News
UMass Amherst Libraries Support UC System’s Termination of Elsevier Contract
The UMass Amherst Libraries support the University of California (UC), as well as MIT, Temple University, Florida State University, and other U.S. and European universities who are working on transforming the way libraries license and provide access to scholarly content. We particularly applaud our colleagues in California who dared to take a strong stance in moving toward a more sustainable future. Our Libraries are joining others in stating support: University of Virginia, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and University of Minnesota.
The UC system terminated license negotiations with Elsevier earlier this year over an inability to come to consensus over a transformative agreement that would control runaway journal costs, favor Open Access, and benefit university faculty authors. UC developed a cost-neutral approach to moving journal licensing to a more sustainable, accessible, and open model. In February, after determining that they would not be able to reach an agreement with Elsevier, UC terminated license negotiations. In doing so, UC established a service continuity plan so that faculty, students, and researchers will still be able to obtain journal articles once they lose access to the over 2,500 journals that Elsevier publishes.
Elsevier is the world’s largest scholarly publisher, reporting annual profit margins between 30 and 40 percent. Journal subscription costs have seen enormous increases over the last 20 years, significantly outpacing the growth in university library budgets. Libraries worldwide are looking for ways to reform the current scholarly publishing system in order to sustain future access to scholarly research outputs.
The UMass Amherst Libraries have a UMass system-wide license to Elsevier journals which will be up for renewal at the end of 2022. UMass librarians are working together to determine next steps in light of ongoing changes in the scholarly publishing landscape. Recent developments, like UC’s termination of negotiations with Elsevier, provide an opportunity for our libraries to reimagine the future. As mindful stewards of the financial resources that the University and State provide to the Libraries, we will seek innovative and creative ways to provide access to needed resources in the most affordable and accessible way possible.
Endorsed May 2, 2019 by the University Libraries Administration Team: Simon Neame, Dean of Libraries; Steve Bischof, Associate Dean for Library Technology; Leslie Button, Associate Dean for Research and Learning; Terry Carroll, Director for Administrative Services; Sally Krash, Associate Dean for Content and Discovery
Has the blockbuster of the decade inspired you to read some of the source material? We've got you covered!
See where it all began in the Libraries' new volumes of Marvel comics, part of our growing comics and graphic novels collection:
Ant-Man
Avengers
Black Panther
Black Panther (Christopher Priest run)
Captain America
Daredevil
Fantastic Four
Hulk
Iron Man
Spider-Man
Spider-Man (Miles Morales)
Thor
X-Men
And of course, for our super students working hard on their finals here, thank you for helping us keep the Libraries an "Avengers" spoiler-free zone!
The Mass Aggie Seed Library at the Science and Engineering Library, now open for seed borrowing and donation, houses a collection focusing on organic, open-pollinated, and heirloom vegetable and flower seeds, as well as a collection of books to educate the community about seed saving. Additionally, seed-saving tools will soon be available for loan to encourage and support seed-saving efforts.
The Seed Library is made possible through a generous grant from the UMass Amherst Sustainability, Innovation & Engagement Fund (SIEF).
The UMass Amherst Libraries are pleased to announce the winners of the 2019 Undergraduate Sustainability Research Awards. The competition was open to all currently-enrolled UMass Amherst undergraduates.
The first place recipient, Justin Risley ’20, will receive a $1,500 scholarship for the video “Water We Doing?”
Two second place awards of a $750 scholarship each go to Halley Steinmetz ’19 for the paper “Analyzing the Effects of Coccolithophore Concentration on the Relationship Between Vertical Absorption Coefficient and Secchi Disk Depth,” and Nicole Comeau ’19 for the project “A Proposal to UMass Amherst for a Universal Electronic Time Reporting System.”
An honorable mention of a $300 scholarship goes to Skylar Roach ’21 for the paper “Opened Doors: The Women’s Land Army, the Northeast, and Farm Sustainability.”
