Open Access at FSU
Preface: These are my own thoughts and do not reflect the thoughts or opinions of my employer.
Since May of this year, I have been working as the Scholarly Communications Project Manager for a Faculty/Librarian Task Force at Florida State University. The task force, created by the Faculty Senate Library Committee, was charged with researching Scholarly Communications* initiatives and making recommendations about how FSU might respond to evolution in the scholarly publishing cycle. As Project Manager, it has been my duty to compile research materials, prepare informational documents, manage communications within the group and conduct outreach around campus related to our work. The number one goal of the Task Force is to propose an open access policy* to our Faculty Senate, beginning FSU down the road to active participation in the adaptations happening in higher education, especially relating to how, why and who should have access to the knowledge produced therein.
So, after 6 months of hard work (2 of which I spent entirely dedicated to reading and researching), we’ve come to the apex. Tomorrow, we will present our proposed policy to the Faculty Senate, and next week I will be leading coordination of Open Access Week @ FSU. It’s strange, but it all feels kind of bittersweet, and I found myself chatting with a colleague today saying, “What happens next in a Scholarly Communications initiative?” That question remains and will be dealt with in coming weeks, but I wanted to take a second to outline some important facets of our work so far:
1) Our proposed ‘policy’ is very different than the policies passed by the likes of Duke, Kansas and Princeton, all of which have similar language about faculty granting the University a certain type of license for their scholarly articles. We are actually referring to our policy as a “Resolution” in that it is an expression of support for continuing to explore this area, more so than a dictation or mandate. Many will see this as a policy with no teeth, but we are approaching is as the best case for our university at this point, and a key first step toward developing this area here.
2) A factor in this decision was the fact that a bulk of our research and work was conducted this summer, when much of the university community is not very active. A scholarly communications initiative must be developed in tandem with an educational/informational campaign, and we just haven’t had the time or resources to do that as extensively as is necessary… yet.
3) Taking into account the culture and politics of the University organization is incredibly important when pursuing these types of grand initiatives. Having previously worked in a University, I had a little knowledge of this fact, but working so directly with it on this project has made me much more aware of the ways that administrative offices, libraries, academic departments and others have to put in a lot of work building consensus… and that is a job in itself.
4) The misunderstandings and misconceptions of open access are rampant and strongly held. This was never more evident than when talking with a friend, who happens to be a faculty member, about my work; he expressed his thoughts on this topic and was shocked when I offered some facts and ideas that countered his preconceived ideas of how open access works. There is much education to be done to combat misinformation.
5) It has been, and is constantly, an encouragement to know that there is an active, brilliant, available community of open access advocates who are willing to offer tips and advice. I contacted Scholarly Communications Librarians around the country, read their papers, viewed their presentations (shared online with CC licenses, of course), and learned so much through others’ experiences.
6) Working in collaborative bodies, like the task force I worked for, is an amazing opportunity to see what the future of the university can be. I am very interested in continuing to explore the nature of trans-disciplinary collaborative projects within the University, and I hope to remain an agent in that work, academically and as a professional librarian.
At this point, I almost feel like I am pushing my baby bird out of the nest, letting the work I’ve put into developing this open access resolution and scholarly communications initiative go to the Faculty Senate to see if it will fly. Come tomorrow afternoon, we’ll know for sure, and will proceed, fighting the good fight, and, rephrasing myself,
…to the best of our ability making it our duty to provide access to information, with the tools available to us, always and forever.
*Scholarly Communications – The cycle of producing, sharing and consuming academic scholarly work, most often focused on journal articles.
*Open Access Policy – the document by which many of these evolutions in the scholarly communications cycle become realized. OA Policies are meant to serve as an endorsement of the underlying principles at work in scholarly communications (faculty empowerment, the public good of access to research, etc.), while providing some clear goals for how open access will play out in the institution. Often an open access resolution is just the first step in the process of a university acknowledging that scholarly communications is an institutional priority.
Phase Two: Professional Life
I'm a librarian?
In case you hadn’t noticed, I took a little break from writing here. Since the kick off of Hack Library School I’ve been pretty busy managing the growth and development of that blog, which I am very proud of and hope it continues to be an active resource for LIS students. That said, a majority of the blogging I’ve done here was focused on my journey through a graduate degree in Library and Information Studies at Florida State University which I completed in April, 2011. Thus the title of this post — I’m moving on from writing about library school in this space.
Currently, I am working part time as the Scholarly Communications Project Manager at Florida State, a job I greatly enjoy. I’ve been researching initiatives at other institutions that have explored changes and adaptations in the scholarly publishing model, and I’m pretty sure I’ve done more reading and studying on this topic than for many of my classes! My interests in digital humanities and emerging technologies set me up perfectly for a job that explores these sorts of topics. Officially, my appointment as Project Manager will end in November.
