Member News & Announcements, February IO 2024

Libraries, Collections & Archives

Library of Congress Awards Nearly $400,000 to Six Projects Highlighting Uses of Digital Collections
Library of Congress, Voting Member, News Announcement, January 17, 2024

The Library of Congress today announced that six awards totaling nearly $400,000 have been awarded from the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative through a program available to Higher Education Institutions and Libraries, Archives and Museums. The program is part of the Library’s Of the People: Widening the Path initiative with support from the Mellon Foundation. The 2024 awardees will use these funds to create projects that offer creative approaches to the Library’s digital collections and center Black, Indigenous, and Hispanic or Latino studies

Partnerships & Collaborations

California Universities Partner with Wiley on Landmark Open Access Agreement
University of California, L.S.A. Member, and Wiley, Voting Member, Press Release, January 11, 2024

The 10-campus University of California system and 48 private and public academic and research institutions represented by the Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC) have reached a new open access agreement with Wiley, one of the world's largest publishers. The three-year deal begins this month and will make more research eligible for open access publication than any partnership of its kind in California.

“Some of the most groundbreaking research in the world is done right here in California, driving advances in medicine, environmental sustainability and society. I am excited about this opportunity for more California scholars, from UC and beyond, to make their work freely available so that people around the globe can benefit from and build on their discoveries,” said Maria De Prano, professor of Art History at UC Merced and chair of the UC faculty Academic Senate’s systemwide committee on library and scholarly communication. “I appreciate the partnership of our colleagues at SCELC and Wiley for making open access to California research possible at this scale.

Open Access, Open Science

Wiley and Vanderbilt University’s Heard Libraries Sign Agreement to Publish More Open Access Research
Wiley, Voting Member, and Vanderbilt University, L.S.A. Member, Press Release, January 29, 2024

Wiley, one of the world’s largest publishers and a global leader in research and learning, today announced a new 5-year open access agreement with the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries at Vanderbilt University, beginning on January 1, 2024.  

This transformative agreement will provide Vanderbilt University affiliates with access to Wiley’s complete journal portfolio and enable participating researchers to publish research in Wiley’s complete portfolio of nearly 2,000 hybrid and gold open access journals, including those published by Hindawi, starting January 1, 2024.

AIP Publishing Makes Initiative for Open Abstracts 2023 Hall of Fame
AIP Publishing, LLC, Voting Member, News Announcement, January 16, 2024

AIP Publishing has been highlighted by the Initiative for Open Abstracts (I4OA) for its efforts to make its publications’ abstracts openly available to the global research community. 

As a supporter of open science that pledged its support of I4OA in March of 2022, AIP Publishing is driven by the principle of science by all, for all — and the heartfelt belief that the benefits of scientific advance should be made readily available to make the greatest worldwide impact.

Taylor & Francis Joins DOAB’s Peer Review Transparency Initiative, PRISM
Taylor & Francis Group, Voting Member, News Announcement, January 11, 2024

Taylor & Francis has announced its support for an initiative to boost researcher confidence in open access (OA) books and promote better understanding of the role of peer review. Peer Review Information Service for Monographs (PRISM) provides a standardized way for publishers to present information about the peer review processes for their titles on the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) platform.

All Taylor & Francis OA books, including those published under the Routledge and CRC Press imprints, are peer reviewed by experts. PRISM makes information about the peer review process easily available to DOAB users, including details about when the review took place (such as at proposal stage) and the type of peer reviewer (for example, by an external reviewer).

UMass Amherst Libraries “Boldly Go” to New Open Source Scholarly Publishing Platform, Janeway
University of Massachusetts, Amherst Libraries, L.S.A. Consortia Member (BLC), News Announcement, January 8, 2024

The UMass Amherst Libraries are pleased to announce the migration of eleven of their active journals and conference proceedings to Janeway, an open source scholarly publishing platform that covers the entire publishing process from submission to review to final publication. 

According to its website, “Janeway is a free, open source publishing platform developed by the Centre for Technology and Publishing at Birkbeck, University of London, to support the goals of the Open Library of Humanities, an open access academic publisher… [It] is licensed under the AGPL meaning that anyone is free to use and modify the software, so long as they make their changes similarly open.”

Grants & Awards

CCC Wins Best of Show Award at 2023 Bio-IT World Conference & Expo Europe
Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), Voting Member, Press Release, January 9, 2024

CCC, a pioneer in voluntary collective licensing with the mission of advancing copyright, accelerating knowledge, and powering innovation, announces that RightFind XML, the company’s scientific article discovery solution, was chosen as the Bio-IT World 2023 Best in Show award honoree at its World Conference & Expo Europe in London.  Among six finalists, RightFind XML received the greatest number of votes from the more than 300 event attendees invited to participate.

For more than two decades, the Bio-IT World Conference & Expo has been the world’s premier event displaying the technologies and analytic approaches that solve problems, accelerate science, and drive the future of precision medicine. The Best of Show award program offers conference exhibitors an opportunity to distinguish and highlight new products. With a host of innovative applications, technologies, tools, and solutions on display at the event, the Bio-IT World community was invited to identify exceptional innovation in technologies used by life science professionals, voting on the most impactful new products of the year.

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Beauford Delaney Papers Now Available to Researchers
University of Tennessee, Knoxville, L.S.A. Member, News Announcement, January 9, 2024

The Beauford Delaney Papers, held at the University of Tennessee Libraries, is now available to researchers, students, and instructors.

The Beauford Delaney Papers consists of family, personal, and professional correspondence, photographs, sketchbooks and notebooks, artwork, exhibition material, and biographical records created or collected by the Knoxville-born, African-American artist Beauford Delaney (1901­–1979). He is widely regarded as one of the major modernist painters of his time. His brother is Joseph Delaney, another well-known modernist painter.

Setting Demographic Goals for our Editors at AIP Publishing
AIP Publishing, LLC, Voting Member, News Announcement, January 3, 2024

Late last year, we released an initial analysis from AIP Publishing’s first demographic benchmarking study. This report provided an overview of the geography, gender, and ethnicity of our authors, reviewers, board members and editors. We noted then that this was just the start of a process — and now, we’re now diving into the challenging task of formulating specific strategies to understand and expand diversity across our journals. Here, we’ve focused on what these potential strategies might look like for our editors at AIP Publishing journals.

After the report was released, we prioritized sharing and reviewing the report with our editors. At this early stage, we recognize goals need to be tackled at a journal-by-journal level, taking into consideration what is achievable and over which period. Adopting a flexible approach is essential: In looking over our existing portfolio needs, we understand it will take time to implement changes.

Industry Leadership

Rachael Kotarski joins UChicago as Associate University Librarian for Digital Strategy and Services
University of Chicago, L.S.A. Member, News Announcement, January 10, 2024

Rachael Kotarski will join the Library as Associate University Librarian for Digital Strategy and Services on January 11. In this role, she will provide vision, leadership, and coordination for the digital services of the University of Chicago Library. Reporting to University Librarian and Dean of the University Library Torsten Reimer, she will be a member of the Library's Strategic Leadership Board.

Most recently, Kotarski served as Head of Library Research Services at the University of Bath in England. There, she was responsible for teams and services for open access, research data, repositories, research analytics, and the University archive.