From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]> Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2017 16:52:44 -0400 Eric, This is a bit of a tangent, but if you want better metadata from publishers, this is a solvable problem. The question publishers would naturally ask is, How would this benefit me? In the world of books and Amazon, the answer is better metadata leads to greater sales. If you can frame good metadata as a publisher benefit, this could move forward. Joe Esposito On Sun, Sep 10, 2017 at 1:30 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > From: Eric Elmore <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2017 15:51:41 +0000 > > Nancy makes fantastic point. The metadata portion of our entire > academic/scholarly universe is foundering and it shows. Discovery > systems are only as good as the metadata fed into them, and the > quality varies tremendously. Publishers put just enough effort into > their metadata to keep librarians from squawking too much, while still > paying the bills. If the publishers don’t fix the problems (which > they show no inclination to unless we pay even more money them to do > it) we’ll need to shore it up ourselves. > > And Joe’s question makes a YUGE assumption – that scholarly journals > and books universally become open access and available to everyone > everywhere AND that’s the entirety of what we provide and are asked to > provide There are no other resources needed to fulfil our collective > mission? I’m afraid that scholarly output(journals and books) is only > part of the materiel needs we provide to our researchers and students. > What about all that business intelligence, datasets/compilations, > newspaper and miscellaneous archival collections(especially print > based collections being digitized)? Do those resources magically > become free as well? Hmmm…doubtful. > > So even in an ideal open-access world we’re still going to need some > staffing to manage an admittedly smaller portfolio of > subscription/leased resources. I can even see the possibility that > the amount of work the acq/er folks do wouldn’t go down that much. > With funds not going towards journals & books, the requests for those > other types of content would likely go up. > > Happy Friday allJ > > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > > Eric Elmore | > Electronic Resources Coordinator | > The University of Texas at San Antonio | > One UTSA Circle | > San Antonio, TX. 78249-0671 | > (O)210-458-4916/(F)210-458-4577 | > [log in to unmask] | > > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > > > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: The future of libraries > From: Nancy Herther <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Wed, 6 Sep 2017 21:28:37 -0500 > > Joe - > > Open Access is wonderful - although the standards of many OA journals > are somewhat lax today. The real problem for researchers is that OA > means little if you can't find the articles that you need when you > need them. Google Scholar is as hopeless as Google. The shift to so > many preprint/repository/OA publications begs the need for a strong, > comprehensive indexing system - which is woefully lacking today. > > I did a study in the field of Disability Studies a few years ago and > found that the majority of DS journals are OA and freely available on > the web - but only ONE was comprehensively indexed cover-to-cover and > that was in Web of Science. If you can't find the articles integrated > into the traditional indexes of the scholarly fields, we are only > taking a major step backwards - not forward. > > Is this a slam-dunk for the future of libraries or indexes? No. I'm > shocked at the number of libraries/librarians so openly talking about > canceling scholarly indexes in favor of (lord help us) Google Scholar. > Librarians and their institutions should be putting a whole lot more > effort into quality control and access; however, it doesn't seem to be > happening. > > Just my thoughts > > Nancy Herther >