Sara Mannheimer and Conor Cote
For libraries with limited resources, digital preservation can seem like a daunting responsibility. Forming partnerships can help build collective knowledge and maximize combined…
Abstract
Purpose
For libraries with limited resources, digital preservation can seem like a daunting responsibility. Forming partnerships can help build collective knowledge and maximize combined resources to achieve digital preservation goals. This paper aims to provide guidance to help libraries with limited resources achieve digital preservation goals by forming partnerships to build collective knowledge and maximize combined resources.
Design/methodology/approach
In 2015, librarians from four Montana institutions formed the Digital Preservation Working Group (DPWG), a collaboration to increase digital preservation efforts statewide. The group’s immediate goals were to promote digital preservation best-practices at each individual institution, and to learn about and support each other’s work. The group’s long-term goal was to implement a shared digital preservation service that would fill gaps in existing digital preservation efforts.
Findings
Beyond the cost savings gained by sharing a digital preservation service, the members of DPWG benefitted from shared knowledge and expertise gained during the partnership. The group also functioned as a sounding board as each institution built its digital preservation program, and it became a system of support when challenges arose.
Practical/implications
This paper proposes a five-point plan for creating digital preservation partnerships: cultivate a foundation of knowledge and identify a shared vision; assess the current digital preservation landscape at each institution; advocate for the value of digital preservation activities; implement shared digital preservation services; and sustain group activities and establish structures for ongoing support.
Originality/value
The activities of DPWG provide a model for institutions seeking to collaborate to meet digital preservation challenges. This paper shows that by implementing a structured plan, institutions can build and sustain digital preservation partnerships, thus positioning themselves to achieve digital preservation success.
Details
Keywords
Sara Mannheimer, Scott W.H. Young and Doralyn Rossmann
In this paper, faculty librarians at an academic institution explore the ethical dimensions of conducting research with user-generated social networking service (SNS) data. In an…
Abstract
Purpose
In this paper, faculty librarians at an academic institution explore the ethical dimensions of conducting research with user-generated social networking service (SNS) data. In an effort to guide librarian-researchers, this paper first offers a background discussion of privacy ethics across disciplines and then proposes a library-specific ethical framework for conducting SNS research.
Design/methodology/approach
By surveying the literature in other disciplines, three key considerations are identified that can inform ethical practice in the field of library science: context, expectation, and value analysis. For each of these considerations, the framework is tailored to consider ethical issues, as they relate to libraries and our practice as librarian-researchers.
Findings
The unique role of the librarian-researcher demands an ethical framework specific to that practice. The findings of this paper propose such a framework.
Practical implications
Librarian-researchers are at a unique point in our history. In exploring SNSs as a source of data to conduct research and improve services, we become challenged by conflicting and equally cherished values of patron privacy and information access. By evaluating research according to context, expectations, and value, this framework provides an ethical path forward for research using SNS data.
Originality/value
As of this paper’s publication, there is no existing ethical framework for conducting SNS research in libraries. The proposed framework is informed both by library values and by broader research values, and therefore provides unique guidelines for the librarian-researcher.
Details
Keywords
Doralyn Rossmann and Scott W.H. Young
Social Media Optimization (SMO) offers guidelines by which libraries can design content for social shareability through social networking services (SNSs). The purpose of this…
Abstract
Purpose
Social Media Optimization (SMO) offers guidelines by which libraries can design content for social shareability through social networking services (SNSs). The purpose of this paper is to introduce SMO and discuss its effects and benefits for libraries.
Design/methodology/approach
Researchers identified and applied five principles of SMO. Web analytics software provides data on web site traffic and user engagement before and after the application of SMO.
Findings
By intentionally applying a program of SMO, the library increased content shareability, increased user engagement, and built community.
Research limitations/implications
Increasing use of SNSs may influence the study results, independent of SMO application. Limitations inherent to web analytics software may affect results. Further study could expand analysis beyond web analytics to include comments on SNS posts, SNS shares from library pages, and a qualitative analysis of user behaviors and attitudes regarding library web content and SNSs.
Practical implications
This research offers an intentional approach for libraries to optimize their online resources sharing through SNSs.
Originality/value
Previous research has examined the role of community building and social connectedness for SNS users, but none have discussed using SMO to encourage user engagement and interactivity through increased SNS traffic into library web pages.
Details
Keywords
Sara LeGrand, Teresa L. Scheid and Kathryn Whetten
This chapter examines the associations between gender, social support, and health outcomes for individuals living with HIV disease. We include social integration and social…
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter examines the associations between gender, social support, and health outcomes for individuals living with HIV disease. We include social integration and social isolation as structural measures of social support as well as perceived social support and social conflict as functional measures of social support. We include both mental health and physical health outcomes, which are too often studied in isolation of each other.
Methodology/approach
Data are from the Coping with HIV/AIDS in the Southeast (CHASE) study; this study reports on baseline data from 611 participants collected from 2001 to 2002. We first examined differences by gender and race, and then used blocked linear regression to determine the additive effects of the social support variables on both mental and physical health outcomes while controlling for potential confounders.
Findings
There were notable differences in the significance and strength of social support variables in health outcome models for men and women. Unlike men, social conflict was the strongest predictor of greater psychological distress and poorer physical health-related quality of life among women.
Research limitations/implications
While the results from this study contribute to a greater understanding of gender differences in the relationships between social support and health outcomes, the data used for this study are limited to those living with HIV/AIDS in the Southeast.
Originality/value
Our findings suggest that social conflict may be more detrimental for the health of women than men.
Details
Keywords
Sara Kjellberg and Jutta Haider
The purpose of this paper is to understand what role researchers assign to online representations on the new digital communication sites that have emerged, such as Academia…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand what role researchers assign to online representations on the new digital communication sites that have emerged, such as Academia, ResearchGate or Mendeley. How are researchers’ online presentations created, managed, accessed and, more generally, viewed by academic researchers themselves? And how are expectations of the academic reward system navigated and re-shaped in response to the possibilities afforded by social media and other digital tools?
Design/methodology/approach
Focus groups have been used for empirical investigation to learn about the role online representation is assigned by the concerned researchers.
Findings
The study shows that traditional scholarly communication documents are what also scaffolds trust and builds reputation in the new setting. In this sense, the new social network sites reinforce rather than challenge the importance of formal publications.
Originality/value
An understanding of the different ways in which researchers fathom the complex connection between reputation and trust in relation to online visibility as a measure of, or at least an attempt at, publicity (either within academia or outside it) is essential. This paper emphasizes the need to tell different stories by exploring how researchers understand their own practices and reasons for them.