This little update is meant to say that once I get settled in a permanent position I plan to pick up on the regular blogging again. I have a lot to say (as evidenced in my Hack Library School posts) and lots of ideas I’d love to share and collaborate with peers and colleagues on. One of the things I see growing more important in my future career is the continuation of my research interests in American Studies, an area I put on hold through library school. I have always enjoyed the discourse of academia and scholarship and hope to contribute and add to the conversation as I develop into a professional career.
Thanks for those who have read up to this point. I hope to sink into a routine in the coming months as my job situation is worked out, and hope you’ll check back in for the next phase of my writings. If you’re interested, I write shorter thoughts/ideas over on Posterous and post a lot of pictures I take on my Tumblr.
Thanks,
Micah V.
HackLibSchool and My Future.
I typically try to keep new articles up here more regularly than I have been. Recently I’ve been caught up with the kick off of HackLibSchool, which developed out of an article I wrote over at In The Library With A Lead Pipe back in October. The gist of it is – as students in library school in 2011 we should all be communicating, using the web to constructively critique our education, and building foundations for change in our profession. I was incredibly inspired by the Alt-Ac folks, Profhacker and Hacking The Academy, and figured if they could do it, we should too.
I reached out to some fellow LIS student bloggers who I respected and had connected with, and we took the project on around the start of this year. Balancing this on top of work, school, and life has not been easy, but this is something we all believe in, and thus have put in tons of effort building it. We officially launched the beginning of this week, and the response has been super positive, overwhelming and so encouraging. I am so proud to know that in a few short months I will enter the profession of librarianship with MANY colleagues from a variety of LIS programs, backgrounds and professional interests.
If the content here is slim in coming weeks, please look for me over at HackLibSchool. I sense that this space will be used differently in the near future as my professional career develops, but either way, I will continue to write. Thanks for stopping by.
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Begin freak out > OMG. HackLibSchool was featured on Digital Humanities Now! I freaking love Digital Humanities everything and this is so cool! (I’m raising the roof right now, while I sit in my room alone, logged in to my Information Organization Management course.) End freak out.
From LOC on Flickr
Coming to the end of my MLIS program, I’ve been trying to feel out the “profession” for the issues, topics and needs existing that I may be able to contribute to. I truly believe that the digitization of archival materials, the smoothing of the ebook transition and library as community space are all current and future trends that cannot be ignored. However, a less prevalent and perhaps more pressing topic has been on my mind lately. The line between Librarians and IT is a significant one, as I have seen this far, and one that must be dealt with if technology continues to become integral to the library’s relevance.
The Chronicle of Higher Ed’s Tech Therapy podcast took on this very topic last week, and inspired a lot of my thoughts for this post. The segment featured an interview with Sue Stroyan, an information-services librarian for Illinois Wesleyan University. Basically, the topic boils down to the fact that behind the scenes IT and Librarianship are and have been at odds, which has put all of us in an awkward place especially as “Information Technologies” are evolving to include many of the so-called web 2.0 tools that librarians love, engage and use. The Tech Therapy podcast focuses on this issue in Higher Ed institutions but I think many of us could agree that it exists across the spectrum of information institutions. IT departments own the architecture and systems and Info Pros provide the content.
This has spurred some interesting thoughts in my mind: Why the division? What IT competencies should Information Professionals have? Are these areas more closely related as Librarianship becomes a tech-focused profession? Should we all be required to take a basic computer science course? I was further challenged, and really just plain frustrated this week, when in my Intro to Information Technology course we spent the day on Wikis, and it appears next week we’ll be discussing social media. I know there are still many Info Pros and librarians who aren’t as tech savvy as I am, but what I expected when signing up for an IT course was much more than wikis and Twitter.
Closing argument: I’d like to stake a claim right now – Librarianship is a Technology Profession. Information Technology (IT) is what we do now. Maybe a reference librarian will not ever have to set up a virtual machine for a patron, but having a basic understanding of different operating systems, web apps, and some software troubleshooting shouldn’t be too much to ask. I lump myself in here also; we must pursue continued knowledge and skills in new and emerging technologies on our own.
My post-graduation plans now include: learn Ruby, spend time with a variety of mobile platforms, experiment with more open source software, understand cloud hosting solutions, develop a working knowledge of LAMP, get more hands-on with Drupal, Omeka and WordPress, get better acquainted with data-wrangling tools and apps, work toward transliteracy, get involved in the Semantic Web – RDA/RDF conversation and ask more questions of the IT teams I have the opportunity to work with.
Oh, and write a book on IT competencies they don’t teach in library school that you should know in order to actually get a good and interesting job. Any publishers interested? (I’m only interested in publishing in ebook or web-reader format, as all the details, skills and concepts will change by this time next year.)
PS. I’m totally inspired and jealous of my friend Natalie Binder in her getting ahead of me here by Learning Ruby in 13 Days.
