Williamson Award 2022

The 2022 Robert D. Williamson Award goes to Anne Stevenson from CSIRO.

View the video of Anne’s presentation on the VALA View channel here:

VALA President Melissa Parent presenting the 2022 Williamson Award medallion to Anne Stevenson

Anne commenced work at CSIRO in 1979 and throughout her 43 year career as a Librarian she has made an outstanding, unique contribution to information management across CSIRO and the profession. Anne’s work is key to the realisation of the highest possible value for CSIRO’s data assets, enabling their reuse and proliferation amongst a cohort of international researchers, thus achieving maximum impact for Australian science. Anne’s work is centred around the development of bespoke software that supports world-class information management at CSIRO and the provision of training and support for this software to increase its utility. In her current role, she leads a team of Data Librarians whose work fostering a strong data culture and research data management skills are at the forefront of industry standard.

Research Data Management is a relatively new specialisation within the library profession. Anne has an innate understanding of her role as a librarian, industry trends and information management tools which she has leveraged to forge a path for herself and her peers in this domain.

Anne is a respected go-to for advice within CSIRO. She is the acknowledged “guru” and all round sounding board for all of the innovative ideas and new initiatives within the Library service. We all depend on her and turn to her to support the innovative, the creative and the leading edge services that we want to promote and provide. Her advice and enthusiasm has been an inspiration and a great impetus for getting new projects not only off the ground, but well on their way to being supported and completed. Anne has exceptional domain specific knowledge and is consulted for large-scale, multidisciplinary projects within CSIRO.

Key examples of her contribution to project work include:
• Research Data Planner: Phase 3 : The Research Data Planner is a tool for gathering requirements and documenting decisions on how research data is managed throughout a project. Anne was involved in the third phase of development of this online tool, participating in feature request prioritisation, help text reviews, question syntax reviews creating design mock-ups for changes to functionality, and user acceptance testing.
• CMS: Specify Implementation : National Research Collections Australia (NRCA) encompasses 15+ million specimens documenting Australia’s rich biodiversity housed across multiple collections, all with their own data management system and metadata standards. NRCA is investigating how we can manage these collections centrally and Anne has provided key advice on required metadata to support this implementation. She has been involved extensively with this project, developing cross-walks between systems to establish a common set of descriptors.
• ePublish Anne has always been active in the publications space at CSIRO, looking at opportunities and assisting with developing solutions. Her involvement led to her being invited to be part of the project team that designed a publications approval system and the creation of a single enterprise repository which the approvals system was to feed. Her involvement in the ePublish project is addressed in greater detail in the ‘Innovation’ section.

Excellence is also evident in Anne’s operational work, examples of which include:
• Anne and her team deliver workshops and training at CSIRO for the organisation’s bespoke information management platforms, the Data Access Portal and the Research Data Planner. Anne’s passion for providing quality support to researchers is unparalleled, which is reflected in the quality of service that she and her team deliver.
• Anne raises awareness for Research Data Management and promotes this practice across the organisation hosting webinars, leading awareness activities and supporting the development of company on-demand training modules for Research Data Management. She is well-known as a metadata and citation expert and she provides advice to colleagues on best practice standards for these concepts.

Anne’s excellence and pride in her work is evident in all that she does. Anne has documented her extensive experience and knowledge for the benefit of the profession and has contributed to 13 publications, which include peer-reviewed conference papers and journal articles. For the full list of Anne’s publications, please see Anne’s ORCiD profile https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8543-2133

Anne is active in the national and international information and data communities and plays a strong leadership role within CSIRO supporting researchers, research leaders and publications officers; as well as acting as a subject matter expert for system and process development in the organisation.

Professional memberships include:
•Member 2012 – ongoing: Standards Australia IT-019: Information and Communications Technology Services – Learning, Education, Training and Research
•Member 2011 – ongoing: RIF-CS Advisory Board https://www.ands.org.au/partners-and-communities/ands-communities/rif-cs-advisory-board .
•Member & Peer-review: eResearch Australasia Conference Committee, 2019 edition https://conference.eresearch.edu.au/eresearch-australasia-conference-2019-home/.

