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Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies News

Garimella Honored with Leadership in Open Access Award by Purdue Libraries, Office of Provost

Garimella Honored with Leadership in Open Access Award by Purdue Libraries, Office of Provost

October 26th, 2017

Suresh V. Garimella, Executive Vice President for Research and Partnerships and the R. Eugene and Susie E. Goodson Distinguished Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University, was honored with the 2017 Leadership in Open Access Award from Purdue University Libraries and the Office of the Provost Monday, Oct. 23.

This week (Oct. 23-29) academic institutions and libraries across the globe are celebrating the benefits of Open Access for research and scholarship during the 10th annual International Open Access Week commemoration.

Purdue University’s Suresh V. Garimella (seated in the photo), Executive Vice President for Research and Partnerships and the Goodson Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering, was honored with the Leadership in Open Access Award for 2017 from the Office of the Provost and Purdue Libraries. Pictured, L to R: Jay T. Akridge, interim Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Diversity; Garimella; James L. Mullins, Dean of Libraries and Esther Ellis Norton Professor; and Nina Collins, Scholarly Publishing Specialist, Purdue Scholarly Publishing Division.

According to Dean of University Libraries James L. Mullins, Garimella was selected to receive the recognition this year for leading by example in the Open Access movement at Purdue University. Garimella has more than 400 works posted in the Purdue e-Pubs repository, which have been downloaded close to 256,500 times.

“Dr. Garimella has demonstrated leadership in Open Access to Scholarly Publications by depositing his numerous papers and articles, consistent with copyright and contractual agreements, into Purdue e-Pubs. Therefore, we present the 2017 Leadership in Open Access Award to him in recognition of his outstanding leadership and continued partnership with Purdue e-Pubs to increase visibility of scholarship at Purdue,” Mullins noted.

“It is a great honor to be recognized for our research group’s commitment to Open Access. I am deeply thankful to the scores of students in my group who, over the years, have contributed to the impactful publications that have been eagerly downloaded through the University’s excellent Purdue e-Pubs portal,” Garimella said.

Since 2012, Purdue e-Pubs has close to 15,153,000 downloads from users all over the world, with the average download rate of 2,256,893 per year.

“Dr. Garimella embodies the spirit of the land-grant institution through his work to make scholarly research widely available,” said Jay Akridge, interim Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Diversity. “I congratulate him and all of the students in his group who contribute to global learning by broadening the reach of scholarship.”

For more information about Open Access at Purdue, visit www.lib.purdue.edu/openaccess. Learn more about Purdue e-Pubs at http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/.


Libraries Search Interface to be Updated 7/21; Results Display Redesigned with User Experience in Mind

July 19th, 2017

“It is important to note the underlying search ranking algorithm is not changing, just the way those results are presented to the user.” — Dean Lingley, Chair, Libraries Search Oversight Committee

Purdue University Libraries SearchThis Friday, when searching for materials in and through Purdue University Libraries, you may notice a difference in the aesthetics of the search results’ display.

That’s because, as of Friday, July 21, “Libraries Search,” the large field on on the Purdue Libraries’ home page that instructs users to “Find Articles, Books, Media, Journals, Collections & Archives,” will take users to search results’ pages that display an updated interface based on a new, responsive web design — all done with the user experience mind.

At Purdue Libraries, a team of faculty and staff, the “Libraries Search Oversight Committee,” has been working on the update to the Libraries Search functionality, and Dean Lingley, chair of that group, provided a brief overview of the update to Libraries Search (see Q&A below) and explained how the update will affect users.

Q. What is “Libraries Search” at Purdue University Libraries?

Dean Lingley: Libraries search allows library patrons to not only search the local, physical and electronic holdings of Purdue University Libraries, but it also enables users to search millions more articles and citations from journal vendors and database providers–all in one easy-to-use interface. Libraries Search will link patrons directly to the electronic copy of the specific article, when available, licensed by Purdue Libraries. If the article is not available immediately in electronic format, the patron can request the material from another institution via a simple link to our Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service.

Q. How does it work to find materials in the libraries and at other library institutions?

Dean Lingley: Materials held locally are indexed locally, and articles and citations from journal and database vendors are stored in a central index. When a user performs a search, the results from our local collection and central index are blended to give the patron the search results most relevant to the search terms.

Q. Why is the interface being updated/changed?

Dean Lingley: The interface is being updated to keep up with web design changes that have been occurring over the past several years.

Q. How is the new interface different from the one that is replacing? What are the benefits of the updated interface to users?

Dean Lingley: The new interface is different in the fact that it features a responsive web design. This allows patrons to have similar search experiences whether they are searching from their desktops, tablets, or phones. The interface was redesigned by our vendor with user experience in mind, and the new interface should provide an easier-to-navigate set of search results for our patrons. It is important to note that the underlying search ranking algorithm is not changing, just the way those results are presented to the user.

Purdue University Libraries Search Interface Before July 21, 2017
Purdue University “Libraries Search”: Default Results Display Before July 21, 2017
Purdue University Libraries Search Interface On and After July 21, 2017
Purdue University “Libraries Search”: Results Display On and After July 21, 2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Q. When will Purdue Libraries switch to the new interface permanently?