Winners presented their projects and accepted their awards at the Undergraduate Sustainability Research Awards celebration on Thursday, April 4, 2019, 5-7 p.m., in the Science and Engineering Library, Lederle Lowrise. The event was free and open to the public, and featured keynote speaker Abrah Dresdale, author of Regenerative Design for Change Makers: A Social Permaculture Guidebook.
Winning projects will be made openly accessible in the Sustainability Student Showcase in ScholarWorks, the university’s digital repository.
The awards promote an in-depth understanding of sustainability topics, research strategies, and the use of library resources, providing participating students with vital skills they will carry into future academic and vocational endeavors. The awards and event are made possible by the UMass Amherst Libraries’ national award-winning Sustainability Fund.
The Department of Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) at the UMass Amherst Libraries was recently awarded $250,000 from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) to digitize a suite of collections documenting the history of disability in America and the growth of the disability rights movement.
The Visibility for Disability Project will provide a freely-available and fully-accessible digital foundation for exploring the experience of disability in the United States and the evolution of the disability rights movement. The resulting digital archive will draw upon 19 collections, representing over 130 linear feet of material and 150 years of American history. Through the personal papers of activists and the records of organizations devoted to disability, this project will reveal the social, intellectual, political, and cultural background of disability and the evolution of new forms of cross-disability, rights-based activism within the broader civil rights struggle. Among the collections included are the records of International Center for the Disabled and Clarke School for the Deaf, and the personal papers of pioneers in the psychiatric survivors movement, Judy Chamberlin and George Ebert.
In January 2019, CLIR announced the award of over $3.8 million to fund 17 projects for 2018 Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives Awards. More than 40 institutions located in 17 states and one U.S. territory will be involved in the projects covering subjects ranging from endangered languages and displaced peoples to health issues, architecture, and fisheries. This is the fourth group of projects supported by the Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives Awards program, which in turn is generously supported by funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The program, successor to the Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives program, supports the creation of digital representations of unique content of high scholarly significance that will be discoverable and usable as elements of a coherent national collection.
AMHERST, Mass.—UMass Amherst, in partnership with Northern Essex Community College, Worcester State College, and Holyoke Community College, was recently awarded a $150,000 grant from the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education’s Performance Incentive Fund (PIF) program. The project, “Massachusetts Open Education: Achieving Access for All,” focuses on building capacity for open educational resources (OER) across the state.
OER are freely accessible, openly licensed text, media, and other digital assets used for teaching, learning, assessment, and research. Besides addressing student concerns over increasingly high textbook costs, OER allow faculty to adopt innovative pedagogical practices, such as designing learning materials tailored to their classes or involving students in the creative process.
“OER awareness has been steadily increasing throughout academia and the textbook industry,” said Marilyn Billings, Head of the UMass Amherst Libraries Scholarly Communication Department and principal investigator of the grant. “This grant gives us an opportunity to expand that awareness by increasing OER adoption, adaption, and creation throughout Massachusetts state schools.”
In addition, the project will seek applications from community college, state university, and UMass instructors to join a team developing OER course materials for a General Education (Gen Ed) Foundation course that is part of the Mass Transfer Block. This collaboration offers direct benefits to faculty and students at the 28 public higher education institutions in the Commonwealth.
Interested faculty may register here for workshops for Massachusetts Open Education Regional Training, held on the following dates:
- Feb. 1: Northern Essex Community College
- Feb. 8: University of Massachusetts Amherst
- Mar. 12: Bridgewater State University
- Mar. 14: Worcester State University
For more information, visit the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education website.
Jeremy Smith, Digital Project Manager at the UMass Amherst Libraries, contributed to a recently published book titled OER: A Field Guide for Academic Librarians.
The book “is a perfect primer for anyone working with open educational resources (OER) on a university or college campus,” says Smith. “OER are teaching materials (textbooks, syllabi, readings, course outlines, slides, notes, videos, workbooks, lab manuals, etc.) that are released with an open, non-exclusive, copyright. The book contains an amazing amount of useful real-world examples from knowledgeable faculty, instructional designers, librarians, and advocates.”
