and that's precisely what publishers have provided with the very subs & packages we now can't afford. The alternatives, in the shape of ILLs, Open Access & OERs, repositories, archives, pre-print servers etc, are out there and accessible, but not easily discoverable, & that's the key challenge. 3/ - ThreadSky

heroicendeavour.bsky.social • 3 days ago

and that's precisely what publishers have provided with the very subs & packages we now can't afford. The alternatives, in the shape of ILLs, Open Access & OERs, repositories, archives, pre-print servers etc, are out there and accessible, but not easily discoverable, & that's the key challenge. 3/

Comments

heroicendeavour.bsky.social•3 days ago

In typical librarian fashion, we have bent over backwards to make things as easy as possible for our users, and hidden the labour involved in doing so, and now it'll bite us, and our users, in the arse. 4/

laborlibrarian.bsky.social•1 hour ago

We have been practically begging the teaching faculty to use more OER’s and they just aren’t interested. Maybe their minds will start to change now.

laborlibrarian.bsky.social•1 hour ago

But I will say that archives usage has steadily increased over the last year.

heroicendeavour.bsky.social•3 days ago

Cancelling subs and packages and relying on the alternatives means moving back to content being widely dispersed again. But now our users are used to everything being in one place, and their wider research skills are rusty (assuming they ever had them to begin with). 5/

heroicendeavour.bsky.social•3 days ago

Combine that with most people's go-to web search engine, Google, rapidly becoming unusable because of the amount of rubbish it throws up, sponsored results, AI results etc, and we're facing a real crisis of digital research and critical thinking skills. 6/

heroicendeavour.bsky.social•3 days ago

If only there were some kind of...I don't know, information professional, whose job revolved around digital research & critical thinking skills, positioned within universities to help train, support & guide users into directing their information needs beyond big databases and discovery services! 🤔

bibliobebe.bsky.social•2 days ago

This kind of deep research takes time and energy, and it's hard to get users to put in that investment and not expect quick, easy answers. Even in a public library environment I find this to be a challenge

danjohnsonhymns.bsky.social•3 days ago

If only!

pentathlos.bsky.social•3 days ago

Some kind of information professional whose value is recognised for their expertise, knowledge and experience, and consequently isn't at imminent risk of being replaced by "GenAI".

bearfacedlady.bsky.social•3 days ago

We're academic-adjacent and haven't ever had budget for discovery and subs packages. We're still very manual search driven which often feels like we're lacking in supporting users, but the current trajectory you talk about in this thread makes me relieved my desk research muscles are in good shape.

heroicendeavour.bsky.social•3 days ago

I think this is an area where the bigger you are, the harder the adjustment will be! You can't miss something you never had to begin with.

theclimax-avictory.bsky.social•3 days ago

I work in ILL & as we keep having to cancel & move so much to ILL, I'm constantly wondering about the future where everyone has cancelled these subscriptions, only have services like Reprints Desk that can't be shared, & suddenly shared access is just gone. Publisher greed has so many side effects.

heroicendeavour.bsky.social•3 days ago

I wonder that too sometimes. I guess this is where I’m grateful legal deposit exists! I really hope long-term this pushes us to stop depending on commercial publishers for the dissemination of research and do it ourselves, there’s no reason why not except motivation.

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply