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Elsevier

Chandos

  • Driving Science Information Discovery in the Digital Age

    • 1st Edition
    • Svetla Baykoucheva
    • English
    New digital technologies have transformed how scientific information is created, disseminated—and discovered. The emergence of new forms of scientific publishing based on open science and open access have caused a major shift in scientific communication and a restructuring of the flow of information. Specialized indexing services and search engines are trying to get into information seekers’ minds to understand what users are actually looking for when typing all these keywords or drawing chemical structures. Using artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and semantic indexing, these "discovery agents" are trying to anticipate users’ information needs. In this highly competitive environment, authors should not sit and rely only on publishers, search engines, and indexing services to make their works visible. They need to communicate about their research and reach out to a larger audience. Driving Science Information Discovery in the Digital Age looks through the "eyes" of the main "players" in this "game" and examines the discovery of scientific information from three different, but intertwined, perspectives: Discovering, managing, and using information (Information seeker perspective) Publishing, disseminating, and making information discoverable (Publisher perspective) Creating, spreading, and promoting information (Author perspective).

  • Libraries, Digital Information, and COVID

    Practical Applications and Approaches to Challenge and Change
    • 1st Edition
    • David Baker + 1 more
    • English
    COVID-19 is profoundly affecting the ways in which we live, learn, plan, and develop. What does COVID-19 mean for the future of digital information use and delivery, and for more traditional forms of library provision? Libraries, Digital Information, and COVID gives immediate and long-term solutions for librarians responding to the challenge of COVID-19. The book helps library leaders prepare for a post-COVID-19 world, giving guidance on developing sustainable solutions. The need for sustainable digital access has now become acute, and while offering a physical space will remain important, current events are likely to trigger a shift toward off-site working and study, making online access to information more crucial. Libraries have already been providing access to digital information as a premium service. New forms and use of materials all serve to eliminate the need for direct contact in a physical space. Such spaces will come to be predicated on evolving systems of digital information, as critical needs are met by remote delivery of goods and services. Intensified financial pressure will also shape the future, with a reassessment of information and its commercial value. In response, there will be a massification of provision through increased cooperation and collaboration. These significant transitions are driving professionals to rethink and question their identities, values, and purpose. This book responds to these issues by examining the practicalities of running a library during and after the pandemic, answering questions such as: What do we know so far? How are institutions coping? Where are providers placing themselves on the digital/print and the remote/face-to-face continuums? This edited volume gives analysis and examples from around the globe on how libraries are managing to deliver access and services during COVID-19. This practical and thoughtful book provides a framework within which library directors and their staff can plan sustainable services and collections for an uncertain future.

  • Disaster Planning for Special Libraries

    • 1st Edition
    • Guy Robertson
    • English
    Disaster Planning for Special Libraries contains a guide for developing and maintaining disaster plans for small special libraries and related work units.This volume serves as a reference resource, not only for people who have never considered the disaster planning process, but also for experienced planners interested in a variety of approaches to different aspects of planning.The author discusses the role of the special librarian in the planning process and considers the relationship between special libraries and their host organizations. He emphasizes the importance of coordinating a special library’s plan with any in place for its host organization, and encourages librarians to demonstrate their planning skills for organization-wide benefits.Early chapters summarize the initial phases of the planning process, which include preparedness and response measures. Subsequent chapters cover the assessment of damage to special library facilities and assets, the implications of declaring a disaster, the development of strategic alliances with key suppliers, orientation and training, succession planning, operational resumption, the normalization of library operations, and auditing a disaster plan. The concluding chapter discusses concerns that special librarians might have with regard to the future and its risks.Appendices include examples of a risk assessment and analysis and a risk mitigation program, a strike and protest plan, an emergency equipment inspection and audit report, a pandemic management program, and disaster response manager’s kit.

  • Future Directions in Digital Information

    Predictions, Practice, Participation
    • 1st Edition
    • David Baker + 1 more
    • English
    The last decade has seen significant global changes that have impacted the library, information, and learning services and sciences. There is now a mood to find pragmatic information solutions to pressing global challenges. Future Directions in Digital Information presents the latest ideas and approaches to digital information from across the globe, portraying a sense of transition from old to new. This title is a comprehensive, international take on key themes, advances, and trends in digital information, including the impact of developing technologies. The latest volume in the ‘Chandos Digital Information Review Series’, this book will help practitioners and thinkers looking to keep pace with, and excel among, the digital choices and pathways on offer, to develop new systems and models, and gain information on trends in the educational and industry contexts that make up the information sphere. A group of international contributors has been assembled to give their view on how information professionals and scientists are creating the future along five distinct themes: Strategy and Design; Who are the Users?; Where Formal meets Informal; Applications and Delivery; and finally, New Paradigms. The multinational perspectives contained in this volume acquaint readers with problems, approaches, and achievements in digital information from around the world, with equity of information access emerging as a key challenge.