Smith contributed to two chapters in the book. “Open Partnerships: Identifying and Recruiting Allies for Open Educational Resources Initiatives,” a chapter written by Smith and fellow collaborators Rebel Cummings-Sauls, Matt Ruen, and Sarah Beaubien, “addresses working with campus partners like students, administration, faculty, fellow librarians, instructional designers, etc. to develop a successful OER program.” Smith also wrote a solo chapter, “Seeking Alternatives to High-Cost Textbooks: Six Years of The Open Education Initiative at the University of Massachusetts Amherst,” in which he “discusses the history of the UMass Amherst Open Education Initiative, which began in 2011 and offers grants to faculty to adopt, adapt, or create OER.”
The book itself is open access, made available under a creative commons license for free download. Smith believes that this is an opportune moment in academia for such a guide to be published.
“As OER becomes increasingly popular on colleges campuses in the United States as well as the world, it is important for new practitioners to have a resource that gives them the tools to mount a successful OER effort on their campus,” he says. “The book can also be a resource for people on campus who wish to address issues around college affordability, student success and retention, and revolutionary pedagogical practices.”
Closed on Saturday, 11/17, and Sunday, 11/18
Open 8-4 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, 11/19-11/21
Closed Thursday, 11/22
Open 8-4 p.m. Friday 11/23
Closed on Saturday, 11/24
Open 11 a.m.-12 a.m. (midnight) Sunday, 11/25
Open into regular schedule 8 a.m.-24 hours Monday, 11/26
anoElection Day is November 6, and the UMass Amherst Libraries have you covered. Here are a few of our resources to help prepare for Tuesday:
Voting Resources Available Freely Online
Polling Locations for Massachusetts can be found here.
Ballotpedia provides information about the upcoming election, including a preview of what your ballot looks like.
The Election Protection Coalition is the largest and oldest nonpartisan election protection organization that helps to ensure all voters have the opportunity to vote.
If you have problems while voting, call:
English: 866-OUR-VOTE
Spanish: 888-VE-Y-VOTA
Arabic: 844-YALLA-US
Asian and Pacific Languages: 888-API-VOTE
American Sign Language: 301-818-VOTE
You can also find the Coalition on Twitter and Facebook.
The Federal Election Commission provides election news and information.
The National Archives & Records Administration (NARA) has a page of voting information where you can check your registration.
The US Congress website has a list of the bills being considered this session, among other information.
The US Election Assistance Commission has resources for voters, including information in multiple languages.
UMass Amherst Libraries Resources
Congress Collection is a collection of facts about the activities of Congress, such as biographical data and voting habits of current members, and how members are rated by interest groups.
CQ Weekly (aka CQ Magazine) is a publication detailing and analyzing the activities of the U.S. Congress (articles tend to be short and to-the-point); searchable by topic.
Questions? Contact Lisa DiValentino, Law and Public Policy Librarian, at ldivalentino@library.umass.edu, or Laura Quilter, Copyright and Information Policy Librarian, at lquilter@library.umass.edu.
Call for submissions! Undergraduate Sustainability Research Award
Deadline: February 22, 2019
All currently enrolled undergraduate UMass Amherst students, part or full-time, are eligible. Submit your project here.
Papers, theses, design and multimedia projects, and art that present research of a sustainability topic (environmental, social, and/or economic) will be accepted. The first prize recipient will receive a $1,500 scholarship, and two second place winners will receive $750 scholarships. Winners will be honored at a spring sustainability event in the UMass Amherst Libraries.
Applicants must be nominated by a UMass Amherst faculty member. Projects created from spring 2018 through fall 2018 may be submitted for review.
The award promotes an in-depth understanding of sustainability topics, research strategies, and the use of library resources, providing participating students with vital skills they will carry into future academic and vocational endeavors. The award is funded by the UMass Amherst Libraries national award-winning Sustainability Fund.
Winners of previous awards are accessible in the Sustainability Student Showcase on ScholarWorks, the University's digital repository.
For more information, contact Madeleine Charney, Research Services Librarian, 413-577-0784,mcharney@library.umass.edu.