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This article expands on the themes of choice and diversity within a national, competitive news market in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic. It is often suggested that early newspapers largely copied one another. But that did not mean that these newspaper publishers all made the same choices, or that they adopted the same tone. Rather, they embraced and copied what they liked, and ignored what they did not. The newspaper trade in the Dutch Republic was driven by competition, innovation and diversity. The standards of what made a "good" newspaper were constantly refined during the seventeenth century. Publishers made conscious choices concerning the style, format, price and content of their papers in order to maximise their commercial potential. The diversity of titles was vital to the stimulation and later sustenance of the growing market for periodical news. News readers in the Dutch Republic were offered the greatest range of titles, complementing one another in content and style. If we look close enough at the titles available to us, we can come to a refined understanding of the early burgeoning business of news. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many libraries face the challenge to deal with the often massive but very little used print collection. At the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU), the library started the three-year project Re:Booking to repurpose the print collection in new and innovative ways in close collaboration with communities throughout the university. In this practice paper, we outline our unusual approaches and present the results from the first two years of the project. With our paper, we hope to inspire other libraries to take a fresh look at the value of their print collections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence-based practice is an approach to professional practice that involves a structured process of collecting, interpreting and applying valid and reliable research and evidence to support decision-making and continuous service improvement in professional practice. This paper reports on emerging initiatives in evidence-based practice at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) Library, a regional multi-campus university in Australia. It demonstrates how evidence-based practice forms part of our organisational strategy to engage with our community and society. The case study describes a new model of embedding evidence-based practice through a role explicitly dedicated to developing the library's evidence base. While other libraries may have a person responsible for assessment, performance metrics or data analysis, the Coordinator (Evidence-Based Practice) has a broader mandate - to work with library staff to develop tools, skills and expertise in evidence-based practice. The paper will describe why this role was created and how the Coordinator is working to engage with library staff to understand their business and the evidence needed to support service improvement for the Library. By doing this, USQ Library is building the capacity to demonstrate value to stakeholders, gain a deeper understanding of clients' needs and experiences, promote robust decisionmaking and improve service delivery. The paper also outlines a research project led by the Coordinator (Evidence-Based Practice) to develop a conceptual model of evidence-based practice within academic libraries at the organisational, rather than individual level. Current models of evidence-based library and information practice apply predominantly to individuals. Informed by relevant literature and 16 semi-structured interviews with library professionals from Australian and New Zealand university libraries, three themes emerged to describe how evidence-based practice might be experienced at the organisational level. The lived experience at USQ Library and our research investigations suggest that being evidence-based provides benefits to an academic library's culture, practice and impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Funders increasingly mandate researchers to publish their scientific articles in open access and to retain their copyright. Universities all over the world have set up institutional repositories and use repositories for the preservation and dissemination of academic production of their institutions, including scientific articles, reports, datasets, and other research outputs. However, in general, authors do not find institutional repositories very attractive and accessible as an open access publication platform since repositories and open access are not part of the rewarding system. We expect that researchers are more likely to publish and deposit their scientific papers in a repository, once they have the appearance, recognition and dissemination of a scientific journal. That is why we took the initiative to set up a repository based journal 'University Journals' in which universities collaborate. The paper will explain the University Journals project and how the involved universities want to facilitate a valuable alternative publication platform that complies with Plan S principles and enables publication and dissemination of all research outcomes. By establishing University Journals as a publication platform, university libraries are instrumental (and crucial) in achieving the ambitions of Open Science, and universities gain control over the publication process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three years after the publication and large-scale dissemination of the guideline document “Recommendations for Higher Education Libraries”, we seek to understand the extent to which this document has been adopted by librarians and how practices and experiences have been introduced in Portuguese higher education libraries. This paper aims to assess the application of the Recommendations on user training, particularly in information literacy; in digital content management, including data and scientific production; and in the direct support to students, teachers and researchers, not forgetting topics of space management and information resources as a whole. For this purpose, a questionnaire survey was used for higher education libraries in Portugal. The most implemented areas are information literacy and the management of institutional repositories, and support for editorial projects was the one with the lowest level of application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents new services developed by the Lille University Library for European and National research project coordinators. This is a specific audience that libraries are not