The Year in Open Access (sort of a long read)

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“As the Spanish poet Antonio Machado once wrote: ‘Caminante no hay camino. Se hace camino al andar’ (Traveller, there is no path. The path is made by walking).”

 Glòria Pérez-SalmerónAcceptance Speech, 24 August 2017; International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) President 2017-2019

 

Most summaries of open access focus on analysis of the present obstacles in the way of greater openness, the details of the day-to-day toil of wresting scholarship (which is often accomplished for the sake of the public good) from behind the paywalls of plutocrats— or what Ms. Pérez-Salmerón references in her acceptance speech as “information for all.” This work has brought us a long way fast and if you read to the end, after we examine the major dramas, there will be highlights of the year’s most encouraging victories. Nevertheless, events of the last year suggest that the open access movement faces complex problems that pertain not to the practical issues of openness, but the technical infrastructure of access. These are problems we will also overcome, but doing so will mean attention and advocacy within spheres that we may have neglected or left for others. So, I begin with an alert: fellow travelers, we will all need good walking shoes. Continue reading

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Librarians Around the World – extended

We are very happy that our project “Librarians Around the World” is considered to be inspiring, useful and seems that together we will create this project even more awesome and it will have an impact for the future. We have received many applications from the countries that we thought is impossible to reach. But now we believe that impossible is possible!

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NB! As we have received also more than one application from the same country and we want to accept as many people as we can, we have changed the rules and there will be more than one participant selected from each country. We see that librarians are willing to share their stories. To create the quality for the articles we will create author teams for each country – every author will have to write their own experience and problems or success stories, but together the team of the authors will create article about their country – library system, education opportunities, qualification rules, library associations.

If you haven’t heard what this project is about, please read further information and join!

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Investigación Digital: ¿Qué, Por qué y Cómo?

digital_mediaNota: Por efectos de facilidad, en esta nota utilizaré los términos “Investigación Digital” para referirme a “Digital Scholarship”

Hola a todos, es un gran honor contribuir a esta nueva discusión del Grupo de Interés de Nuevos Profesionales de la IFLA.  Hoy, me gustaría responder a tres preguntas sobre (digital scholarship) o investigación digital: ¿Qué es?, ¿Por qué es importante? y ¿Cómo pueden/podemos ayudar?

[English version]

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Scholarships, Grants, and Fellowships to attend the 2016 IFLA Conference

The following is a guest post by NPSIG volunteer Kathryn Kuntz, librarian from public library in Rapid City, South Dakota, USA.


IFLA-2016-Logo

The IFLA World Library and Information Congress is to be held on August 13-19, 2016 in Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A. It is the 82nd IFLA General Conference and Assembly focused around the theme, “Connections. Collaboration. Community.” The location for this conference is fitting for this theme because Columbus is home to OCLC – Online Computer Library Center and renowned libraries. The following blog post is about funding and grant opportunities for library professionals, early career professionals, or students interested in attending this rewarding professional event. Continue reading

Library as a TEDx Platform

The following is a guest post by Petar Lukačić and Maja Krulić Gačan from Public library “Fran Galović”, Koprivnica, Croatia.


Have you ever heard of an idea, or had one yourself, that you wanted the world to know?

TEDx event, what is it about?

If you have an idea, or would like to learn something new, then you should check out TED website. TED is a non-profit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today it covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages.
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