  • Technology, Change and the Academic Library

    Case Studies, Trends and Reflections
    • 1st Edition
    • Jeremy Atkinson
    • English
    Massive technological change has been impacting universities and university libraries in recent years. Such change has manifested in technological developments impacting all areas of academic library activity, including systems, services, collections, the physical library environment, marketing, and support for university teaching, learning, research, and administration. Many books and papers have examined these changes from a technical perspective. However, there is little substantive reflection on what technological change means, and how best to get out in front of it, for the academic library. Technology, Change and the Academic Library systematically reflects on technological innovation, the successes, failures and lessons learned, the nature, process and culture of change, and key aspects including impacts on library staff and users, roles and responsibilities, and skills and capabilities. The book takes an international perspective on the massive change currently affecting academic libraries. The title gives an overview and literature review, considers technological innovation and change management, future technologies and future change, and provides information on further reading. Case studies describe the rationale, aims, and objectives for particular technological innovations, and consider methods, outcomes, and recommendations for the future. Finally, the book reflects back on how technological change can best be wrought in academic libraries.

  • Environmental Consciousness in China

    Change with Social Transformation
    • 1st Edition
    • Qiu Zhong + 1 more
    • English
    Environmental Consciousness in China: Change with Social Transformation discusses the status of environmental consciousness within China from both an economic and political view. It then compares and contrasts the situation in China with Western nations. This is the first book that includes a comparison of urban and rural groups based on China’s unique modernization background.

  • Transformative Library and Information Work

    Profiles in Social Justice
    • 1st Edition
    • Stephen Bales + 1 more
    • English
    Intended to be an accessible guide to transformational information work, the book collects approximately thirty brief case studies of information related organizations, initiatives, and/or projects that focus on social justice related activities. Each case is a short narrative account of its particular subject’s history, objectives, accomplishments, and challenges faced. It also describes the material realities involved in the subjects’ day-to-day operation. Furthermore, cases include pertinent excerpts from interviews conducted with individuals directly involved with the information organization and will conclude with three-to-five bulleted takeaway points for information workers to consider when developing their own praxis

  • The Role of the Electronic Resources Librarian

    • 1st Edition
    • George Stachokas
    • English
    The Role of the Electronic Resources Librarian focuses on longstanding hurdles to the transition of libraries from print collections, to online information services, all from an Electronic Resources Librarian (ERL) perspective. Problems covered include cost containment for electronic serials, web design, discovery, customer service, efficiency, and adapting organizations to the needs of contemporary users. The title considers the historical development of the ERL role, how the position emerged in North America in the 1990s, how it is represented within the organizational structure of academic libraries, and how the ERL role maps to technology, information services, and professional identity trends.

  • Metadata for Transmedia Resources

    • 1st Edition
    • Ana Vukadin
    • English
    Transmedia is a technique of delivering a single piece of content in individual parts via different media and communication platforms (books, films, TV shows, games, live performances, etc.). In the book transmedia is considered as a case-in-point for the need to rethink library cataloguing and metadata practices in a new, heterogeneous information environment where the ability to bring together information from various sources into a meaningful whole becomes a critical information skill. Transmedia sheds new light on some of the long-existing questions of bibliographic information organisation (the definition of work, modelling of bibliographic relationships, subject analysis of fiction, etc.) and introduces libraries to new, transient and interactive media forms such as interactive fiction, gaming events, or performances. The book investigates how various theories and practices of bibliographic information organisation can be applied to transmedia, focusing on the solutions provided by the new bibliographic conceptual model IFLA LRM, as well as linked open data models and standards. It strongly advocates collaborative practices and reuse of knowledge that underpin an emerging vision of the library catalogue as a 'mediation tool' that assembles, links and integrates information across a variety of communication contexts.

  • Academic Libraries and Public Engagement With Science and Technology

    • 1st Edition
    • Eileen Harrington
    • English
    Libraries have historically played a role as a community builder, providing resources and spaces where knowledge can be archived, shared and created. They can also play a pivotal role in fostering the public’s understanding of science and scientific processes. From makerspaces to data visualization labs to exhibits, many libraries already delve into scientific explorations and many more could join them. Scientists often need to include "broader impacts" goals in grant proposals, but they might not know where to begin or feel that they do not have the time to devote to public engagement. This is where libraries and librarians can help. Research in science communication also supports tapping into libraries for public engagement with science. Studies show that it is important for scientists to present findings in an apolitical way—not aligning with one solution or one way of thinking and not being seen as an activist (Druckman, 2015; Jamieson & Hardy, 2014). One of the core tenets of librarians and libraries is to present information in a neutral way. Research also shows that Informal conversations about science can have a greater effect on people than reading about it online or hearing about it on the news (Eveland & Cooper, 2013). Again, libraries can play a role in fostering these types of conversations. Given this landscape, this book will demonstrate concrete ways that libraries and librarians can play a role in fostering public engagement with science. In addition to background information on the current landscape of public knowledge and understanding of science, it will also include best practices and case studies of different types of programming and services that libraries can offer. Often libraries do not jump to mind when people think about science education or science literacy, and many librarians do not come from a science background. Literature on science programming and sharing science is largely absent from the library field. This book will help give confidence to librarians that they can participate in engaging the public with science. At the same time, it will provide a conduit to bring informal science educators, communication officers from universities or research organizations who share scientific discoveries with the public, and librarians together to explore ways to align their work to promote scientific literacy for all.

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