The preparatory meetings for the 25th General Assembly of the ISSN Network will be held remotely in English, French and Spanish from May 14 to 24. Several topics are on the agenda, including the activity reports of the ISSN International Center for 2022 and 2023, its projects and partnerships, a presentation of the candidates for the next election of the Governing Board, and the ISSN International Centre Strategy 2025-2029.

O Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia (IBICT) celebra 70 anos de promoção do desenvolvimento nacional em pesquisa e ensino. Reconhecido por liderar iniciativas como a rede COMUT para acesso a artigos impressos e a adoção do acesso aberto à literatura científica, o IBICT é uma referência em Ciência Aberta. Com uma governança sólida e capacidade técnica destacada, tem sido fundamental na construção de políticas inclusivas e equitativas, considerando a diversidade do Brasil. O Programa SciELO se junta às homenagens, reconhecendo sua contribuição para o avanço do conhecimento científico e tecnológico em prol do desenvolvimento nacional.

The Brazilian Institute of Information in Science and Technology (IBICT) is celebrating 70 years dedicated to promoting the development of national research capacities and infrastructures in scientific and technical information management. Over these seven decades, IBICT has pioneered theories, methodologies, and technologies, democratizing scientific and technical information publication and access. It has led a library network facilitating national access to printed articles, implemented bibliographic databases, and embraced open access to scientific literature. IBICT stands out for its governance, transformative programs, operational innovations, and its contribution to Brazil’s scientific advancement. Congratulations to IBICT’s leadership and team for their historic achievements.

Carlos Authier, Responsable del ISSN Argentina albergado por CAICYT-CONICET, y Coordinador Nacional de Latindex, participó en un seminario realizado en julio de 2023 sobre Identificadores Persistentes Alternativos. Se presentaron dos experiencias de implementación de ARK en la región latinoamericana. ARK-CAICYT es una plataforma de servicios para la asignación de identificadores persistentes, mientras que dARK es un servicio descentralizado y abierto de PID concebido desde sus inicios como un bien público para el ecosistema de Ciencia Abierta.

Carlos Authier, Head of the ISSN Argentina hosted by CAICYT-CONICET, and National Coordinator of Latindex, participated in a seminar held in July 2023 about Alternative Persistent Identifiers. Two implementation experiences of ARK in the Latin American region were presented. ARK-CAICYT is a service platform for assigning persistent identifiers, while dARK is a decentralized and open PID service conceived from the beginning as a public good for the Open Science ecosystem.

 

O artigo Perfil profissional do bibliotecário: atual e desejado, de autoria de Tainá Batista Assis, Diretora do ISSN Brasil (sediado no IBICT -Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia), foi citado no texto como uma das fontes bibliográficas para embasar o Projeto de Lei PL 286. As novas tecnologias de informação e comunicação têm modificado o papel do bibliotecário na sociedade. O artigo da pesquisadora aborda o debate sobre o bibliotecário na atualidade e o perfil desejado para a futura atuação, destacando a relevância do papel desse profissional.

The article Professional profile of the librarian: current and desired, authored by Tainá Batista Assis, Head of ISSN Brazil (hosted by IBICT – Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia), was cited in the text as one of the bibliographic sources to support Bill PL 286. New information and communication technologies have changed the role of the librarian in society. The researcher’s article addresses the debate about librarians today and the desired profile for future work, highlighting the relevance of this professional’s role.

HathiTrust is excited to announce the release of its new Strategic Vision. In its first 15 years, HathiTrust has collected, preserved, and provided lawful access to more than 18 million texts in more than 400 languages. Today it stewards the single largest collection of digitized texts created by and for the academic community. This Strategic Vision responds to the changed circumstances of its member libraries, the world, and HathiTrust itself, but builds on existing strengths to outline critical and meaningful work over the next three to five years.

