academic libraries globally is to support the teaching, learning and (where appropriate) research activities of their parent institutions. In Australia and New Zealand, universities and their libraries have also had a long tradition of reaching out to the community, contributing to the cultural and intellectual life of the nation. Australia has thirty-nine universities; of which thirty-seven are public institutions and two are private. New Zealand has eight universities. The libraries supporting these institutions are diverse, of high quality and innovative. Based on 2005 figures, there are sixty-eight institutions in Australia's VET sector, with over 1,100 campuses, 1.7 million students and some eleven per cent of Australia's working age population accessing TAPE (Oakley & Vaugha 2007: 43).

Special libraries

In Australia and New Zealand, the term 'special library' refers to libraries that provide resources and services to employees of an organization or industry.  The majority have collections and/or services supporting a specific subject area.  These include, but are not limited to, libraries in government department, law firms, private companies, banking and finance institutions, research organizations, religious groups and professional associations.

Classifying Australian PhD theses: linking research and library practices

This article draws on the findings from, and the methods and approach used in the provision of a database of Australian PhD thesis records for the period 1987 to 2006, coded by Research Fields, Courses and Disciplines (RFCD) fields of study. Importantly, the project was not merely the creation of yet another database but constitutes a valuable research resource in its own right. The database is significant as it can be used to track knowledge production in Australia over a twenty year period and contains approximately 54,000 bibliographic records. Recommendations for practice relate to university libraries, doctoral candidates, and the coded database.

Visions, illusions and facts : a reflection on the partnerships between academic libraries and vendors in the new information landscape

Is the industry in chaos? How do we to meet the future information needs of the international scholarly community?

The one certainty is that forecasting is never easy. Libraries, vendors and publishers are all working in a rapidly changing environment. It is a fair prediction that there will be fewer participants and less competition in the marketplace. The potential for libraries to be locked into one vendor for access to electronic journals is real. Whether this access will be in perpetuity, no one can give an absolute guarantee. Intellectual property rights, commercial viability and communication standards are all of concern.

We've seen the vision, what's happening now? The Australian academic and research library market has an international reputation for being informed, frank and through necessity, pragmatic. When planning information access and delivery for the next two to five years we are told libraries need a reasonable indication of what is real. Vendors, more than ever, are contributing to a shared understanding amongst libraries, publishers and vendors of the priorities and concerns of different sectors of the industry.

Riding the wave of open access : providing library research support for scholarly publishing literacy

Researchers are experiencing intense pressures to publish and increase research outputs. Recently many research funders have introduced policies and mandates related to open access, which have contributed to the increasing popularity of open access journals. Dubbed gold open access, open access journals offer researchers another publishing option. However, some publishers with questionable practices and journals of dubious quality have emerged exploiting the ‘author pays’ open access model and researchers' need to publish. Hence an ability to publish research outputs through the most appropriate outlet for a particular field is crucial for researchers in order to maximise the impact of their research. Notwithstanding the proliferation of open access journals, the literature indicates that some researchers may not have a full understanding of the operations, implications and issues around open access and other publishing issues. This understanding is known as scholarly publishing literacy. With knowledge of scholarly publishing and access to resources and tools, academic libraries and librarians are well-positioned to play an active role in providing support to researchers. This paper argues that scholarly publishing literacy should be treated as an extension of information literacy delivered through a broader research support framework. This paper presents a research librarian's perspective, and draws on literature and the author's practice to illustrate key points. Issues for further investigation are identified.

Libraries and the digital humanities: partnership, collaboration and shared agendas

Digital humanities is a rapidly growing global interdisciplinary field, reflected in a proliferation of conferences, events, journals, associations, research centres, grants, and courses. Digital humanities has a high profile because of its collaborative activity in building tools, developing services, carrying out projects, and producing ground- breaking research findings. There is a high level of interest from the library community in the digital humanities. This paper looks at the relationship between libraries and the digital humanities from an Australian perspective. The paper draws on the authors’ involvement within the digital humanities community, and especially their experience with developing HuNI: the Humanities Networked Infrastructure, a major digital infrastructure service for the humanities.