Join us for an Open Access Week screening of the documentary film Paywall: The Business of Scholarship.
Tuesday, October 23
Ellis Library room 114A
2 to 3:15 pm
Paywall: The Business of Scholarship is a documentary film on scientific publishing business and on the need for open science. It reports on the huge profit margins of the big publishing companies, like Elsevier, Springer and Wiley and the challenges for open science to change the situation. Scientists, science administration, librarians, editors of scientific journals, open access-activists, representatives of scientific publishing houses and the founder of Academia.edu give their opinions on the matter. This film focuses on the need for Open Access in research and science. There will be a 15 minute post-screening discussion for anyone who would like to stay after the viewing.
What is Open Access? Open Access is a growing international movement that uses the Internet to throw open the locked doors that once hid knowledge. Encouraging the unrestricted sharing of research results with everyone, the Open Access movement is gaining ever more momentum around the world as research funders and policy makers put their weight behind it.
For more University Libraries’ Open Access Week events, check out this post.
Ellis Library’s Digital Media Lab is now available for student use by appointment.The Digital Media Lab in Room 153 provides a recording booth with various software, a 3D scanner (Structure Sensor), art tablets and virtual reality goggles. The Digital Media Commons also has the film studio in 3E21. Students can request an appointment through the Digital Media Commons website at library.missouri.edu/dmc. The Digital Media Lab is open between the hours of 10 am and 3 pm, Monday through Friday. Feel free to stop by or make an appointment to see all we have to offer.
The University of Missouri (UM) System is hosting an Intensive Open Educational Resources (OER) Symposium for all UM faculty. This four-hour event will provide faculty development training for those interested in incorporating open educational resources into their courses. This opportunity was developed for full-time faculty who teach as a part of their workload.
Topics of discussion include: what is OER, how to identify OER, and how to check the quality of OER. The symposium will conclude with a University of Missouri Libraries Open Textbook Library review training session. Those that attend this symposium and then complete a textbook review will receive $250.
Event Details Date: Wednesday, October 17, 2018 Time: 1:00 – 5:00 p.m. Location: Hampton Inn & Suites, 1225 Fellow’s Place Boulevard, Columbia, MO 65201
Any questions about the Open Textbook Network faculty review program? The opportunity to review an open textbook is provided by a MOBIUS program run out of the University of Missouri Libraries. Email Grace Atkins, Outreach & Open Education Librarian for more info: atkinsge@missouri.edu
In addition to “producing grammatical descriptions and dictionaries for four varieties of the Luyia language cluster in western Kenya,” Michael Marlo is an Associate Professor of English and Linguistics and a member of the editorial board of the Language Science Press‘s Contemporary African Linguistics series. Language Science Press is an open access publisher of peer-reviewed linguistics books, including textbooks, and neither readers nor authors pay fees under the Knowledge Unlatched model, which instead relies on financial pledges from institutions and libraries to fund open access projects.
Michael’s editorship originally grew out of a desire to find a financially reasonable publishing outlet for the proceedings of the Annual Conference on African Linguistics. When researching potential publishers for book projects related to his National Science Foundation project, Structure and Tone in Luyia, he had also made note of their African Language Grammars and Dictionaries series.
“One of the major obstacles to the development of the field of linguistics is access to research results,” Michael says. For example, access to the digital version of the most prestigious publisher’s grammar series costs $10,000 plus annual fees for updates. A single book costs $200. Despite the prestige, Michael doesn’t intend to pursue publication through a press with such a prohibitive pricing model because that would limit his audience to those few whose libraries can afford access. He says, “While I recognize that there are still problems of access with publications that are primarily available as PDF downloads online, due to the fact that not everyone has internet access, having my work available for anyone to download is a major improvement in access over most other publishing options, which are either too expensive for readers or require a large subvention from the author, or both.”
Anne Barker
Last summer, Michael learned that Language Science Press was pursuing the institutional support funding model and asked Anne Barker, his subject librarian, if Mizzou Libraries could contribute. He was “thrilled” to learn that some funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities were able to be put toward the initiative. Michael says, “I believe [this model] has the chance to revolutionize publishing in my field, and possibly by extension many other fields in academia.”
Anne confirms, “Librarians have long been concerned that the commercialization of scholarly communication restricts access for individuals and strains library budgets. Changing the traditional publication funding model to provide for more open access is complex and challenging, but the Knowledge Unlatched model is promising. Mizzou Libraries is glad to be able to join this endeavor.”