Dean Lingley: The new interface will become the default search interface this Friday (July 21). There is a feedback link available at the top of the new interface, so please feel free to use it for any comments or questions you might have.


Stonebraker’s 2016 Article Selected by LIRT in Annual “Top Twenty” List

June 5th, 2017

Ilana Stonebraker, Purdue Libraries
Ilana Stonebraker, Purdue Libraries

Purdue University Libraries Assistant Professor and Business Information Specialist Ilana Stonebraker has been recognized by the Library Instruction Round Table (LIRT) for her article “Toward informed leadership: Teaching students to make better decisions using information.” The piece, published in November in the Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship, is recognized as one of the “Top Twenty Articles of 2016” by LIRT in its June 2017 newsletter.

In March, Stonebraker was also recognized as a Library Journal 2017 “Mover and Shaker.”

In the Q & A piece below, Stonebraker provides some insight into the noted article, which the LIRT article selection committee described as a top-twenty article because of “its originality, strength of evidence, and applicability.”


Q. What was the impetus for your article “Toward informed leadership: Teaching students to make better decisions using information”?

Ilana: I became interested in decision management after teaching with a problem-based learning pedagogy. Many of the phenomenon I describe in the paper are things I have observed in my students’ behaviors. It seemed to me that more information did not make students any better at making decisions, so I started looking for other literatures that could help me help make my students better decision-makers. I found decision management and evidence-based management, and I saw how they addressed a gap in information-literacy literature. I tried to start to address that gap with this paper.

Q. What are your assertions regarding instruction and the tools librarians provide to help undergraduate researchers in the piece?

Ilana: My goal in this article was twofold. First, I wanted to assert and support my main claim, which is that decontextualized information-literacy knowledge training that overly focuses on information access makes students worse decision-makers, not better ones. I then focused on practices coming out of decision management and decision science that could help us teach students decision-making skills. My main practices focused on decision awareness, process creation, and decision practice, drawing on my own experience, and also how we might assess decision management differently than we do traditional information literacy.

Q. What are some examples, from your own teaching, that support your assertions/arguments in the article?

Ilana: One activity I discuss in the article involves decision awareness. Decision awareness is a metacognitive approach in which students examine how they make decisions and what biases that might enter their decision-making processes. I usually assign this activity before Spring Break; students read a Harvard Business Review article called, “Before You Make That Big Decision.”

Then, over Spring Break, they think of a decision they made in a group setting. Then they select one of the biases in the paper and describe, in a short assignment, how their decision was affected by that bias. They come to class and get into groups and discuss their individual decisions. (Given the type of decisions students make over Spring Break, this can be pretty silly.) Then, in large groups, we discuss the types of bias, but also additional questions like, “Was the decision you made a good decision or a bad one? How do you know?”

This conversation can be very interesting because it typically devolves into two camps. Decision science asserts that a decision can be good because the process is good (this leads nicely into process creation), or because the outcome is good (which makes more empirical sense, but is pretty risky).

It’s really interesting to think about how a decision is good or bad, especially from an information-literacy standpoint.

We librarians like to think decisions are only good if they have good process (through clever research skills), but we also want students who can see an outcome from a decision and grow from it. After all, that’s what scientists do.

Q. What do you hope faculty librarians take away from the article?

Ilana: I was pretty nervous that people would read this as an overly critical article of information literacy, so I’m glad people like it and/or are reading it! This paper, ironically, was published on election day, and I think there’s some strong “fake news” implications to it. Sometimes we think people are worse decision-makers because they don’t have access to enough information or enough “quality” research access. But, actually, people become worse decision makers when they have less context and more information. We’ve been saying as a profession for a while–that context is important and this article just reinforced how important it is.


Purdue University Libraries Launches New Library Management System, Alma to Streamline Workflows, Improve Analytics

May 16th, 2013

Purdue University Libraries has launched a new library management system, Alma to replace both Voyager and SFX. This includes functions associated with an integrated library system (ILS) and an electronic resources management system (ERM).

The benefits of Alma will include:

· Streamlined workflows resulting in efficient and effective processes.

· Elimination of silos between print and electronic resources

· Improved collection analysis through Alma Analytics and Oracle Business Intelligence

Purdue University Libraries is not only an early adopter of this new system; but it was a co-developer of Alma with Ex Libris, Princeton University, Boston College and University of Leuven (Belgium).

Many Purdue University Libraries faculty and staff have been involved in the planning and implementation of Alma over the last few years to ensure a successful launch.

Further information regarding Alma’s key features will be communicated in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, if you have any questions, please contact: Paul Bracke, Associate Dean for Digital Programs and Information Access, Associate Professor of Library Science, Purdue University Libraries at (765) 496-3606 or pbracke@purdue.edu or George Stachokas, Assistant Professor & Head of Resource Services, Purdue University Libraries at (765) 494-2812 or gstachok@purdue.edu.