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Piracy of subscription-based scholarly literature has reached a new peak with the advent of Sci-Hub and other sites like it. Sci-Hub is a collection of over 68 million items led by and compiled by a researcher from Kazakhstan. This interview was conducted to gain insights from an academic library director, Michael Levine-Clark, who with other colleagues is doing research on how scholars discover and access research materials. Peter Katz, who works for Elsevier, discusses what Sci-Hub means for him as someone responsible for identifying and blocking activity that sets off alerts in their usage system indicating that the activity may be being undertaken by unauthorized users. These two individuals provide thoughtful observations about what Sci-Hub may mean for the future of article discovery in academic libraries and how Open Access models will impact and influence the dynamic between pirated materials and those found behind a paywall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2014, University of California, Davis University Library and the California Digital Library collaborated on an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant-funded project to explore costs associated with moving scholarly journal subscriptions in the U.S. market entirely to an Article Processing Charge business model, known also as “Gold Open Access.” We contacted MacKenzie Smith, one of the principal investigators, in order to get her reflections on the process of gathering the data, and to discuss some implications of the findings. The interview suggests that the “Pay It Forward” model could be successful over time, following a necessarily complex transition period. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This presentation summarized a May 2013 white paper published by Taylor & Francis Group,Facilitating access to free online resources: challenges and opportunities for the library community (www.tandf.co.uk/libsite/pdf/TF-whitepaper-free-resources.pdf). Taylor & Francis staff conducted research aimed at exploring free content discoverability from the perspective of librarians. Study focus groups were held in London and Seattle, Washington in early 2013. Research also included telephone interviews, surveys, and literature searching to identify relevant studies and commentary articles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile technology is in a great state of flux and competition, and the bar keeps getting set higher. What models of service are leading the pack? Should libraries be providing mobile devices, or rather, should libraries be providing content for any kind of device and leave the choice of device to patrons? This session explored the most recent trends to give attendees a sense of the marketplace and what might work best in their own contexts. Many libraries are experimenting with handheld readers such as Kindles, Nooks, and iPads, and at the same time are testing out various platforms to deliver e-content such as Overdrive, e-books and audiobooks on EBSCOhost, ebrary, and 3-M Cloud Library. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]