Michael encourages students to use MOBIUS and Interlibrary Loan to access books outside of our collection. He also encourages students to find their subject areas in the stacks and look around. “There’s a lot of great stuff in there that you won’t easily find just by searching online databases!”
Cycle of Success is the idea that libraries, faculty, and students are linked; for one to truly succeed, we must all succeed. The path to success is formed by the connections between University of Missouri Libraries and faculty members, between faculty members and students, and between students and the libraries that serve them. More than just success, this is also a connection of mutual respect, support, and commitment to forward-thinking research.
If you would like tosubmityour own success story about how the libraries have helped your research and/or work, please use the Cycle of Success form.
Predatory publishing doesn’t just take advantage of authors by misrepresenting review, editorial, and fee structures. It also hinders access to the work itself, hurting the overall enterprise of research. The epidemic of predatory journals reached serious enough heights in 2016 that the Federal Trade Commission charged OMICS, one such publisher of hundreds of predatory journals, for its deceptive practices.
“If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” says Janice Dysart, Science Librarian and creator of the Where to Publish Your Research guide. “Be wary of these email solicitations from publishers trying to get you to submit articles to their journals.” She recommends using the Think Check Submit checklist to determine whether a publisher is legitimate.
Anyone can fall victim to predatory journal publishers. Jung Ha-Brookshire, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, College of Human Environmental Sciences, and Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Textile and Apparel Management, relates her experience after a graduate student recommended a journal a few years ago. She says, “I didn’t think twice about it. We submitted our paper and got accepted without any revisions. Then they were asking us to send money somewhere in Pakistan.” She still didn’t realize what was happening because she hadn’t even heard of “predatory journals.”
That all changed about a year later when she learned of a list of predatory journals from her colleagues. “We found out that our journal was on that list,” she says. They tried to withdraw their work from the publication but couldn’t. Because the journal wasn’t legitimate, the article could only be found via the specific URL and not by searching, so they pulled the publication information from their CVs. Jung says, “We had to take that manuscript as a loss because we couldn’t even take that paper to other publishers since, technically, it is already published.”
After that experience, Jung now checks with her subject librarian, Noël Kopriva, every time she encounters a journal she hasn’t heard of, “no matter how good the website looks.” Jung advises, “Be careful with choosing the right journals. Do not get fooled by address, location, a beautiful website, and a wonderful set of editorial board names. Check with your librarian first when in doubt!”
Tutors from the Writing Center will be offering one-on-one writing support in Ellis Library again this fall. All Mizzou students can take advantage of this service. Tutors can help with all stages of the writing process: brainstorming, revising and polishing a final draft. They are familiar with a variety of writing styles and formats.
Writing Tutors’ Schedule Ellis Library, Room 151-E
Fall 2018
Saturday, August 26 through Finals Week
(no tutors during Thanksgiving Week)
Sunday 4 – 9 pm
Monday to Thursday 11 am – 9 pm
Sign up for appointments on the sign-up sheet which will be posted on the door to Room 151-E at the start of tutoring hours that day. Appointments are for fifty minutes.
This guest post is written by Martin Karpa, Volunteer with the Superior Public Museums in Superior, Wisconsin.
My first job after graduating high school was on a ship sailing the Great Lakes. I worked the freighters for four seasons, hauling iron ore, coal, grain, sand and limestone from Duluth, MN, to Buffalo, NY, and numerous ports in between.
It was just within the last two years that projects around the home were winding down, freeing up more time for interests. With a sailing history and fondness of said, I took an interest in the Superior Public Museums, Superior, WI, of which one of the museums is the last-in-the-world above-water whaleback steamship S.S. Meteor. Volunteer efforts with the museums started out with their annual Volunteer Work Weekend held every last weekend in April when people come from across the Upper Midwest to preserve and prepare the Meteor for guests who tour the ship and learn about its history, sailing in the 1890s, the conception of its unique design and the influence this design has had on the present day shipping industry.
The first work weekend on the Meteor only piqued my interests and I wound up volunteering to come every couple of weeks or so to help out with routine seasonal maintenance on the ship. One thing leads to another, and this role in maintenance has now expanded to also being a volunteer tour guide not only for the Meteor but also at another of the museums, Fairlawn Mansion.
