Librarians Adapt:
Open Access,
e-Science / e-Research
& Data Services
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2012 VALE Users'/NJLA CUS/NJ ACRL Conference
Bonnie L. Fong & Minglu Wang
Dana Library, Rutgers University
Information Sharing
Image source: Microsoft Office 2010 Clip Art
(OA)
Image source: openaccessweek.org
“Gold” OA
• OA journals
– all content is freely available, immediately!
– authors may have to pay publishing fees
– usually peer-reviewed
– examples include:
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New Journal of Physics
Nucleic Acids Research
PLoS Medicine
PLoS One
– www.doaj.org lists of over 7,000 OA journals
“Green” OA
• OA repositories
– authors retain copyright of their work, then selfarchive
– may be institutional or disciplinary repository
– may or may not be peer-reviewed
– may contain pre-prints, post-prints, e-prints
– examples include:
• arXiv (physics)
• RUcore (Rutgers University)
– OpenDOAR.org & ROAR.eprints.org lists others
Hybrid OA journals
• Some OA articles in traditional journals
– some publishers allow authors to decide
whether their article will be OA or not
– authors pay to make their article OA
– examples of journals + publishers include:
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Analytical Chemistry (American Chemical Society)
Discrete Applied Mathematics (Elsevier)
Immunology & Cell Biology (Nature)
Current Psychology (Springer)
– see SHERPA/RoMEO for typical author fees
Miscellaneous “OA”
• Delayed Access
– some publishers offer free access to older
issues of their journals, where the embargo
or delayed access period may be one year or
more, so most would not say this is OA
• Select pieces
– some publishers offer free access to select
pieces from their journals:
• editorials
• most downloaded articles
 Advantages 
• more equitable access to information
around the world
• potentially lessens unnecessary
duplication of efforts
• can increase the speed of advancements
in science, technology, medicine, etc.
• authors participating in OA have greater
impact: more readers  more citations
 Challenges 
• new OA journals are not as established
• author publishing fees may be a barrier
• “double-dipping” where institutions are
sometimes paying twice for the same
article in a hybrid OA journal:
1st – author publishing fee
2nd – library already pays for subscription
Officially Supporting OA…
• Funding agencies:
– see SHERPA-JULIET for list of OA policies
• Colleges & Universities:
– faculty vote to commit to OA (e.g., Harvard)
– OA institutional repositories (e.g., RUcore)
• Publishers:
– publish only OA journals (e.g., BMC, PLoS)
– starting new OA journals (e.g., Springer)
– offering “Author Choice” for traditional journals
How Can One Support OA?
• use OA journals & repositories:
– read + cite OA works
– publish in OA journals / make your article OA
in hybrid OA journals
– retain copyright of your published work +
deposit in an OA repository
• promote OA:
– celebrate Open Access Week!
– join SPARC’s The Right to Research Coalition
How Can I Support OA?
• As a librarian, talk about OA with:
– Undergraduate students
– Graduate students
– Faculty
– Other librarians
– Administrators
– Publishers
– Funding agencies
• Celebrate Open Access Week
Open Access Week
• Put up exhibit in high-traffic area
Open Access Week
• Consider the online environment:
– Web site
– Facebook page
– blog / Twitter
– LibGuide
Open Access Week
• Submit something for campus paper:
– article
– cartoon
– opinion piece
• Hold lecture / panel discussion / seminar /
workshop / conference / open house / Q&A
• Feature OA authors from your campus
• Film viewing (e.g., RiP! A Remix Manifesto)
• Scavenger hunt / other activity  prizes!
For more information…
• http://libguides.rutgers.edu/OAweek2011
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http://www.openaccessweek.org
http://www.arl.org/sparc/resources
http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Main_Page
Crawford, W. (2011). Open access: What you need to
known now. Chicago: ALA.
• Mullen, L. B. (2010). Open access and its practical
impact on the work of academic librarians: Collection
development, public services, and the library and
information science literature. Oxford: Chandos Pub.
Brave New Librarian
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We look at the big picture
We collaborate
We are learning continuously
We have conversations with researchers
We collect, share, and present resources
We advice and educate
Data Services in the Big Picture
• Data services in the big picture of e-Research
– e-Research includes 3 fields, all related with data,
but in different ways, with different interests
• e-Science (quantitative data and methods, empiricism)
• e-Social Science (mixed methods, positivism,
hermeneutics, and critical)
• e-Humanities (qualitative, analytical and interpretive)
– If you are a subject librarian in any of the three
fields, e-Research and data services are relevant
to you
Official Definition of e-Science
“In the future, e-Science will refer to the large scale
science that will increasingly be carried out through
distributed global collaborations enabled by the
Internet. Typically, a feature of such collaborative
scientific enterprises is that they will require access to
very large data collections, very large scale computing
resources and high performance visualisation back to
the individual user scientists.”
--The UK National e-Science Centre
http://www.nesc.ac.uk/nesc/define.html
E-Research : A More Inclusive Definition
“e-research is a form of scholarship conducted in a networked
environment utilizing Internet-based tools and involving
collaboration among scholars separated by distance, often on a
global scale.”
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Computerization of research process, networked environment
Virtual organizational structures, distance collaboration
Internet-based tools
New forms of data visualization
Publication, distribution and preservation of scholarship via the
Internet (utilizing both formal and informal avenues)
-- Nick Jankowski, ed.