used to target, with a widely recognised institutional status and academic background. Supporting them in their coordination activities is an opportunity to gain a new role for libraries, which starts from the design of research at the submission stage and lasts several years after, during the project lifetime. These services help coordinators to meet their funders' expectations on Open Access and research data management. It is also a way to develop new collaborations with research units and some university services, such as the Grant Office. The Lille University Library has already supported the writing of forty grant proposals since 2017, including about thirty since early 2019. The Library currently follows twelve projects on Open Access, research data management or both. This second figure is likely to increase in 2020 due to the number of projects supported at submission stage since the beginning of 2019. The paper describes our set of services and the lessons we learned from our approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academic search literacy and searches powered by artificial intelligence are a focus of the Royal Library and affiliated university libraries in Denmark. The ambition is to integrate AI-search tools in teaching and services that support literature seeking and hence improve the efficiency of the academic search process. However, before doing so, the library managers needed to learn more about the value AI-powered search tools have for information specialists and library users, and hence make informed decisions regarding investment in such tools. This paper presents a case study of two AI-search tools, which were tested via Think-aloud tests, a hackathon and an expert quality assessment at the Royal Library, Denmark. The results point to both opportunities and barriers for the implementation of AI-search tools at the library and we explore the consequences the results of the tests can have for library users and library services. In conclusion, there is a need for more research on the value of AI-search tools for information special)ists and library users. AI-search tools are continuously being developed and improved. The library needs to provide a critical approach to where in the search process the tools add value. Accordingly, the library needs to develop guidance on how to use AI-search tools as a supplement to more traditional approaches, how to report the use of the tools as part of an academic study and address the limitations of the tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pressure on higher education institutions to produce employment-ready graduates is high, and academic libraries can contribute to this goal by collaborating with non-academic departments. The Georgetown University in Qatar library partnered with the Career Services Centre and the Alumni office in launching Careers Library programme that expanded on the idea of the Human Library by creating an online week-long event aimed at empowering senior students with the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in professional life after graduation. This practice paper illustrates how the library can engage in broader activities beyond information literacy instruction and leverage alumni relationships to develop students’ competencies. The collaboration proved to be beneficial and it fits well within the framework of library outreach activities. The value to the academic community is that this event can be easily replicated and it offers an easy way to draw on the expertise of alumni willing to give back to their school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since internationally visible scientific productivity is a criterion for state evaluation of Croatian academic and scientific institutions and their scientists, Croatian academic libraries have a key role in quantitative evaluation of scientific productivity using methods such as bibliometrics, scientometrics and the like. The aim of this case study is to identify and illustrate the current situation of library services for evaluating scientific production at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, and to make recommendations for the further development of such services, which could serve as a framework for the systematic implementation of this type of service in all libraries at the University of Zagreb and beyond. More specifically, the purpose of this paper was to identify the existence of the bibliometric services in the libraries of the University of Zagreb (UNIZG), examine the status and involvement of university librarians in the academic advancement procedures and to identify the required competences for bibliometric experts in Croatia. The research was conducted using the content analysis method, the survey method, and the focus group method. The research results show that although UNIZG libraries are integrated into the system of academic promotion and the role of UNIZG libraries is enshrined in Croatian regulations, the bibliometric service is not standardised at the University level. The results also indicate that the service needs to be strengthened in terms of training of professional staff and greater investment in staff capacity and infrastructure. The fact that the study was conducted at a single Croatian university is a possible limitation that could relate to the application of guidelines for further actions and the development of bibliometric services at national level. It would therefore be desirable to conduct future research to identify the situation at other Croatian universities as well. It would also be necessary to determine the open science and open access policies at UNIZG through further research and, in this context, to establish guidelines for possible improvements in the processes of evaluating scientific productivity. The results of this study make an important contribution to the possible future positioning of university libraries and UNIZG librarians in the process of evaluating scientific productivity. In addition, some practical advice is given so that this case study may be a good introductory overview for the wider academic community in relation to this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of a growing international focus on open access publishing options and mandates, this paper explores the extent to which the ideals of 'openness' are also being applied to physical knowledge resources and research spaces. This study, which forms part of the larger Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative project, investigates the relationship between academic library access policies and institutional positions on open access or open science