Last month I attended a fascinating and highly informative conference on Open access and research at Queensland University of Technology in a rather warm and sticky Brisbane. Attendance was made possible through winning a VC Staff Development Award. A conference visit report is now available on the wiki here

Peter Lund

I’m delighted to let you know that Glen Walker has accepted the position of Liaison Librarian. Glen will be one of the Liaison Librarians serving the College of Education and he will divide his working week between Education Library and Central Library. Part of Glen’s role will involve coordinating the undergraduate information literacy programme. Glen will start work on Monday 13th January 2014.

Some of you will already know Glen as he previously worked at UC in the Education Library as an Information Librarian. He joins us from Selwyn District Libraries where he managed the public library network. Glen is a past-President of LIANZA and is currently on an advisory group for the National Library.

Peter Lund
Academic Liaison Manager

An expose in Science earlier this month (Who’s Afraid of Peer Review?) highlights the risk to researchers posed by predatory publishers. These are questionable publishers seeking to take advantage of the open access business model by charging large fees whilst failing to meet various ethical standards – such as not identifying an editorial board, using editors names without authorization or demonstrating a lack of transparency in publishing operations.

What can be done to avoid predatory publishers?

This is an ongoing problem for open access communities neatly summarized in the Guardian but Jeffrey Beall, a librarian at University of Colorado, has made available Bealll’s List of predatory publishers and has compiled criteria for identifying predatory publishers. This at least provides a guide for researchers keen to publish open access.

Peter Lund

We are pleased to advise that we are now advertising a full time Liaison Librarian position within the Academic Liaison Team. Applications close on Tuesday 15 October. You’ll find further details on the job vacancies page here.

Peter Lund

Anton Angelo and myself attended the e-research symposium which was held here at UC in July. We presented a poster on Data Management Plans which, naturally, we’ve put in the UC Research Repository. You’ll find it here: http://hdl.handle.net/10092/7894
We’ve also written up a symposium report: File://K:/digital/PresentationsPapers/e-research_symposium_report.docx This highlights some of the themes and key workshops/ papers including one by Deborah Fitchett!
Peter Lund

As you know scholarly publishing is changing rapidly with rising serial subscription prices and the growth of open access. We are fortunate that Tony Bocquet, Director, Asia-Pacific, for the Nature Publishing Group has agreed to give a presentation on the changes in scholarly publishing from print to electronic subscriptions to open access. The presentation will cover Nature’s role as a publisher and how it has moved from one of a curator to one of a solution provider, how the value proposition of content is moving much more quickly and the increased importance of meta data as a result.

When: 10am, Thursday 8th August 2013
Where: Room 210, Level 2 James Hight Building

It will be interesting to hear how scholarly communication is perceived by such a prestigious publisher as Nature. I hope that some of you will be able to attend, though do check with your manager.

Tony’s biography

Antoine (Tony) and has over 16 years experience in the academic publishing industry in Asia. Tony joined NPG in 2001 as Asia-Pacific Publisher, became Associate Director in 2005, and was promoted to Director, Asia-Pacific in December 2011. In December 2012 he also became CEO of Nature Japan K.K., NPG’s fully owned Asian subsidiary in Tokyo. He is responsible for NPG’s core operations in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding China and India. He serves as Head of NPG’s Site License Business Unit in the Asia-Pacific, and is responsible for a number of publishing programs such as NPG’s Asian Academic Journal program, and the Macmillan Medical Communications unit in Asia. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Nikkei Science Ltd., a joint venture between Scientific American, part of the Nature Publishing Group, and Nikkei Publishing Inc.. Prior to joining NPG, Tony served as Managing Editor for John Wiley and Sons in Tokyo between 1998-2001 and as Commissioning Editor for Gordon & Breach between 1996-1998. An Australian by birth, Tony holds a Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo (Physics) and is a graduate of Griffith University in Brisbane. He has lived permanently in Japan since 1994.

Ngâ mihi mahana,
Peter

You’ll see Kathryn and Kim around in the Education Library a bit more over the next three months as they are working more hours to provide some liaison cover now that Caroline has moved over to Macmillan Brown Library. Until 1 November Kathryn will be working Mondays to Fridays. From 31 July, Kim will be working Wednesdays and Fridays 9am-2:30pm whilst continuing to work Saturdays. Thanks to both Kathryn and Kim for helping out in this way.
Peter Lund

Aurelia has started work with the Academic Liaison team today. She’s based in the Education Library. She’ll be visiting UC Libraries in the coming weeks and getting to know as many of you as she can. Aurelia joins us from Christchurch City Libraries where, for the last six years, she has been working in the role of Kaitakawaenga (Mâori Community Liaison). Aurelia is an active member of Te Rôpû Whakahau, Te Waipounamu (South Island region.) We are really pleased to welcome Aurelia and look forward to further enhanced library support for Maori students and academic staff in the months ahead.

Peter Lund

I am pleased to announce that Aurelia Arona has been appointed to the full time permanent position of Mâori Liaison Librarian. Aurelia is currently working at Christchurch City Libraries and she will join the Academic Liaison team on Monday 20 May.

Peter Lund

There are various activities for Orientation this year. The main Orientation Day is being held in tents on Ilam fields on Friday 15th February. I’ll be presenting as part of an interactive session in the afternoon. New leaflets and bookmarks are beoing produced. Liaison Librarians have also been present at the International Student welcome today.

Our recent YouTube Videos have been updated and two new ones on study zones and on Completing an assignment are being created.

There is also a Top Library Tips and links to this and the videos in Learn.

The new Insiders Guide also features Library content.

There will be tours in Central Library and in other Libraries on demand.

Peter Lund