October is Open Access Month. Throughout the month, guest contributors will present their perspectives on the value of open access to research, scholarship and innovation at The University of Texas at Austin.
This installment provided by Rayna Harris (ORCID ID:0000-0002-7943-5650), PhD Candidate, Cell and Molecular Biology.
Open access publishing is critical for ‘daisy chain’ reading of scientific papers
Rayna Harris.
Whenever I read a scientific paper, there is almost always a citation that grabs my attention and begs to be read. I love it when I can click on a citation and then read the full text. This ‘daisy chain’ process of citation searching (where the second paper leads me to a third paper, which leads me to a forth, and so on) gives me a great appreciation for all the previous research that contributes to current knowledge.
Figure 1. An example of citation searching or ‘daisy chain’ reading of scientific papers. In this example, McKiernan et al. 2016, cite Brenner 1995, who refers to Watson & Crick 1995. All these papers are open access and can be read by all.
When my citation search leads me to a paper that is not open access, I get frustrated because its halts the excellent momentum I had going for gaining new new knowledge. There is a saying in my lab that “if the research isn’t published it doesn’t exist” because it has not been disseminated to broader audiences. I would like to modify this quote to say “if the research is not published and open access then it doesn’t exist” because pay-walled papers are not freely discoverable.
Open access publishing is necessary for dissemination of ideas because it gives readers the ability to read any paper anytime anywhere. My hope is that one day I will publish a scientific paper that 1) is open access, 2) cites only open access papers, 3) which in turn cite only open science papers, and so on. This way, future readers can daisy-chain their way through the history of research that lead to current understanding.
Sunny June weather welcomed a lively group of 126 faculty, graduate students, and information professionals to the University of Texas Austin campus for HILT – Humanities Intensive Learning + Teaching. HILT is an annual week-long Digital Humanities (DH) training institute for researchers, students, early career scholars, and cultural heritage professionals. “HILT is awesome! It’s like nerdy summer camp for adults, and you actually learn things that are useful for your professional life,” one HILT participant in the course Introduction to the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) for Historical Documentsstates.
In its 5th edition, HILT 2017 offeredeight immersive Digital Humanities training courses on tools and methodologies including Scalar, Python, text analysis, Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), audio machine learning, and crowdsourcing. Courses were led by 11 expert guest instructors, hailing from institutions across the United States, such as University of Delaware, Emory University and the University of Southern California Libraries. Participants each enrolled in one course of their choice and dove in for four intensive days of learning. The PCL Learning Commons and the College of Liberal Arts’ Glickman Conference Center served as classroom space.
Course group working.
“I really like the format of an intensive class,” a participant in HILT’s Text Analysis course reported. “It is different than other conferences I’ve attended where you go to hour-long sessions and someone presents on a project they did. I also found the instructors and participants to be extremely knowledgeable.”
UT Libraries staff partnered with School of Information and Department of English faculty to plan the 2017 institute in collaboration with HILT Co-Directors, Trevor Muñoz and Jennifer Guiliano. Combined with the expert DH knowledge of the course instructors, the team successfully executed the largest HILT institute yet, and participants shared an enthusiastic response.
“[The Black Publics in Humanities: Critical and Collaborative DH Projects] course has been one of the most enriching experiences of my professional life. Grateful for the work of these folks,” says HILT participant Casey Miles (Assistant Professor in the Writing, Rhetoric & American Cultures department at Michigan State University).
“HILT helped me learn real skills, make real connections, and plant seeds for a new path in research and teaching,” said one attendee. “It was the most valuable professional development work I’ve done since I filed my dissertation a decade ago, hands down.”
Keynote by Maurie McInnis.
Daily coursework was balanced with additional learning opportunities. Day one of HILT was activated by a keynote address from UT Austin Provost Maurie McInnis. Provost McInnis shared insights on the importance of digital humanities work through her own research experience. Mid-week, HILT participants shared their research insights with each other through lively 5-minute Ignite Talks. To facilitate networking platforms for this diverse group of participants, UT Libraries staff organized evening dine arounds at favorite local restaurants, and the UT Libraries and the Dolph Briscoe Center hosted social receptions. Participants were also invited to engage in UT Austin’s Cultural Campus through organized activities, including sunset viewing of James Turrell’s The Color Inside: A Skyspace, and specialized tours at the Blanton Museum of Art, Harry Ransom Center, and LBJ Presidential Library.
