Through the River Campus Libraries, University students and faculty have access to more than 3.5 million volumes. In a world that is not being held hostage by a novel coronavirus, Interlibrary Loan (ILL) connects them to an almost unlimited number of additional volumes and resources.
But we are being held captive. Nevertheless, ILL persists.
In case you’re unfamiliar with ILL, here’s a quick overview.
ILL is…
Librarians working in digital scholarship regularly face two challenges: Staying current with the ever-changing tools and methods and increasing the capacity to provide support. In other words, how do they learn and teach all things digital?
On top of the unprecedented challenges everyone in academia is currently facing, the Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation (RBSCP) has been looking for a new leader. They found one in Miranda Mims.
Due to budgetary constraints across the University, the River Campus Libraries has carefully identified $500k in permanent cost reductions to our collections, notably our subscriptions. This permanent reduction is intended to help support the University’s response to the $7 million structural deficit in AS&E. We are working diligently to ensure your access to resources is minimally affected, and we seek your input to ensure we make appropriate adjustments that consider your teaching and research needs. We are grateful for your feedback on this effort.
The Libraries’ Collection Strategies and Scholarly Communication department advocates for University of Rochester researchers as knowledge creators and consumers, protecting their rights and ensuring access to the University’s scholarly and cultural estate. Sustainable Scholarship represents the formalization of that effort, and a means for information sharing by the Collection Strategies and Scholarly Communications Department.
Our goals are:
To communicate the work of managing access to scholarly resources
As the Open Access movement gains traction in the world of scholarly publishing, scholars in many disciplines have concerns about implications for the future of journals that are owned by scholarly societies but published by commercial publishers. Because subscription money from journal sales helps keeps the societies viable, how can they respond to requests to open the journal for all to read? Will their current publisher agree to an open access transition?
It’s hard to imagine what it must have been like to see Rush Rhees Library come to life during the late 1920s. At what point did the building start to induce goosebumps? Was it early on, when the steelwork started to give the building its shape, or was it later, when one could take in the entirety of the iconic façade?
People across the country are being asked to stay at home to slow the spread of COVID-19. According to the New York Times, as of April 27, that request is still official in 41 states. Still, it’s only a request and a conditional one at that. If people need to leave their homes, say for groceries, they can, with or without a mask or face covering, depending on where they live. By 14th-century Europe standards, this is dangerously lenient.