Anne promotes best standards of practice for Research Data Management and Open Access Publishing. Examples of her engagement include:
• Strong support for Information Awareness Week, a CSIRO internal program and encourages her team to do the same. In 2021, Anne delivered a series of Data Clinics on the Research Data Planner with a colleague.
• The contribution of conference presentations and papers, including: Stevenson, Anne; Cronje, Carmi. Answering the call: researcher-driven training in data management. In: Open Repositories 2019; June 10-13, 2019; Hamburg, Germany. The 14th Annual Conference on Open Repositories; 2019. 11 p.. http://hdl.handle.net/102.100.100/179726?index=1
• CSIRO has regularly been a national sponsor for GovHack https://govhack.org/. Anne was part of the team that coordinated CSIROs involvement in the 2019 and 2020 editions of the event, posing several challenges to the nation.
• Thrive or survive – how can we adapt for the future; Australia@Sea – what is our future relationship with the ocean environment. The event was a huge success with over 60+ entries received. https://blog.csiro.au/one-hack-of-a-weekend/
• Data-driven decisions for improved disaster planning, management or recovery; Track and trace – help end plastic waste. More than 1000 people attended a digital version of GovHack, with 691 keen hackers in their midst. https://blog.csiro.au/govhack-2020/

Anne invests personally in the professional development of her team, her peers and herself. She leads by example through her engagement with new tools and concepts, transforming this knowledge into opportunities for her team, CSIRO and the profession. Anne is very generous with her time and shares her knowledge freely. She is an emotionally intelligent leader; throughout her career, she has drawn on her empathy, calm attitude and kindness to get results and to arrive at mutually beneficial compromise for all stakeholders.

VALA2022 Vendor Steinicke

Shelf-Reading Aurora Robot – solving everyday challenges with technology

VALA2022 Vendor Presentation

Veronica Steinicke

Intelligent RFID Solutions

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Abstract

The process of shelf reading is a complex, time consuming and routine library task. Misplaced and missing items within a library cause inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the catalogue. Automation of shelf reading using robotics combined with production of reports to allow for quick and accurate location of incorrectly ordered, missing or lost items reduces staff time and effort and improves catalogue accuracy and an improved patron experience.

The Senserbot Aurora robot has been used across the National Library Board of Singapore and Temasek Polytechnic for a number of years to automate the shelf reading tasks previously performed by library staff. The introduction of robotic automation to perform shelf reading tasks has saved both staff time and cost.

The Aurora robot combines hyper accurate RFID scanning with inbuilt safety features like object avoidance and detection technologies to ensure safe operation. The robot scans in excess of 6000 items per hour with a scan accuracy of 99.5% and automatically returns to recharge itself if the battery level becomes too low. Typically working overnight Aurora is capable of providing the exact location of library items at the level of shelf, tier and bay making it easy for both library staff and patrons to find books within the library. The robot also produces reports for any missing, misplaced , and items belonging to another branch or library allowing them to be easily identified.

Aurora has been used across National Library Board sites in Singapore and has added to staff and patron experience. It has reduced the need and time for manual shelf reading and at the same time saved significant staffing costs, also allowing library staff to be reallocated to more value added tasks within the service.

Biography

Veronica Steinicke is passionate about helping customer focused organisations enhance their service offering through technology. With over 20 years’ experience providing solutions to customers Veronica enjoys and values her many long term customer relationships. She now proudly leads Intelligent RFID Solutions as the Chief Executive Officer.

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VALA2022 Vendor Greenberg

Controlled Digital Lending Role in Ex Libris Products

VALA2022 Vendor Presentation

Daniel Greenberg

Product Manager
Ex Libris, a ProQuest Company

Judith Fraenkel

Product Manager
Ex Libris, a ProQuest Company

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Abstract

Ex Libris is working full steam on the development of new functions that will increase the compatibility of the company’s library software solutions with controlled digital lending. Controlled digital lending (CDL) is a practice that enables libraries to lend a digital copy of a physical resource in a “lend like print” manner—that is, in the same way in which they lend the physical resource itself.

The Controlled Digital Lending by Libraries group has defined three “core principles” of CDL: “A library must own a legal copy of the physical book, either by purchase or gift; the library must maintain an ‘owned to loaned’ ratio, simultaneously lending no more copies than it legally owns; the library must use technical measures to ensure that the digital file cannot be copied or redistributed”.