Attendees at James Turrell’s “Skyspace.”HILT sharing with Dale Correa.
UT Libraries was pleased to sponsor nine staff to attend HILT. Following the institute, a summer series, coordinated by the UT Libraries Digital Scholarship department, provided a venue for staff participants to share insightful overviews of what they learned in their courses.
One summer series session featured UT Libraries staff Beth Dodd, Christina Bleyer, and Susan Kung presenting on their Collaboration for Complex Research: Crowdsourcing in the Humanities HILT course experience. New insights will be applied to projects such as “Digitizing and Crowdsourcing the oversize Garcia Metadata” in the Benson Special Collections. Another session featured Dale Correa, who described TEI challenges with non-English, non-Roman languages as discussed in the Introduction to the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) for Historical Documents course. The well-attended summer series informed a broader understanding of DH techniques among Libraries staff, fueled momentum for HILT-inspired projects, and generated a desire for additional training.
“I learned so much, especially to not be afraid of learning. It was phenomenal. I can’t imagine not returning every year for new courses,” shared a participant in the HILT course Getting Started with Data, Tools and Platforms.
Among all 2017 HILT participants, 98% say they will recommend HILT to a friend or colleague. With new and similar courses offered each year, many participants plan to return in 2018 and beyond. Next summer HILT will be hosted at the University of Pennsylvania from June 4-8, 2018. For updates on future learning opportunities, follow the HILT Twitter:@HILT_DH.
HILT Participants traveled across the continent to attend the institute. See a Carto map of participant locations here: HILT Participant Map.
More photos from HILT:
Article contributed by Jenifer Flaxbart and Hannah Packard.
One of the more gratifying aspects of being a subject librarian is witnessing students actually using the resources you introduced to them during an instruction session. Back in February of this year, Regina Hughes, the director Texas Business Foundations Program (Texas BFP) offered the opportunity to conduct an information resources session for her class. With no hesitation, I accepted the invitation and with Gina Watts, the business GRA prepped for the session.
The Texas BFP, which is designed to give undergraduate students of any discipline a fundamental background in business, is one of the largest and widely recognized certificate and minor programs at The University of Texas. The session covered all the business resources offered through the UT Libraries, with an emphasis upon how and when to use specific databases.
At the end of the semester the students get a chance to show off their entrepreneurial knowledge and skills to a panel of judges who will determine, theoretically, if their projects are worthy of funding. This semester Gina and I sat as judges for the first time and were handed the responsibility of reviewing the projects of half a dozen teams. Joining the panel of judges was fantastic. The students were all well prepared for their presentations, and had clearly been using (and correctly citing) the business resources. Since we generally never see the final product after a consultation for an assignment, it was great to see their success. It was also nice for Gina be more involved with the business school, because many GRA positions do not allow for much faculty interaction.
The presentations were brief, each group had only five minutes to describe the product or service; the target market, how they would make a profit, estimate the return-on-investment, as well as ask for a definitive amount of funding to launch the venture.
The ideas ranged from providing dental care to low-income families by acting as mediators and facilitating contact with dental professionals willing to provide care, pro bono. Another group developed a service that would provide fresh ingredients for preparing desserts delivered to your door. The standout was the proposal to develop a software application, which would allow students to develop budgets and manage their finances throughout their college career. It included an option for allowing parents monitor the process, which was very interesting.
The pace was fast and exciting. The highlight of the session was seeing the amount of business resources students had incorporated into their work. Moreover, how having access to real world databases, such as Mintel, Marketline and SimplyMap helped to prepare them for similar challenges beyond their university experience.
Though most of the current denizens of the Perry-Castañeda Library (PCL) are too young to appreciate it, the campus’s flagship library turns 40 this year, which is significant in the life of a modern library given the change that the institution has experienced in the last couple of decades.
