Tara T. Cataldo

A persistent lack of international representation on editorial boards in environmental biology

The scholars comprising journal editorial boards play a critical role in defining the trajectory of knowledge in their field. Nevertheless, studies of editorial board composition remain rare, especially those focusing on journals publishing research in the increasingly globalized fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Using metrics for quantifying the diversity of ecological communities, we quantified international representation on the 1985–2014 editorial boards of 24 environmental biology journals. Over the course of 3 decades, there were 3,827 unique scientists based in 70 countries who served as editors. The size of the editorial community increased over time—the number of editors serving in 2014 was 4-fold greater than in 1985—as did the number of countries in which editors were based. Nevertheless, editors based outside the “Global North” (the group of economically developed countries with high per capita gross domestic product [GDP] that collectively concentrate most global wealth) were extremely rare. Furthermore, 67.18% of all editors were based in either the United States or the United Kingdom. Consequently, geographic diversity—already low in 1985—remained unchanged through 2014. We argue that this limited geographic diversity can detrimentally affect the creativity of scholarship published in journals, the progress and direction of research, the composition of the STEM workforce, and the development of science in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and much of Asia (i.e., the “Global South”).

Positively Perplexing E-Books: Digital Natives’ Perceptions of Electronic Information Resources

Anecdotal evidence from user surveys and the experiences of information professionals portray a picture that today’s students (i.e., “digital natives”) do not differentiate between the variety of information resources online. The issue of container only becomes problematic to these students when they have to produce a scholarly work and cite their information sources. Then the question becomes, “What is it?” This paper will present preliminary data from a survey of university students on how they recognize and label electronic information resources. The authors will explore such questions as: Do users recognize an e-book as a book? If not, how do they categorize it? Does the amount and placement of labeling from the publisher make a difference in their recognition? Do they differentiate between an academic database and a search engine? Are a newspaper article and a peer-reviewed journal article considered synonymous? Introduction/Background The first e-book proudly raised its head in 1971 with Project Gutenberg (Galbraith, 2011). For libraries, their proliferation began in 1998 with the launch of NetLibrary. But it wasn’t until the later 2000s that the big explosion began. Growth in the public libraries was faster, but the academic world was soon catching up. One difference that developed in academic libraries was the number of platforms e-books were available through. For example, the authors’ county public library offers e-book access through three different platforms. In comparison, their university has, to date, 32 platforms that provide e-book access and are aware of at least a dozen more available in the market. The authors believe this extensive variety potentially plays a role in the confusion of university students when it comes to recognition. The first idea for this research germinated when one of the authors was listening to a presentation on ebrary’s 2011 e-book survey (McKiel, 2012). The speaker was remarking on their surprise that between 2008 and 2011 e-book usage had actually decreased according to the survey responses. However, ebrary’s usage statistics showed that there had, in fact, been a dramatic rise in use over this time period. The author immediately thought “They don’t know what they are using is an e-book.” ebrary recognized this and sent a follow-up survey asking two questions. The first was ‘When you are using electronic resources at your library how often do you know what type of document you are using?” Less than half (47.39%) said “always.” This indicates the majority of students have at least some confusion. Years of experience working with university students provides plenty of anecdotal evidence that students don’t differentiate between the various online resources. It seems that they don’t care what the container is called--until they have to cite it for an annotated bibliography, research paper, poster, or other assignment. Indeed, the second ebrary follow-up question was “Do you care about what electronic document you are using as long at the information is authoritative?” and 53.4% said “no.” The authors could give numerous examples of students asking “How do I cite this journal article?” and the first thing the librarian has to do is correct them on what it actually is. This is not a journal article, it is a book chapter, or it is a government report, and so on. This presented the question, what do today’s university students, who have essentially grown up with the Internet, call the different online resources? Is everything just a website? Experience has also taught librarians that students

Evaluating Continuing Resources: Perspectives and Methods from Science Librarians

ABSTRACT Five science librarians share their experiences with the evaluation of continuing resources at an academic university and discuss implications caused by the evaluation process. Four of the authors were new to collection evaluations at the time of the Serial Evaluation Project. These new librarians faced many challenges, both personally and professionally, in dealing with the cancellation process. Although the differences in approaches to collection analysis are discussed somewhat, they are not a focus of the article.

A persistent lack of International representation on editorial boards in biology

The scholars comprising journal editorial boards play a critical role in defining the trajectory of knowledge in their field. Nevertheless, studies of editorial board composition remain rare, especially those focusing on journals publishing research in the increasingly globalized fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Using the combined membership of N = 24 editorial boards of environmental biology journals, we tested for changes in the international representation among editors 1985-2014 with metrics used to the diversity of ecological communities. Over the course of these three decades, 3831 unique scientists based in 70 countries served as editors. However, 67.06% of editors were based in the USA and UK, while editors based in the Global South were extremely rare. The number of countries in which editors were based (i.e., Geographic Richness) did increase over the 30-year survey period, but most of these newly represented countries were in Western Europe. As a result, Geographic Diversity remained unchanged from 1985-2014. This – coupled with the 420% increase in the number of editors serving each year – resulted in a significant decline in Geographic Evenness over time. We argue that this limited geographic diversity can detrimentally affect the creativity of scholarship published in journals, the progress and direction of research, the composition of the STEM workforce, and the development of science in the Global South.

Managing, Marketing, and Measuring Open Resources

Academic libraries face many opportunities and challenges in managing, marketing, and measuring open resources (OR). Many questions arise when incorporating OR into an academic library collection. How do libraries select quality OR for inclusion in the collection? What tools and practices are used to manage electronic access? How can libraries better market OR to faculty? How can libraries measure the use and usefulness of OR? This paper outlines a project launched to improve the management of OR at the University of Florida’s George A. Smathers Libraries; as well as incorporating feedback garnered at the Charleston Conference discussion forum on the topic, particularly on how academic and special libraries are handling OR offered to users.

How Users’ Perceptions of E‐Books Have Changed—Or Not: Comparing Parallel Survey Responses

This project focuses on comparing the results of two surveys conducted on e‐book usability at college and university libraries across the state of Florida. The first survey was carried out by librarians from the University of Florida in 2009 and provided benchmark responses for similar questions asked in a follow‐up survey completed in 2014. Results of the two surveys conducted five years apart are an enlightening snapshot of user feedback on e‐book usability, while providing insight on key issues and trends in e‐book use. In addition to measuring side‐by‐side results of the two Florida surveys, the paper frames this comparison in a broader context by drawing upon data taken from other surveys published on e‐book use in academic libraries.