HathiTrust’s Strategic Vision

Join in for discussion of digitization, preservation and access for local historical newspapers with the Columbus Metropolitan Library’s Local History & Genealogy team. The presenters will discuss the acquisition, impact, promotion and use of the Columbus Dispatch digital archive with NewsBank; efforts to digitize small and minority-owned newspapers, and acquisition and processing of the Columbus Dispatch photo archive. The perspective is that of an urban public library, although others in academic and special libraries will also find this content relevant.

Access to information is vital for sustainable development and equity, but obstacles like internet shutdowns, misinformation, and expensive paywalls hinder this. Libraries historically provide access to knowledge, empowering individuals and communities. In the digital age, librarians can combat misinformation through information literacy and promote open licenses for community storytelling. African librarians are urged to embrace library activism to ensure libraries remain relevant and powerful agents of change. Training programs by AfLIA aim to equip librarians with the skills to advocate for libraries as vital institutions in Africa.

Atla is a membership association of librarians and information professionals, and a producer of research tools, committed to advancing the study of religion and theology. The 2023 Annual Report is now available. ATLA is among the data sources of the ISSN Portal.

The spread of Open Access represents one of the successes of the library and research fields over the last quarter century. It is essential, across the library field, to work together to make a reality of open access through librarians’ advocacy and practice. To help in this, IFLA’s Open Science and Scholarship Advisory Committee is happy to share its Open Access vocabulary, which brings together the most widely used terms and definitions. This is intended to act as a reference guide, providing a route for more librarians into advancing openness.

A large share of all research information is locked inside proprietary infrastructures. To advance responsible research assessment and open science and to promote unbiased high-quality decision making, there is an urgent need to make research information openly available through open scholarly infrastructures. The signatories of the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information commit to taking a lead in transforming the way research information is used and produced. Openness of information about the conduct and communication of research must be the new norm.

Download the Declaration or a translation.

Gates Foundation grantees find themselves once again facing a new Open Access Policy that increases their compliance burden. And, though the compliance burden increases, financial support for open access and other publication-related fees, which functioned to smooth pathways for compliance under the previous 2015 and 2021 policies, is eliminated. This essay explains and compares the 2021 and 2025 policies, argues that the rollout of the new policy led to misunderstandings, and details possible implications for grantees, readers, and publishers.

In October 2023, the cOAlition S group of funders commissioned a study by scidecode science consulting to assess the impact of Plan S. The study investigates various aspects of where this initiative may have had an influence on the global scholarly communications landscape. This webinar organized by OASPA on 9 April 2024 offered an opportunity for the early results of this work to be presented and discussed with the OASPA network. As well as the recording, please find responses to unanswered questions and panelists slides – Ashley Farley (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), Pablo de Castro (scidecode and University of Strathclyde), Wolfgang Benedikt Schmal (scidecode and the Walter Eucken Institut, Freiburg) and Emma Wilson (Royal Society of Chemistry). 

DOAJ wishes to learn from their users community their opinion about DOAJ’s journal metadata, their indexation policy, the DOAJ Seal, and more. They have published a survey available in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish. PDF versions of the questions in each language are available for download. All global stakeholders and users of DOAJ, regardless of location, are encouraged to participate in the survey. The survey will close on Friday, 6 May 2024.

This study draws on a longitudinal dataset of 277 UK learned societies covering the period 2015-2023 to provide evidence-based insights into the changing landscape of society publishing. It identifies a rapid decline in the number of self-published societies and an increasingly complex outsourcing landscape. New publishing partnerships are emerging with university presses and other not-for-profit entities rather than commercial publishers, while all but the largest UK societies have seen their publishing revenues decline in real terms since 2015. In general, UK learned society publishers are seeing their influence wane as market conditions favour publishing models focused on quantity rather than quality.

The recent nationwide audit of retracted research papers in China has shed light on significant challenges within the academic community. This audit, initiated by the Chinese Government, marks a crucial point in the pursuit of research integrity within China’s academic landscape. By actively initiating audits and supporting initiatives aimed at enhancing research integrity, government funding bodies send a clear message to researchers that accountability and transparency are paramount. Authors must recognize their responsibility not only to the academic community but also to those who fund their research endeavors.

