Library Staff Papers and Publications

This webcast discusses Institutional Repositories (IRs) in the context of the recent surge in open access to scholarly material, and presents some of the issues early implementers have encountered, with particular emphasis on the Simon Fraser University Library Institutional Repository. Institutional Repositories are the current best practice for bringing together the intellectual output of an university in one place. Complimenting this centralized approach is IR’s capacity to be part of a larger network through the Open Archives Initiative. Combined, these two aspects ensure that working papers, journal articles, theses, reports, and course materials are discoverable and accessible into the future.

Depending on the perspective, the transition from subscriptions to
open access can be overwhelmingly complex, or elegantly simple - as
simple as rethinking the basic purpose of a library collection, and
rewriting your collection policy accordingly. This presentation
focuses on the theoretical aspects, and practical implications, of
transitioning to open access for libraries and librarians.

The Canadian Library Association adopted a Resolution on Open Access
in 2005. The mandate of the CLA Task Force on Open Access is to draft
recommendations on policy for CLA's own publications, draft a
position statement on open access for Canadian libraries on behalf of
CLA, and liaise with other library associations, such as CARL.
Heather Morrison reports on activities to date, such as drafted a
response to the CIHR Draft Policy on Access to Research Outputs.

E-LIS is an open access archive for library and information science.
With over 5,800 documents as of June 2007 (over 5,000 in February
2007 when the archive was investigated in-depth), E-LIS is the
world’s largest archive for LIS. Over half the documents in ELIS are
peer-reviewed. E-LIS is particularly strong in English and Spanish
language documents, but supports over 22 languages. With this
multilingual support and a global team of volunteer editors, E-LIS
has significant diversity in content, an advantage over traditional,
english-based LIS resources. Not surprising, this tool designed by
and for librarians features robust and userfriendly search options.
Lack of phrase searching, and pointing to a cross-archiving searching
tool no longer supported when much better options are available, are
identified as areas for improvement.

Various SFU faculty use WebCT, First Class, Lon-Capa and the locally developed CMS. SFU is a partner in SAKAI and the Library developed MOSST for online library instructional. SFU Library has achieved considerable success in technology, having developed reSearcher for Western Canadian university libraries; maintaining active digitization, Institutional repository, and e-journal support programmes; and supporting a very strong e-collection. SFU Library has a very active on-campus course-based instruction programme; extending that programme to the CMS environment has been challenging and, at times, frustrating. Through technology, strategic activity, and active involvement in online paedagogical initiatives, some success has been achieved.

This article outlines the common duties and responsibilities of systems librarians, and describes how library school students and others interested in entering the field can take
advantage of freely available tools to gain relevant experience. It discusses attitudes and traits of systems librarians and their importance to potential and practicing
systems librarians. It also lists and describes technologies that people entering systems librarianship can use to gain experience.

This presentations discusses the results of an analysis of the metadata gathered from Canadian Association of Research Libraries' institutional repositories. The metadata was found to be incomplete and inconsistent. As such, the presentation recommends the development of a metadata profile that identifies required and recommended elements.