CDL enables libraries to cater to patrons with differing needs, such as a print disability or difficulty in accessing a library building.

In August 2021, a new tool was released as part of Ex Libris Alma^® Digital, enabling a librarian to easily make CDL resources available for short-term use. The key principle of CDL is maintaining the own-to-loan ratio between the number of copies—both digital and physical—that the library holds and the number of concurrent copies in circulation.

To adhere to that principle, the librarian sets parameters for the number of concurrent users and the amount of time that the patron may use the resource. When the number of copy limit is met, students can register for the resource’s waiting list and be automatically notified when their turn comes. Technical mechanisms enable the library to prevent redistribution of the resource.

In addition to CDL functionalities that are already part of Ex Libris solutions, the company is planning to implement CDL for general circulation loans, and through the Ex Libris Rapido™ discovery-to-delivery resource sharing platform.

Ex Libris maintains a strategy of working with its customer community to ensure that the company’s solutions address customers’ needs. A community-led advisory group has been established to create a roadmap for implementing more CDL capabilities in Ex Libris products. The advisory group members bring to the table a broad range of expertise on CDL workflows and copyright issues.

In this session we will describe the various CDL services already implemented and draw out Ex Libris’ roadmap in this area for single libraries and resource sharing between libraries.

Biography

Daniel Greenberg is the Product manager of Alma Digital and Rosetta, Ex Libris’ digital asset management solutions for libraries, archives, special collections and more. Responsible for positioning Ex Libris as a lead player in the latest digital trends at libraries, resulting in an industry-focused and innovative roadmap. Previous experience includes many years of developing SaaS and on-premise software solutions.

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VALA2022 Vendor Yehuda

The need for an open metadata platform

VALA2022 Vendor Presentation

Chani Yehuda

Product Manager
Ex Libris, a ProQuest Company

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Abstract

Metadata is very important for libraries as there is a strong connection between good metadata and the ability of users to find the materials they need. Libraries invest a lot of effort and money in getting, fixing and creating high-quality metadata records for their collections.

This time consuming and costly task becomes even more difficult with the subscription models of electronic materials where libraries buy thousands of items at one time and it becomes impossible to review and improve the metadata of such big volumes. Add to that the fact that libraries are now trying to adapt their metadata to answer new needs and support modern technologies and search engines, in order to improve the exposure of the library materials and the discovery experience of the end users.

A lot of effort has been invested by the community in trying to find the right direction and technology to create metadata records in a way which will allow them to be connected to the world – to where the users are.

In this session we will review a new meta data platform by Ex Libris that is planned as a free, open, community-based platform to provide high-quality records in an efficient way and to support both existing and modern formats. Join this session to learn about this new revolutionary platform to share metadata openly with the community and make the library collections accessible in an effective way and in a modern experience.

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VALA2022 Vendor Sadeh

Playing Nice: Bridging the Gap between Two Core Components of in Academia

VALA2022 Vendor Presentation

Tamar Sadeh

Teaching and Learning Solutions, Vice President
Ex Libris, a ProQuest Company

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Abstract

For many years, the technological worlds of learning management systems and library management systems have developed on separate tracks, with no technical bridge between them. While course materials have always been crucial to successful teaching and learning, the connection between the reading lists in syllabi and the library that provides the readings—physically or electronically—was supported more or less manually. As a result, finding and accessing readings posed a challenge for students, and libraries often lacked information about teaching and learning needs.

Over the last decade, course resource list solutions emerged as the missing link between libraries and learning technologies. Leveraging the LTI standard to integrate with learning management systems, resource list solutions enable libraries to offer services to academics and students in the right context—within the learning management system. Informed of the materials selected by academics, librarians can ensure the materials’ availability. Resource list solutions have also transformed the user experience of the teaching staff, who can easily compile resource lists from library and non-library materials of all types without worrying about broken links and copyright compliance.

The gap between libraries and learning technologies is not only about technology. For example, whereas libraries never track individual patrons’ usage (unless a library service requires this information), learning management systems focus on the relationship between academics and students and diligently monitor student engagement. And while the library service culminates in the delivery of a resource to the end user, learning management systems look at the ongoing interaction between academics and students.