publishing. Analysis of library access policies and related documents from twenty academic institutions in Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, Africa and the United Kingdom shows that physical access to libraries for members of the public who are not affiliated with a university is often the most restricted category of access. Many libraries impose financial and sometimes security barriers on entry to buildings, limiting access to collections in print and other non-digital formats. The limits placed on physical access to libraries contrast strongly with the central role that these institutions play in facilitating open access in digital form for research outputs through institutional repositories and open access publishing policies. We compared library access policies and practices with open access publishing and research sharing policies for the same institutions and found limited correlation between both sets of policies. Comparing the two assessments using Spearman's rank correlation coefficient confirmed open access policies have a direct association with the narrow aspects of public access provided through online availability of formal publications, but are not necessarily associated (in the universities in this study) with delivering on a broader commitment to public access to knowledge. The results suggest that while institutional mission statements and academic library policies may refer to sharing of knowledge and research and community collaboration, multiple layers of library user categories, levels of privilege and fees charged can inhibit the realisation of these goals. As open access publishing options and mandates expand, physical entry to academic libraries and access to print and electronic resources has contracted. This varies within and across countries, but it conflicts with global library and information commitments to open access to knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: This paper considers how changes in the research landscape are simultaneously changing the skills needs of library staff, and opening up new opportunities for researchers to pursue careers within libraries. It explores what skills, competencies and knowledge staff with doctoral qualifications can bring to library research support services. Context: Librarians working in research support areas need different skills to the skills academic librarians have traditionally needed. There is currently a gap in the training which those undertaking professional librarianship qualifications receive, in relation to the skills needed for research roles. Simultaneously, expansion in the numbers of PhD students in the UK in recent years has been accompanied by the professionalisation of researcher skills development, equipping students with transferable skills for careers outside, as well as inside, academia. Methodology: This paper compares the skills' needs of research librarians with the competencies and skills of doctoral graduates, specifically in the UK context (as articulated in the Vitae Researcher Development Framework). It also surveys and discusses the skill-set and qualifications of research support staff employed at three UK research libraries. Results: Understanding the needs and, importantly, the behaviours, of researchers is integral to the provision of a successful library research support service. Many of the skills which are necessary for library graduates to have, are those that are already identified as essential researcher skills. The peerlevel support offered by library staff with research backgrounds has a role in developing stronger relationships between the library and the academy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence (AI) now forms a part of various activities in the academic world. AI will also affect how research libraries perform and carry out their services and how the various kinds of data they hold in their repositories will be used in the future. For the moment, the landscape is complex and unclear, and library personnel and leaders are uncertain about where they should lay the path ahead. This extensive literature review provides an overview of how research libraries understand, react to, and work with AI. This paper examines the roles conceived for libraries and librarians, their users, and AI. Finally, design thinking is presented as an approach to solving emerging issues with AI and opening up opportunities for this technology at a more strategic level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence-based practice is an approach to professional practice that involves a structured process of collecting, interpreting and applying valid and reliable research and evidence to support decision-making and continuous service improvement in professional practice. This paper reports on emerging initiatives in evidence-based practice at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) Library, a regional multi-campus university in Australia. It demonstrates how evidence-based practice forms part of our organisational strategy to engage with our community and society. The case study describes a new model of embedding evidence-based practice through a role explicitly dedicated to developing the library’s evidence base. While other libraries may have a person responsible for assessment, performance metrics or data analysis, the Coordinator (Evidence-Based Practice) has a broader mandate – to work with library staff to develop tools, skills and expertise in evidence-based practice. The paper will describe why this role was created and how the Coordinator is working to engage with library staff to understand their business and the evidence needed to support service improvement for the Library. By doing this, USQ Library is building the capacity to demonstrate value to stakeholders, gain a deeper understanding of clients’ needs and experiences, promote robust decision-making and improve service delivery. The paper also outlines an initiative led by the Coordinator (Evidence-Based Practice) to develop a conceptual model of evidence-based practice within academic libraries at the organisational, rather than individual level. Current models of evidence-based library and information practice apply predominantly to individuals. Informed by relevant literature and 16 semi-structured interviews with library professionals from Australian and New Zealand university libraries, three themes emerged to describe how evidence-based practice might be experienced at the organisational level. The lived experience at USQ Library and our research investigations suggest that being evidence-based provides benefits to an academic library’s culture, practice and impact.