When PCL was conceived, it was believed that the new building would accommodate the growth in physical collections for the foreseeable future; little did our 20th century forebears imagine the impact digital technologies and a global information network would have on the preservation, storage and distribution of knowledge.
Biochemist Lorene Rogers is president of The University of Texas at Austin, and Harold Billings is director of the university’s General Libraries, and enrollment at UT is 41,660.
Dolph Briscoe is the governor of Texas, Austin has a population of 321,900 (now 947,890), and Texas has 13.19 million (now 27.86 million).
Median income: $13,572. Average cost of: a house — $54,200; a car — ~$4,300; a gallon of gas — $0.62; annual tuition, room & board — $2,411.
Apple Computer is incorporated, and later in the year, the first Apple II series computers go on sale.
The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough is the best-selling fiction of the year.
Laverne & Shirley is the top rated TV show.
The critically-acclaimed television miniseries adaption of Alex Haley’s Roots airs.
The punk band The Clash’s debut album The Clash is released on CBS Records.
Optical fiber is first used to carry live telephone traffic.
The first Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza Time Theatre opens in San Jose, California.
George Lucas’s Star Wars opens in cinemas and becomes the highest-grossing film of its time. Woody Allen’s Annie Hall wins the Oscar for Best Picture. Also released: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Eraserhead, and Smokey and the Bandit.
Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s the Night,” is Billboard’s Top Hot 100 single for the year, and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors is the top-selling album.
Elvis Presley, the “king of rock and roll”, dies in his home in Graceland at age 42.
Jimmy Carter signs legislation creating the United States Department of Energy.
NASA launches the Voyager 1 spacecraft.
British punk band Sex Pistols release Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols on the Virgin Records label.
San Francisco elects City Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official of any large city in the U.S.
Saturday Night Fever is released, launching the careers of John Travolta and resulting in multiple hits for the Bee Gees.
Atari, Inc. releases the Atari 2600 game console in North America.
The first children’s cable channel The Pinwheel Network (later known as Nickelodeon), is launched.
The first ever event is hosted at the newly opened Frank Erwin Center on November 29 when the Longhorn men’s basketball team defeats Oklahoma, 83-76.
The Longhorn football team finishes the regular season with an 11–0 record, and running back Earl Campbell wins the Heisman Trophy, leading the nation in rushing with 1,744 yards.
About the Conference conferences.lib.utexas.edu/rethinkit2018/ January 8-10, 2018, the UT Libraries, Austin Public Library, and Austin Community College Libraries will co-host Re-think it: Libraries for a New Age, inaugurated at Grand Valley State University in 2015. The conference will be held at the University of Texas and other locations in Austin and Central Texas.
Re-think it: Libraries for a New Age will bring together academic and public librarians, administrators, technologists, architects, designers, furniture manufacturers, library users, and educators from across the country to discuss, share, learn and collectively re-think the increasingly important role libraries play in the communities that they serve.
Submit a Proposal conferences.lib.utexas.edu/rethinkit2018/call-for-proposals.html Re-think it is now accepting submissions for twenty-minute presentations and brief eight-minute lightning round talks that address best practices, case studies, projects, and creative ideas supporting any of the following themes.
Design to:
Develop a forward-thinking organizational culture
Transform physical library spaces and places
Promote innovative services, programs, or technologies
Assess and evaluate spaces, services, technologies and programs
Reflect community values and needs
All proposals should include:
Proposed program title
Name of speaker(s)
Contact information
Presentation description
Descriptions should be limited to 500 words for presentations and 150 words for lightning round talks.
First round of submissions accepted through August 25, 2017.
In recognition of the 40th anniversary of the Perry-Castañeda Library, the Libraries will be hosting a series of events welcoming members of the Perry and Castañeda families back to the Forty Acres.
Wednesday, August 30, 2017 PCL 40 Cake Celebration
Perry-Castañeda Library Lobby
Noon – 1 p.m. Open to the public.
Thursday, September 7, 2017 Castañeda and Perry Family Welcome
Gabriel’s at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center
4-6:30 p.m.