Several ideas related to these gaps were raised by the Australian Leganto community and triggered the incorporation of new features in the Ex Libris Leganto^® resource list solution. The first involves student engagement data (such as citation views, click-throughs to full text, and comments), which had previously been kept anonymous at all institutions. Libraries can now opt to provide academics with each student’s engagement data, the same type of information that the academics are used to obtaining from the learning management system. Although librarians cannot see this data, they can export it to institutional learning analytics platforms. Research carried out by Ex Libris and Curtin University shows that student engagement with course materials is a significant factor in identifying students at risk.

Other features that were added to the Leganto set of tools are Social Reading and Read & Respond assignments. These features support active learning, thus enhancing students’ engagement with each other, the academic, and course materials.

This session will expand on these new developments, which extend library technology’s options for “playing nice.” Not only do libraries provide resources needed for teaching and learning, but, with the same technology, libraries can also participate in institutional initiatives around student engagement, retention, and success. By transforming the static resource lists of the past to dynamic, active lists, today’s technology positions the library as an integral partner in academic teaching and learning.

Biography

With a degree in computer science and mathematics, Tamar Sadeh began her career developing search engines for structured and unstructured data. At Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, Tamar has taken an active role in the definition and marketing of the company’s various technologies since she joined in 1999. In the past few years, she has been leading the Company’s initiatives around teaching and learning. Tamar holds a doctorate from City University London’s School of Informatics. In parallel to her work at Ex Libris, Tamar is a narrator for audiobooks at the Central Library for the Blind.

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VALA2022 Vendor Almeida

Gale Presents: Udemy – On Demand Courses for In Demand Skills

VALA2022 Vendor Presentation

Damian Almeida

Training Executive
Gale: A Cengage Company

Steve Sutcliffe

Enterprise Account Executive
Udemy

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Abstract

One of the greatest challenges lifelong learners face can also be their greatest opportunity. The employment landscape is continuously changing, students and workers are being tasked to learn new technologies and skills to stay competitive. The sudden outbreak of the deadly disease Covid-19 caused by a Corona Virus (SARS-CoV-2) shook the entire world, shifting the focus from classrooms and in-person training to remote learning as we try to maintain social distancing.

Gale, a Cengage Company have partnered with Udemy Business to offer Gale Presents: Udemy empowering lifelong learners to keep up with these demands, and elevate their skill set, on a digital platform that connects them to online up to date courses taught by world-class instructors. Gale Presents: Udemy connects students and workers to thousands of video-based online learning courses in technology, business and personal development by offering On Demand Courses for In Demand Skills.

Everyone’s learning journey is different and Gale Presents: Udemy courses offer’s lifelong learners the flexibility to choose on demand online courses for in-demand skills; a learner can schedule or plan their time for completion of courses available online. Learners can learn anytime and anywhere, thereby developing new skills in the process leading to life-long learning.

High-quality content alone isn’t sufficient. The Udemy Business marketplace content model ensures that they always have the most recent and high-quality content that makes learning enjoyable. Covering the latest skills on the most important topics learners need to stay ahead of the curve.

Udemy Business also offers thousands of courses taught by instructors in their native language (French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish). This top collection, curated from Udemy.com, helps learners get where they want to be.

Biography

As the Training Executive for Gale, Damian Almeida is responsible for assisting Gale’s customers with any training that is required on the Gale product line. Damian is also responsible for The Gale Digital Scholar Lab in the ANZ region.

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VALA2022 Vendor Lopez

Building Bridges Between Experts and Communities with Subscribe to Open

VALA2022 Vendor Presentation

Andrea Lopez

Director of Sales
Annual Reviews

Richard Gallagher

President and Editor-in-Chief
Annual Reviews

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Abstract

The world’s problems – at local, national, regional, and global scales – require research assessment and solutions. However, trust in experts is low, public understanding of the scientific method is poor and misinformation/fake news is widespread. Researchers are often uncomfortable in the public eye. Research is specialized, problems are interdisciplinary. Academic institutions and academic publishers do not place a strong enough emphasis on outreach. We need more bridges from research and academia to policy makers, businesses and workers, educators and students, doctors and patients, the media, and civil society.