In this paper, we investigate the distinction between library digitization projects and digital scholarly editing projects by using qualitative interview data gathered from two Swedish digital scholarship ecosystems: 1) Litterarturbanken (the Swedish Literature Bank) and its collaboration with Gothenburg University Library, and 2) the internal collaboration at Uppsala University Library and the resulting digital output on the ALVIN platform. After examining the elements of digital editing practice that show up in each of these collaborations, we argue that these distinctions are blurring, and we call for a reorientation from critical versus noncritical editing towards critical transmission activities, which allows more room for less easily definable digital publishing projects to be examined. Further, we conclude that librarians, library-based textual scholars, and library technologists such as image technicians, digitization coordinators, and photographers are actively participating in the critical transmission of literary texts and the reframing of the institutionally enforced boundaries between the terms 'librarian' and 'scholar.'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Libraries are increasingly adopting user-centred design (UCD) approaches to the development of their services for the benefit of customers. Less attention is paid to evaluating the activity of designing these services. To address this managerial question, we present a study that examines UCD performance in the context of digital library services' development. The study builds on the existing knowledge on library and design evaluation and examines the literature from two theoretical perspectives: performance management and temporalities. As the primary contribution of this paper, we introduce the conceptual 360-Degree Temporal Benefits Model, which captures the situation where many stakeholders are involved in a design activity of digital library service. Application of the model to two cases demonstrates that the stakeholders can assess the benefits of UCD very differently. We argue that the new model helps in framing the change from the measurable design benefits towards more ambitious and ambiguous public values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ETH Zurich's university collections and archives encompass around twenty facilities with unique holdings. Their diversity reflects the historic development of collections at the university and its modern potential for research and teaching. ETH Zurich makes its collections and archives available for research and teaching in a form that befits the digital age. To this end, it combines ETH Library's skills in information science with the expertise of the collection owners in the departments in accordance with the Strategy 2015-2020, which was passed by the Executive Board in 2014. This paper presents the strategic approach of ETH Zurich's Executive Board and focuses on the role of ETH Library in the current line of action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an overview of a strategic partnership undertaken by the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) and the Érudit Consortium (Érudit) to support the move towards open access for Canadian francophone scholarly journals. CRKN and Érudit have had a relationship through a traditional commercial subscription model since 2008. In 2014, the two organizations recognized the need for a new relationship that would address two major challenges: the fragility of the Canadian not-for-profit scholarly publishing environment and the increasing pressure from libraries and funding agencies for scholarly journals to move towards open access. Érudit and CRKN have worked collaboratively to create an innovative partnership, which provides a framework for a new relationship between publishers and libraries, and helps to provide financial support to Canadian publishers during the transition to a fully open access model. This paper presents the perspectives of the two organizations involved in the partnership by outlining the common goals, objectives, and strategy, as well as the differing needs and perspectives of libraries and publishers. It summarizes the key aspects of the partnership as well as the challenges faced. Through this case study, the authors demonstrate how university libraries can play an active role in working with journals to support open access to research.