Parking: TBD
RSVP to Jason Mendiola at 512-495-4363 or jason.mendiola@austin.utexas.edu
Friday, September 8, 2017 Castañeda Family Welcome Breakfast
LLILAS Benson
Sid Richardson Hall, Unit 1
8:30-10:30 a.m. RSVP here
Parking: Manor Garage
Perry Family Welcome Breakfast
Perry-Castañeda Library
8:30-10:30 a.m. RSVP here
Parking: Manor Garage
Daily Texan supplement announcing the opening of PCL, August 29, 1977.
In February, one of the university’s oldest libraries — the Tower — celebrated a landmark 80th birthday. Not to be outdone, one of the youngest will mark its 40th this fall.
Situated just off the southeast edge of the original Forty Acres, construction of the Perry-Castañeda Library (PCL) was authorized by the UT System Board of Regents in 1972, and construction began a few years later. The project was completed and the doors swung wide for the incoming class on August 29, 1977. The Library still ranks as one of the largest academic library buildings in North America today.
Ervin Perry.
Designed to serve as the main library of UT Austin, the six-level, open-stack facility is named for two former University professors, Ervin S. Perry and Carlos E. Castañeda. Professor Perry was the first African American to be appointed to the academic rank of professor, and Professor Castañeda played a central role in the early development of the Benson Latin American Collection.
The Longhorn marching band recognized the opening of the PCL during a halftime show.
In recognition of the anniversary, the Libraries will be hosting a series of events in the early fall, including an historical exhibit on the building, a panel discussion on the future of libraries, a blowout tailgate and a reception with members of the Perry and Castañeda families.
The events will take place September 7-9, so keep an eye on the calendar at the Libraries website for details and plan to join us in celebrating UT’s flagship library.
Each fall, a fresh-faced bunch of newlings comes to campus with dreams of independence and future prospects dancing about their heads, a world of opportunity and exciting new experiences presented at every corner. And at the end of each successive spring, harried and exhausted, the same students trudge about PCL all hours in a fog of dread and worry, struggling to meet project deadlines and prepare for finals.
In recent years, staff have attempted to ease attending anxieties by different means, from art therapy on the whiteboards throughout the library to partnering with campus units for healthy snacks and massage chairs to the recurring presence of therapy pets from local agencies, all of which efforts have been met with great appreciation from library users,
Being on the front line, our circulation staff have the most frequent contact with students in the throes of finals pressures, so they also tend to be the most attuned to the stress cycles, and are great at imagining ways to overcome or at least temporarily alleviate them.
This semester, staff wanted to try something new, something fun and goofy that would shake the doldrums and reinvigorate the weary denizens of PCL with a jolt of the unexpected. By now, most people have come across some version of the ubiquitous T-Rex costume that’s been a major currency of YouTube videos; that buzzy novelty is what created the spark of an idea for the eventual decision by staff to create their own costume persona that could serve as the embodiment of silliness and distraction for overtaxed students in need of a break.
Staff settled on creating the albino squirrel.
For the uninitiated, the albino squirrel* has become a bit of a folk hero around the Forty Acres. The squirrel (or squirrels — who knows?) is told in lore to be a harbinger of good fortune to anyone who spots the animal. Students are known to actively seek out the tree-dweller for particularly worrisome exams, so it made perfect sense for staff to conjure the animal for the benefit of students, especially at this particular time of the semester.
Being that staff had an idea and some spanking new tools with which to act upon it — in the form of the new Foundry makerspace in the Fine Arts Library — they only lacked volunteers to set about the task. From among their ranks they discovered that they had the requisite skill sets to create the form for the creature.
Early in the spring, senior library specialist Janeice Connors and Tré Miles, a student associate from the Kuehne Physics-Mathematics-Astronomy Library and Textiles major, began intermittent work on designing and creating a man-size version of the bushy-tailed talisman in the Fabric Arts Lab at the Foundry. By late April, the Connors and Miles had logged dozens of hours cutting, fitting, sewing and stuffing, and the suit was finally ready for its debut.
JD Torian, the Albino Squirrel (aka Joe Dobbs) and Lorraine Haricombe.