We will give a brief description of a non-APC open access model, Subscribe to Open, that supports open access and open science and helps to guarantee the long- term scientific independence of research through a diversity of publishing models. Supporting the values of the scholarly reviews to the larger community and helping to meet the growing demand for open access publications, Annual Reviews first piloted Subscribe to Open in 2020. The model has been endorsed by cOAlitions S and has been adopted by a number of publishers who have come together to achieve fair and sustainable access to scholarly information.

Biography

Andrea Lopez is the Director of Sales, Partnerships & Initiatives at Annual Reviews. She has over 30 years of experience in academic publishing sales, 22 of those in STM publishing. Since the inception of the Site License program at Annual Reviews in 1999, she has been responsible for the sales and distribution of Annual Reviews, and most recently for the implementation of the Subscribe to Open Pilot. She is a founding member of the Subscribe to Open Community of Practice.

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VALA2022 Online Session 7 Breeding

Realities and Myths of Industry Consolidation

VALA2022 CONCURRENT 7

Wednesday 15 June 2022, 12:00 – 12:30

Marshall Breeding

Independent consultant

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Biography

Marshall Breeding is an independent consultant, speaker, and author. He is the creator and editor of Library Technology Guides and the libraries.org online directory of libraries on the Web. His Systems Librarian column appears in Computers in Libraries; he is the Editor for Library Technology Newsletter, published through Library Technology Guides. From 2002 through 2021 he was the editor and contributor for Smart Libraries Newsletter published by the American Library Association, and has authored the annual Library Systems Report published in American Libraries since 2014 and in Library Journal from 2002-2013. He has authored fourteen issues of ALA’s Library Technology Reports, and has written many other articles and book chapters. Marshall has edited or authored eight books. He regularly teaches workshops and gives presentations at library conferences on a wide range of topics.

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VALA2022 Onsite Session 3 Cook

Developing and encouraging bibliodiversity in a consortium framework

VALA2022 CONCURRENT 3

Tuesday 14 June 2022, 15:15 – 15:45

Angus Cook

CAUL

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Biography

Angus Cook joined CAUL as Director, Content Procurement, in January 2020 bringing with him many years of commercial experience having worked with both content and systems vendors. Angus has worked for commercial publishers including Springer Nature and gained experience with legal publishing while working at Thomson Reuters. While working for OCLC, Angus gained experience in services for library management, resource sharing and authentication.

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VALA2022 Onsite Session 5 Chang

Five years of OER publishing: lessons and directions

VALA2022 CONCURRENT 5

Tuesday 14 June 2022, 15:55 – 16:25

Steven Chang

La Trobe University

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Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has supercharged an accelerated leap into online learning in universities. This has shone a global spotlight onto open educational resources (OER) as a paradigm for new models of learning. These approaches are tackling contemporary challenges in higher education like inequity and inflexible legacy models of pedagogy.

This paper and presentation will focus on how La Trobe University Library has confronted these challenges since 2016 by establishing a bold early adopter program for a Library as Open Knowledge Creator service called the La Trobe eBureau.

The eBureau model is scaffolded around a principle of “La Trobe authors for La Trobe courses”, where open textbooks and educational resources are developed and published to tackle local pedagogical challenges, but are made openly available to the global community for adoption, reuse, and collaboration. The eBureau platform provides an array of services including features such as:

• author consultation support
• double peer review
• copyright reviewing and advice
• structural and copy editing
• visual design and identity kits
• sourcing multimedia
• minting DOIs and ISBNs
• discoverability via indexing in open repositories, discovery layers, National Library indexes, etc
• marketing and promotion
• book launch events

The main aim of this paper will be to reflect on five years of learning to be an OER publisher – and particularly to share lessons learnt about the barriers, solutions, lessons learnt from engaging in this ambitious project. It will conclude with recommendations for colleagues aiming to pursue similar directions, and future steps to advance Australian OER creation in academic libraries.

Biography

Steven Chang is the Coordinator, Open Education and Scholarship at La Trobe University. He is passionate about equity in higher education and coordinates the La Trobe eBureau, a Library as Open Publisher platform that empowers communities to create equitable learning resources. Steven’s background has spanned diverse areas including open repository advocacy, open data, medical librarianship, and research data management. He is the former chief editor of Health Inform and his articles and presentations can be found via his Figshare profile.

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