Three years after the publication and large-scale dissemination of the guideline document "Recommendations for Higher Education Libraries", we seek to understand the extent to which this document has been adopted by librarians and how revealing practices and experiences have been introduced in Portuguese higher education libraries. This paper aims to assess the application of the Recommendations in the area of user training, particularly in information literacy; in digital content management, including data and scientific production; and in the direct support to students, teachers and researchers, not forgetting the aspects of space management and information resources as a whole. For this purpose, a questionnaire survey was used for higher education libraries in Portugal. The most implemented areas are information literacy and the management of institutional repositories, and the one with the lowest level of the application relates to support for editorial projects.

This is a case study about the creation of open science services in the University of Eastern Finland. The library has overseen the open science services that have been actively implemented from 2010 onwards due to the development of the digitalisation of science and open science policies. A survey was conducted to determine how the UEF's academic faculty use the services provided as well as their attitudes towards opening their own research findings in this manner. The researchers seem to be most interested in issues that influence their daily work, i.e. data management plans and opening their publications. It seems that the culture of openness is still at the development stage within UEF. The innovators, i.e. active research groups and researchers, are already practicing and encouraging openness, but the majority of the academic staff seems to be either unaware of open science or unwilling to implement it, due to the fact that incentives and career advancements still support the traditional way of conducting research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of a growing international focus on open access publishing options and mandates, this paper explores the extent to which the ideals of ‘openness’ are also being applied to physical knowledge resources and research spaces. This study, which forms part of the larger Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative project, investigates the relationship between academic library access policies and institutional positions on open access or open science publishing. Analysis of library access policies and related documents from twenty academic institutions in Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, Africa and the United Kingdom shows that physical access to libraries for members of the public who are not affiliated with a university is often the most restricted category of access. Many libraries impose financial and sometimes security barriers on entry to buildings, limiting access to collections in print and other non-digital formats. The limits placed on physical access to libraries contrast strongly with the central role that these institutions play in facilitating open access in digital form for research outputs through institutional repositories and open access publishing policies. We compared library access policies and practices with open access publishing and research sharing policies for the same institutions and found limited correlation between both sets of policies. Comparing the two assessments using Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient confirmed open access policies have a direct association with the narrow aspects of public access provided through online availability of formal publications, but are not necessarily associated (in the universities in this study) with delivering on a broader commitment to public access to knowledge. The results suggest that while institutional mission statements and academic library policies may refer to sharing of knowledge and research and community collaboration, multiple layers of library user categories, levels of privilege and fees charged can inhibit the realisation of these goals. As open access publishing options and mandates expand, physical entry to academic libraries and access to print and electronic resources has contracted. This varies within and across countries, but it conflicts with global library and information commitments to open access to knowledge.

This article argues that knowledge management and social recognition is important for organisational learning and professional self-esteem in academic libraries. An anonymous survey was issued in 2016 to investigate how library staff's self-esteem is affected by how they experience their management's view and overview of their knowledge. The need for what Axel Honneth refers to as social recognition will also be discussed as an important part of how professional self-esteem and work satisfaction is experienced and further how this affects motivation to participate in professional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the past ten years, libraries have been developing gaming activities from library board games to mystery games and immersive roleplaying games. This article aims at giving a general overview of gaming issues in French academic libraries. General gaming theories are quickly reviewed, basic keys are given about how and why to set up a gaming service and department at the academic library, concrete and recent initiatives are presented. This article focuses on non-virtual and public-oriented games that were already organised in and by libraries. More generally, it underlines how to use gaming activities for promoting organisational innovation. It concludes on the necessity to settle a strategy for gaming activities, to enforce management practices, and on the importance to publicise the initiatives by establishing a public gaming policy and programme, and by formalising communication plans, staff training and knowledge management. The results of this fact study highlight how gaming activities are becoming a new reality for libraries, which requires a proper management perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]