My opinion: dedicated tour guides are not given enough credit. These individuals put themselves out there before the general public and are expected to be the resident authority of what they are teaching, able to field any question thrown at them. Guides will learn the tour script, of course, but many will go above and beyond, gleaning all the facts they can about their particular expertise in order to answer even the most unpredictable question as best they can.
Marie Concannon
One such question was, “What were the sailors’ wages at the time?” (referring to sailors in the 1890s). I didn’t know, said so, and spent some time with the individual after the tour trying to find an answer on the internet without satisfying success. This lead to a more extensive internet search later at home, also without much concrete success. Now, I am not an idiot, but doing such specific research is not in my educational background. All of the clicking around on the net somehow lead me to Marie Concannon‘s contact information as the University of Missouri Libraries’ Head of Government Information. With mounting frustrations over negative search results and no better idea as to where to go with this question, I fired off an email to Marie last August, knowing it was a crapshoot . . . a roll of the dice . . . and I hit the jackpot!
Marie responded promptly, and a very pleasant correspondence followed, impressing me with her passion and dedication to her work. It was obvious even across the internet that she is enthusiastic about researching an issue and my hat is off to her. Information provided by Marie has now been adopted and fit into my personal script when giving tours of the S.S. Meteor, giving those interested in this aspect of our nation’s industrial history a better understanding of daily life at the end of the Victorian Era, beginning of the Gilded Age and into the Progressive Era. Being able to offer more detailed information to guests of the museum also gives them a fuller experience, which in turn helps spread an even more positive review of their visit.
Cycle of Success is the idea that libraries, faculty, and students are linked; for one to truly succeed, we must all succeed. The path to success is formed by the connections between University of Missouri Libraries and faculty members, between faculty members and students, and between students and the libraries that serve them. More than just success, this is also a connection of mutual respect, support, and commitment to forward-thinking research.
Although the Cycle of Success typically focuses on the relationships among the Libraries, faculty, and students, the Libraries also contribute to the success of all the communities Mizzou serves. The Libraries are an integral part of Mizzou’s mission “to produce and disseminate knowledge that will improve the quality of life in the state, the nation and the world.”
If you would like tosubmityour own success story about how the libraries have helped your research and/or work, please use the Cycle of Success form.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander is this year’s One Read Program selection. The One Read Program is sponsored by Mizzou Law and Mizzou Libraries in order to facilitate conversations of diversity, inclusion, and social justice throughout the MU community. This year’s selection, The New Jim Crow, examines how old forms of discrimination have been legalized through the war on drugs and unequal enforcement of criminal laws.
An exhibit in the Ellis Library Colonnade features a timeline showing the increasing numbers of incarcerated Missourians over the past four decades. Key moments in criminal law, the privatization of prisons, Supreme Court decisions, and more are highlighted. The exhibit will be on display through October.
Several anonymous Tigers share their experiences of having friends and family members incarcerated.
For more information on the book, events, additional resources, and information on the One Read Program, see Mizzou Law’s guide. Copies of the book are available for checkout in Ellis Library, the Journalism Library, and the Law Library.
Guests can register for a free computer account at the Research Help and Information Desk. You need a current, valid government-issued photo ID. The account provides two hours of computer access per day.
Have you seen our latest display in the Bookmark Café? From a distance, these maps–neither paintings nor drawings–look like antique marbleized papers with amorphous shapes in a dreamy blending of lavenders, corals, blues, golds and pinks. But up close another scene is unveiled: villages as they appeared nearly a century ago. Schoolhouses on hilltops. Green plantations on the banks of the Rio Grande river, looking out into Mexico. Islands in lakes. Cemeteries and church buildings. Serpentine trails that wander through the wilderness, terminating at lone cabins. On the south wall, you can visit Las Vegas back when it only had a dozen streets each way, dots indicating buildings.
Sampson County, North Carolina
For nearly 100 years, a large collection of these soil survey maps have been folded up and tucked in the back of U.S. Department of Agriculture documents in Mizzou Libraries’ Government Information collection. Although the project’s purpose was to document soil types and alkalinity, the maps show much more than that.
These maps are generally too fragile to unfold without tearing, but with the help of award-winning preservation specialist Michaelle Dorsey, some maps from a 1923 volume were very carefully opened up and placed inside clear plastic envelopes, custom made in our on-site preservation shop. See the original maps on display now because they are for the most part not available online. However if you want to see one for a different place or year, you can use this guide to discover which areas were mapped on which dates, and we can help you view others in our print collection.
