Group items tagged

JISC study form OCLC, RIN and JISC survey data on digital library user behavior, highlights disciplinary differences in e-research and reliance upon Google

This collaborative research project will be composed of two separate, but linked, analyses. It will identify and examine information-related support services throughout the lifecycle of the research process. The project's goal is to discover researchers' needs and desires in a small sample of UK and US universities and to identify the significant patterns, intersections, gaps and issues from researchers' points of view, whatever the source of such services. This study will document the nature and scope of research support services, providing examples of good practice, recommending areas where new practice might emerge, and identifying possible areas and scope for collaboration within and between institutions

"In recent years, publishers, librarians and academics have seized the opportunities offered by the electronic publication of scholarly journals. Despite the popularity of e-journals, however, content continues to be published, acquired and used in physical printed form. In the UK, we are still some way from a wholly electronic journal environment. This study is prompted by a concern from publishers and librarians that the retention of both printed and e-journal formats adds unnecessary costs throughout the supply chain from publisher to library to user. In view of the many advantages of electronic journals, this report sets out to understand the barriers to a move to e-only provision of scholarly journals in the UK, and to investigate what various players within the scholarly communications system could do in order to encourage such a move."

An evaluation of research support services in four UK institutions discusses support for research dissemination, data curation and intellectual property concerns.

"Overcoming barriers: access to research information" a Research Information Network report

This report points out a major issue for researchers: it is often easy to FIND the content they need (through Web of Science or Google or PubMed) but it is difficult to ACCESS it. "The content is not available online (either through failure to be digitised or lack of licence purchasing) and licences for online content are seen to be too complex and sometimes restrictive of access for non-members of institutions; and institutions lack the technical and administrative capacity to overcome these issues."