Gail Clement

Geochemistry of Moroccan evaporites in the setting of the North Atlantic Rift

Evaporites were deposited widely during early Mesozoic rifting between northwestern Africa and northeastern North America. Their stratigraphy, petrography and geochemistry characterize their depositional milieux and constrain the timing and paleogeography of the opening of the Atlantic Ocean. Geochemical analyses group into two sets, reflecting evaporite formation in two distinct provinces. Evaporites from the Atlas province (the Atlas Mountains) are characterized by low bromide concentrations and widely variable sulfur and strontium isotope ratios. These early Liassic evaporites were deposited in continental sabkhas or playa lakes, where local weathering or hydrothermal activity controlled evaporite chemistry. In contrast, evaporites from the Atlantic province (Moroccan Meseta, Pre-Rif and DSDP Site 546) are characterized by high bromide concentrations, potash mineralization, and co-varying sulfur and strontium isotope ratios. In the Atlantic province, a system of mixing between marine and continental sources controlled the brine chemistry. Mixing of marine and fluvial waters in a marginal marine lagoon, or hydrothermal cycling of seawater through granitic crust, explains the geochemical and petrographic observations. Two cycles of evaporite deposition during Rhaetian too Sinemurian time reflect the progressively increasing marine conditions during rifting. The age and stratigraphy of evaporites from the Essaouira-Argana basin compare well with those of the Atlantic province. The geochemistry of the Essaouira-Argana evaporites, however, is dominated by continental input. This basin lay farther from the Atlantic shoreline during Rhaetian time, but by Sinemurian time saw greater marine influence, as the early Atlantic sea transgressed southward along the rifted continental margins.

ORCID Identifiers: Planned and Potential Uses by Associations, Publishers, and Librarians

The presenters gave an overview of ORCID and examples of how organizations are integrating ORCID identifiers (iDs) into their systems. In its twin roles as a scholarly association and a publisher, the Modern Language Association is exploring how best to integrate ORCID iDs into the publication process and into its member services. Librarians are well-positioned to partner with new and established scholars in accurately capturing their record of scholarship, and to work with internal partners such as research offices and graduate schools. As a member of the University of North Carolina system, East Carolina University researchers are interested in the potential for ORCID profiles to supplement information in the statewide profile system REACH NC. Texas A&M University is one of nine institutions recently selected to participate in an ORCID Adoption and Integration Program (funded by the Sloan Foundation) for their proposal to integrate ORCID iDs into their open-source Vireo Electronic Thesis and Dissertation management system, the university’s institutional repository, and their VIVO profile system.

ETD Management and Publishing in the ProQuest System and the University Repository: A Comparative Analysis

INTRODUCTION This study compares the two most popular electronic theses and dissertation (ETD) management systems used in the American higher education community today: the commercial ProQuest dissertation publishing system and the university repository. METHODS Characteristics of these systems are identified and categorized to determine the features, functions, and policies common to both, and those that uniquely characterize one or the other system. Performing such a head-to-head comparison provides valuable information and insights to decision makers responsible for managing or overhauling their university’s ETD program. RESULTS Comparison of characteristics shows the ProQuest system and the University Repository both provide functional solutions for submitting, storing, disseminating, and archiving ETD’s using digital technology. Yet each system also has unique characteristics that distinguish it from the other. DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION The authors conclude that there is no single ‘best’ system for ETD management overall. Rather, it is up to decision makers at each institution to choose an approach that best fits their university’s values, goals, and needs. Additionally, the authors point out the need for a single portal for ETDs that allows for search and discovery of these unique works of scholarship wherever the full text resides. Future investigation into possible solutions for such an ETD portal would be a boon not only to universities and ETD authors, but to the diverse researchers, students, professionals, and interested citizenry who could benefit from easier access to this growing corpus of knowledge.

JLSC Board Editorial 2018

The current scholarly communication landscape is populated by a variety of actors and powered by an ever-increasing array of complementary and competitive systems for the production, publication, and distribution of scholarship. Recent years have also seen increasing numbers of proposals to recast these systems in ways that better align with the needs and values of the academy and its scholars. In this editorial, members of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication consider the present environment and contemplate the future of academy-owned and -supported scholarly communication, as well as the role of libraries in that future.

From the Ground Up: A Group Editorial on the Most Pressing Issues in Scholarly Communication

One of the joys of working with JLSC is the amazing community of intelligent, talented, and passionate people who make up its readers, authors, and reviewers. Nowhere is this more apparent than in its Editorial Board, which is currently made up of twenty-one professionals from across the scholarly communication landscape. Because their work usually happens behind the scenes, readers might not realize how influential they are in the life of the journal. They come from a wide range of organizations and backgrounds (not to mention three continents), but they all deal with scholarly communication issues on the ground, every day. There has been quite a bit of discussion lately about the future of scholarly communication in libraries (for an example, see Clifford Lynch’s guest editorial in the February issue of C&RL1 ), and we wanted to give our board a chance to weigh in. They were asked to share their take on the most pressing issues in scholarly communication today, in their capacity as Editorial Board members (rather than as representatives of their respective institutions), and the following six short pieces are the result. We hope their answers will help inspire the readers, authors, and editors of JLSC to think big, act strategically, and strengthen our growing network of peers.

Collecting and Digitizing Forgotten Graduate Student Scholarship: The PILOs Project at Texas A&M University

This article describes a project at Texas A&M University Libraries to add a group of legacy student works (Projects in Lieu of Theses or Dissertations, or PILOs) to the collections in both hard copy and digital form. These unique works of institutional scholarship constitute a new area of acquisition for the libraries. The authors describe the new team-based workflows necessitated to evaluate, acquire, catalog, store, digitize, and preserve these reports. The cross-unit team that designed and implemented the project has devised a successful model upon which future collection development efforts can be built.

The Web of Life: Natural Science Information on the Internet

Summary As society has come to equate economic prosperity with the health of our living resources, national science policy has called for the development of a comprehensive digital knowledge base to support informed decision making and wise resource management. The Internet and World Wide Web demonstrate the earliest stages of this evolving virtual library of the natural world, offering an increasing array of high-quality, innovative resources and services in the natural science arena. This article discusses the leading providers of natural science information on the Internet and highlights some of the exemplary resources they are delivering online. The discussion concludes with a brief discussion of the role of the librarian in developing the Web of natural science knowledge online and provides a short Webliography of starting points for further exploration of this subject area.