On Wednesday, May 10, accompanied by Libraries Director Lorraine Haricombe and Austin’s Pizza owner J.D. Torian, the albino squirrel stepped off the elevator on the 6th floor of PCL, and began a whirlwind tour of the library, spreading joy and smiles (And pizza. And KIND bars.) to appreciative students who got a much deserved break from their studies and a hopefully a little luck from their friends at the Libraries.
Postscript: Tré Miles graduated in May, and parlayed his experience building a squirrel (not really) to land a spot at Michael Kors in NYC. Congratulations, Tré!
*Yes, yes, Mr. Smartypants…we’re well aware that it’s not really an albino, just a rodent with a recessive gene.
Exhibit of items from the Black Queer Studies Collection.
Written by Hayley Morgenstern, Graduate Research Assistant/Ask a Librarian Intern
The creation of the Black Queer Studies Collection (BQSC) by former librarian Kristen Hogan in collaboration with faculty member Dr. Matt Richardson responds to the need to make content that is marginalized within classification systems more accessible for scholarship.
One of the first special collections of its kind in the U.S. South, the BQSC is a designated virtual collection that seeks to address discoverability issues surrounding holdings in the area of African and African Diasporic Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Studies. Since standard Library of Congress subject headings are limited in addressing gender and sexual identity, adding a local note to items in the catalog allows materials addressing black queer content to become accessible through a keyword search. The creation of the collection to meet a research need of students and faculty exemplifies the vision of the library as a research ecosystem created through user-focused innovation, collaboration, and expertise.
Over 750 items exist in the collection that spans multiple branches of the library system from the Perry-Castañeda Library, the Benson Latin American Collection, and the Fine Arts Library as well as digital materials like the steaming film Miss Major! (a documentary about Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a formerly incarcerated Black transgender elder and activist who has been fighting for the rights of trans women of color for over 40 years). The content in the collection spans fiction, science-fiction, memoir and biography, critical theory, fine art, music, poetry theater, and film.
An exhibit featuring selections from the BQSC is now on display in the Scholars Commons at the PCL.
In 1928, the city of Austin adopted a plan contracted by a Dallas urban planning firm that effectively segregated the city’s African American and white populations.
Nearly ninety years later, the effects of that decision were still being experienced by minority populations in the city as evidenced in a study by the University of Toronto that showed Austin-Round Rock as the most economically segregated large metro area in the country.
Last November, Austin Mayor Steve Adler announced the formation of a task force that would try to address facets of a community-wide problem by assessing the effects of institutional racism on issues of equity in the city. The resulting committee of business and civic leaders, community activists, educators and law enforcement officials was charged with developing an action plan to address institutional racism and issues of economic and racial disparity across the city’s demographic and geographic landscape to provide city leaders a framework to systematize solutions.
The university itself has recently experienced sometimes newsworthy incidents of bias and intolerance that have encouraged calls from the community to address inequality and privilege on campus. Administrators have responded with both assurances and new policies intended to engender an environment of inclusivity and tolerance across a diverse, global population.
Libraries have traditionally served as a sanctuary from dogmatic attitudes where a currency of knowledge provides a bridge for reasoned debate and discussion on opposing viewpoints. How then can institutions where the rational exchange of ideas is a norm apply its experience to influence or contribute to a larger dialogue on issues of diversity, equality and inclusivity?
Austin Mayor Steve Adler will join UT Libraries Director Lorraine Haricombe along with UT Vice President for Diversity and Community Engagement Gregory Vincent, AISD Board of Trustees Paul Saldaña, and American Library Association President and Austin Community College Library Services Dean Julie Todaro, for a broad-ranging discussion on the impact of inequality in local communities and how core institutions of government and education can work together to implement solutions to create a better society for all. Topics will include:
The unique relationship between the university and city of Austin, and how that relationship influences concepts of equality in the area.
The respective roles of the university and libraries in fostering inclusivity across the shifting demographics of a city experiencing a period of substantial growth.
How K-12 education can overlap with institutions of higher education to create opportunities for underserved populations.
Efforts to promote information literacy as a means to combat cultural/social misperceptions.
Ways of addressing institutionalized racism in civic and educational systems.
