Library Staff Papers and Publications

This session will share results of the presenter’s Canada-wide survey of university copyright administrators, which explored the following research questions: How are copyright officers, copyright librarians, and other copyright administrators reaching instructors with information about copyright and how it affects their teaching? What are the most common methods of educating instructors, and how are these opportunities advertised? How effective do copyright educators feel their instructional methods are at giving instructors the information they need to find, use, and create teaching materials confidently?

Many respondents feel, like the presenter, that they are not reaching enough faculty with copyright information. While no one has a perfect solution, many are starting to plan education more strategically, reaching out to faculty through their departments and working with deans or provosts to lend copyright messaging more weight.

This report documents the program "Keeping it REAL: Research in Academic Libraries" that was held at UBC on November 18, 2017. This event was the result of a collaboration between SLAIS and librarians at UBC, SFU, and UVic. The purpose of the program was to enhance academic librarians' skills in planning and conducting research and to foster research culture among practitioners. Sessions were held on research processes such as ethics, dissemination, generating ideas, and cultivating research culture, as well as the importance of securing extra funding through grants. Participants also had the opportunity to interact with librarians who have experience in specific theories and methodologies. Feedback on the workshop was positive and indicated that academic librarians are interested in further professional development in research methods, and would like to explore specific methodologies and theoretical frameworks in greater depth. Recommendations included wide distribution of this report and securing support from the sponsoring institutions for future events.

Presentation given to the Canadian Association of University Teachers Librarians' and Archivists' Conference 2014.

Copyright can be an invisible issue for instructors because infringement or improper use of copyright-protected material will not impede teaching. Copyright law is nuanced and open to interpretation; it is not always clear whether a particular action is compliant or not. This poster will share the results of the presenter’s Canada-wide survey of university copyright administrators, exploring institutions’ provision of copyright education to instructors. The presenter found more questions rather than answers as a result of the survey. Most respondents do no assessment of their copyright instruction, and instead are comfortable relying on experience, questions from faculty, and anecdotal evidence to form an impression of instructors’ familiarity with copyright rules. Is informal appraisal adequate for ensuring that libraries and copyright offices are fulfilling their responsibility to encourage and enable the confident and lawful use of copyright-protected material? What other evidence could be gathered to inform copyright administrators’ efforts? This poster will encourage participants to think about copyright education at their institutions, will share the results of the survey, including approaches being taken by universities across Canada.

As oral history has gained in popularity and acceptance since its origins at Columbia University in the late 1940s, librarians have predominantly contributed in the realm of technical services, as cataloguers of oral history interviews conducted by others. The aim of this study is to examine the skillset librarians possess as oral history interviewers. An autoethnographic approach was employed wherein the author, a librarian, recounted her experience as the principal investigator of an oral history project. This experience was examined in light of the reflections of Alessandro Portelli as an interviewer and Leah Rosenblum Emary’s work on librarian-ethnographers. Findings reveal that librarians’ ethos in collection work and training in reference are transferable to the context of oral history interviewing. Librarians status as insider-outsiders within the academy and our ability to create rapport are emphasized. The paper concludes with a call for librarians to engage more fully in oral history, and to initiate collaborations of important local digital collections such as oral histories.

An introduction to the issue of user privacy concerns arising when libraries use Google Analytics and other user data tracking services, and how the use of these tools can conflict with professional ethics and values. Includes a brief reading list. 

This study surveyed copyright administrators at Canadian universities about their methods of providing copyright training to faculty and non-faculty instructors, the frequency and topics of education provided, and the modes of communication used to reach instructors. Copyright administrators were also asked to rate the perceived effectiveness of their educational opportunities. Respondents feel that in-person education is most effective for providing copyright training to instructors, though a significant number of respondents do not believe that all instructors at their institutions are made adequately aware of copyright educational opportunities. Lack of time and staffing resources affect many copyright administrators. These challenges are leading many to develop more systematic approaches to reaching instructors. Communication and education are being provided directly to individual departments and by working with administrators and others at the department level. Considering the siloed nature of many copyright offices and positions, this study aims to share the approaches being taken by copyright administrators to educate instructors about their rights and responsibilities with regard to copyright and teaching.

This document describes the process and workflow of the TechBC Memory Project, a collection of oral history interviews that contributes to the historical record of SFU Surrey. The interviews were conducted in 2014 and 2015 and were initially uploaded to Summit, SFU's research repository. In 2016 the PI received a grant for transcriptions and indexing assistance and went on study leave to enhance the interviews' usability and accessibility. The transcripts were edited, indexed, and summarized offline, converted to XML, and uploaded to the OHMS (the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer) application. The collection then moved to SFU Digitized Collections on its new Islandora platform. The interviews now include the OHMS viewer, transcripts and photographs, as well as new searchable metadata fields including keywords, summaries, and a proper name index.

This document, prepared by the SFU Copyright Office, outlines a risk management approach to copyright in regards to digitization projects. This framework describes how the SFU Copyright Office will assess the risk level associated with digitizing and disseminating third party copyright protected material where it is not feasible or possible to contact rights holders. The framework includes an introduction to the approach, the form and guidelines used by the SFU Copyright Office to make a risk assessment, and the protocol for responding to takedown requests.

The Council of Prairie and Pacific University Libraries (COPPUL) is piloting a cloud-based preservation service using the Archivematica digital preservation system. The service is offered to COPPUL member institutions that wish to preserve digital holdings but prefer a hosted service to installing and managing local Archivematica instances. This service is a joint effort of COPPUL, Artefactual Systems (Archivematica lead developers), and University of British Columbia (UBC) Library (the cloud storage provider). COPPUL is responsible for promoting the service, signing up new institutions and seeding the one-time set- up costs. Artefactual Systems provides account administration, installation, server administration, and user technical support. UBC Library provides fee-based server hosting and digital object storage service. This article discusses COPPUL’s Archivematica-as-a-service model generally and covers certain aspects of implementation in greater detail, concluding with a discussion of future directions.