E-Research: Transformation in Scholarly Practice,
New York: Routledge, 2009.
e-Research: e-Science
• Current and New Research Themes:
– Strategic Plan for the UK Research Computing Ecosystem
– New techniques for ATLAS and GridPP to utilise modern computer architectures
– Eulerian and Lagrangian Approaches Towards Quantitative Prediction of Premature Labour,
Normal and Dysfunctional Labour
– Genomic and Environmental Science Data
Flows: replication, durability and metrology
Smart Spaces for Smart People: or How to 'Mashup' the Physical and Digital
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– Provenance and Linked Open Data
– Dynamic Distributed Data-intensive Programming Abstractions and Systems (3DPAS)
– Seismology: from data to actionable evidence
– Data-Intensive-Research: Methods inspired by database experience
– Modelling and Microbiology: using computational methods to understand how biological cells
survive, proliferate and evolve
– Next Generation Sky Surveys: Astronomical Opportunities and Computational Challenges
-- UK e-Science Institute Wikis
http://wiki.esi.ac.uk/
e-Research: e-Social Science
• As e-social science – or e-research within the social sciences – developed,
it broadened out to include
– the use of digital data harvested from the Web to capture people’s views and map
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their individual behaviours and their networks;
the exploration of new forms of digital data, such as mobile phone logs and GPS;
the creation and exploitation of metadata to facilitate the sharing and reuse of data;
linking data about individuals and the confidentiality and ethical issues that this raises;
webometrics;
mapping geo-referenced data;
large-scale social simulations of various sorts;
parallelisation of statistical routines;
collaborative markup of video data about social interaction;
text and data mining;
and tools for delivering behavioural interventions over the internet.
Halfpenny, P., & Procter, R. (2010).
The e-social science research agenda
Philosophical Transactions. Series A, Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences,
368(1925), 3761-3778. doi:10.1098/rsta.2010.0154
e-Research: e-Humanities
European Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities (DARIAH-EU)
Anderson, S., Blanke, T., & Dunn, S. (2010).
Methodological commons: Arts and humanities e-science fundamentals
Philosophical Transactions. Series A, Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences,
368(1925), 3779-3796. doi:10.1098/rsta.2010.0156
Interesting Trend in e-Research Support
• From Grid model
– top-down, big infrastructure, large scale,
nationally/internationally collaborative, fast
computing power…
• To a more diverse model
– light-weight, easy-to-use and familiar protocols,
for example Web 2.0 applications…
What Is Our Value as Librarian?
• e-Science is where “IT meets scientists”.
– “Jim Gray on eScience: A Transformed Scientific Method,” Fourth
Paradigm (Redmond, Wash: Microsoft Research, 2009).
• Library can curate data and make data more
accessible and discoverable
But Also
• Librarian can be a bridge between IT and
scientists in many other ways
Our Understanding of Data Services
• New position and new skill sets
But also,
• Data services can be an integral part of
subject librarianship
What We have been Doing - I
• Workshops on statistical software packages
– Encourage students to be confident with technology and
participate in software user groups
– Emphasize practical ways of documenting the research
process
• Individual assistance with data analysis techniques
– Help solve specific coding problems
– Help find and consult with experts
What We have been Doing - II
• Get to know data warehouse projects on Campus,
conduct environmental survey, provide consulting
services and have continuous conversation with
researchers
– Innovative social sciences data projects
– Issues and techniques involved: aggregate multiple
data sources, web interface, data visualization …
• NJ Data Bank
• Newark School Research Collaborative education data
warehouse
When subject librarians also get involved
• Introduce data services to fellow librarians
– Newsletter, new librarian orientation
• Attend data metadata class together with
subject librarians
– Be part of the team for institutional data
repository
• Keep subject librarians updated with general
and subject specific data management
training resources
What We have Started Doing - I
• Data Management Workshop for faculty
– Senior subject librarian planned and organized
– Cosponsored and actively supported by Campus
Research Office
– Institutional data repository leaders presented
– Life Sciences and Physical Sciences librarians also
presented
– Resources compiled and put on a LibGuide
What We have Started Doing - II
• Physical Sciences Librarian promotes library
data services when reaching out to faculty
– Data Services Librarian invited to speak during
library session for graduate students 
conversation on the practices and issues within a
Biochemistry lab group
– Planning for another data management workshop
in January for the Department of Earth &
Environmental Sciences – graduate students +
faculty
What We have Started Doing - III
• Dana Data Team (made up of the Data Services
Librarian + 2 Science Librarians) met with science
professor to discuss her data management plan
(DMP) for her NSF grant application
– Sent professor information about DMPs, including
links to sample plans
– Looked over her DMP draft
– With assistance from institutional data support
leaders, made suggestions
– Also discussed library’s data portal features and how
data management is supported via our repository 
professor plans to use it to archive her research data
Some Reflections
– We are continuously learning metadata for data and data
management best practices in different research fields
– We learned new things about data management practice
and issues each time we had conversation with
researchers
– We may not be able to provide concrete help with IT
programming, but we are able to share our knowledge and
perspective and we can provide an environmental scan
and point to possible solutions
– Subject librarians are very valuable for data services and
data services can be an integral part of their subject
expertise
Acknowledgements
We’d like to thank VALE, the NJLA College and University
Section, and New Jersey Chapter of ACRL for allowing
us the opportunity to present today.
We’d also like to thank Laura Bowering Mullen for being
such a wonderful moderator/recorder.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you!
Questions?
bonnie.fong@rutgers.edu
minglu@rutgers.edu