Con la asistencia de autoridades académicas de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), el 11 de abril de 2024, se realizó la presentación virtual (vía Zoom y YouTube) del Descubridor de Artículos de Latindex. Este nuevo servicio, permite a los usuarios del Sistema descubrir y recuperar artículos académicos provenientes de revistas iberoamericanas que por su apego a criterios de calidad editorial, han pasado a formar parte del Catálogo Latindex 2.0.

On 11 April 2024, the new Article Discovery Service of Latindex was launched with the support of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). The online event was transmitted via Zoom and YouTube to a community of potential users interested in discovering new sets of academic information.  Through the discovery service, users will be able to search among half a million articles harvested to date. These articles come from a set of scientific journals (Catálogo 2.0) covering all disciplines of knowledge and published in the 21 Ibero-American countries that are part of the network, plus the Ibero-Americanist journals published in North America, Asia, and Europe.

E-resources are frequently purchased as packages, but identifying them only by name creates ambiguity in the supply chain, affecting libraries, content providers, platforms, and users.

The NISO Unique Electronic Resource Package Identifiers Working Group will evaluate and create recommendations for a unique identifier to enable disambiguation between packages. This identifier will allow all stakeholders to streamline and simplify their processes, and to more easily track changes. It will also provide libraries with clear information about which titles a package contains, enabling them, for example, to manage claims when journals move between publishers.

NISO expects to convene the working group later this year.

ISNI’s Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) is assessing 2023 accomplishments and outlining priorities for enhancing ISNI infrastructure in 2024. In 2023, work included extending the AtomPub API for managing duplicate records, enhancing transparency in handling life dates, and implementing policy updates on gender identity. Two major projects have finished development, undergoing rigorous user testing: a duplicate detection crawler for ongoing database monitoring and improvements in Hangul script submissions, benefiting Korean users and eventually others. These efforts aim to bolster ISNI’s efficiency and inclusivity.

Les rencontres annuelles du réseau Mir@bel auront lieu les 3 et 4 juin à Paris, au Conseil d’État et à l’INHA. Érudit interviendra en conférence invitée sur le paysage des revues au Québec et au Canada. Des partenaires, dont le projet Rev@ntiq et le Conseil d’État, présenteront également leurs travaux, tout comme la Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire Cujas,  l’Université Paris-Saclay et le réseau Repères. Ouvert à tous les partenaires de Mir@bel, l’événement invite à rejoindre le réseau et à participer aux rencontres. Programme et informations pratiques disponibles sur le site des rencontres.

The Forum includes representatives from a broad, international spectrum of academic library backgrounds, as well as groups that collaborate with libraries to publish scholarly works.

The 2024 Library Publishing Forum (LPF) will be an in-person event. This year, LPF will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Library Publishing Coalition.

Registration is open. Look at the draft programme.

The goal of this event is to bring together PID advocates, users, and leaders from around the world to solve infrastructure challenges that will accelerate research and innovation. Attendees can expect energetic discussions focused on solving real world challenges in delivering research infrastructure.

Look at the preliminary programme.

Discover the Skills4EOSC Competence Centres (CCs) dedicated to knowledge organisation and transfer within the realms of Open Science, FAIR research output management, and the EOSC context. These CCs operate within their respective countries, regions, or thematic domains, to address the critical skills gap by offering training programs, including workforce upskilling and reskilling initiatives focused on Open Science principles.

The ISBD Review Group and the ISBD for Manifestation Task Force held an online introductory meeting on 8 February 2024 with participants from other IFLA bodies, Resource Description and Access (RDA), MARC Advisory Committee (MAC) and ISSN International Centre, in order to facilitate the start of the expert review phase of the ISBD for Manifestation. This phase will be ending by mid-May 2024, and will be followed by an official worldwide review phase from mid-May to mid-July.

A webinar for all interested colleagues before starting the review will be held on 25 April 2024.

Have a look at the ISBD for Manifestation website and register for the webinar.