We are very excited to be welcoming you to this edition of Insights, our first issue on the Ubiquity Press platform. We should note a special thanks to our own Ally Souster, Publications Associate, and the Ubiquity Press staff for all their hard work in making this transition happen so smoothly. We hope that the functionality will be of benefit to our readers, our authors and reviewers and we look forward to receiving your feedback.
To go with our shiny new platform, we have a stimulating issue for you. We had great fun in interviewing John Scally, when he was just two months into his new role as Chief Executive and National Librarian of the National Library of Scotland. He definitely inspired us with his enthusiasm and energy. We are fortunate enough to bring you an interview with another inspiring information professional, Rachel Frick, Business Development Director for the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). Rachel is not only expanding what it means to be a librarian, but in her free time, she is preserving an amazing collection of fruit and jam – do have a look at the photograph in her Profile. We also bring you a day in the life of Andrew Barrow, who has made a transition from being a librarian at the University of Portsmouth, to chief librarian in Oman. In this issue, we are introducing you to a new member of our Insights Editorial Board: Michael Levine-Clark.
Yet another inspiring librarian (we are bringing you a herd of them in this issue!) is Anne C Osterman, who has led the development and implementation of Usus: a collaborative initiative between publishers and librarians to improve electronic resource usage statistics. Her article explains just how this new initiative will benefit us all. Usus ran a competition for a travel award, and we are very pleased to publish the winning entry by Nancy Bennett, which leaves us with no doubt about the importance of reliable usage statistics!
Some of you will have attended the very timely and topical one-day UKSG conference in November last year. One of the most lively and challenging speakers was Martin Wolf from the University of Liverpool. We are delighted that he has written up his presentation for us, helping us to ‘Untie the knots and join the dots’. Also in November, UKSG ran a one-day forum, and for those who missed it, we bring you summaries of the thought-provoking presentations by Anna Grigson, Catherine McManamon and Sam Herbert on aspects of resource discovery.
The future of monograph publishing is a hot topic and we have two visions (not mutually exclusive) for your consideration: Delfim Ferreira Leão discusses the threats and major opportunities for publishers in Portugal, and Martin Paul Eve shares his vision for open access (OA) monographs without article processing charges (APCs). On the subject of OA, Nancy Pontika and Dace Rozenberga share their strategies for ensuring compliance with funders’ policies in a very helpful case study.
Other treats in this issue include Randy S Kiefer from CLOCKSS sharing his expert view on the future of digital preservation; Kristin Antelman and Kristen Wilson bringing us up to date on GOKb and how open linked data can support resource management; Marieke Willems and Rozzitza Atanassova telling us about the useful full-text browsing tool that will allow website users to browse Europeana’s historic newspaper collections; and Liz Allen and Stephanie Dawson writing about the approach and business model behind ScienceOpen, the freely accessible research network for the sharing and evaluation of scientific information.
Last but not least, Graham Stone and Briony Heyhoe-Pullar remind us that the customer is always right, in their article on the value of patron-driven acquisition at the University of Huddersfield. (This is a reminder that more thanks are due, as this is the last issue of Insights under Graham’s leadership as UKSG’s Publications Officer. In this role, he has provided great support and guidance, for which your Editors are very grateful. However, he’s not off the hook, and we hope we will continue to benefit from his experience as a member of the Insights Editorial Board.)
This issue also brings you the last ever People page by our man about town, John Jardine. John has been contributing news about appointments, moves, promotions and suchlike since 1990, and we sincerely hope that is not the last we will be hearing from him!
Insights remains true to its mission to connect the knowledge community and encourage the exchange of ideas on scholarly communication. But, you might notice that this issue is full of articles and news from our herd of lovely librarians – where are you equally lovely publishers and vendors? We want to hear from you too! We very much welcome your submissions, and you have no excuse now, because our new platform makes it so easy to submit an article online at http://insights.uksg.org/about/submissions. If you would prefer to discuss your proposed article with us first, please do catch us for a chat when we meet in Glasgow for the UKSG 2015 Annual Conference and Exhibition. Please also remember that you won’t need to pay an APC because UKSG supports these.