Resources mentioned:
University of Illinois Library Copyright Guide
For the transcript, click on “Continue reading” below.
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Have you ever thought about what really goes into supporting digital scholarship? Well, some may say it takes a village but here at the University of Illinois, it’s bigger than that. It takes a campus. The Scholarly Commons will be interviewing experts across campus about all the new and exciting things that are happening to support digital scholarship. We will sit down with specialists to learn about what they do, how they do it, and why they got started working in their field. Hear what we mean when we say it takes a campus to do what we do.
On this episode we have Harriett Green as our guest. Harriett was previously Head of the Scholarly Communications and Publishing Unit and Scholarly Communications and Publishing Librarian at the University of Illinois. She now serves as the Associate University Librarian for the Digital Scholarship and Technology Services Division at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Harriett is interviewed by Billy Tringali. Billy is now the Law Librarian for Outreach at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Harriett and Billy discuss a few of resources available at Illinois and offer great insight into the field. Enjoy. |
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| 00:01:11 | Billy: | So, hello and welcome to the Scholarly Commons podcast. I’m Billy Tringali and I am here with Harriett Green. Harriett, thank you so much for being on the show. |
| Harriett: | Thank you for having me. | |
| Billy: | Of course, and you are the Head of Scholarly Communication and Publishing for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. | |
| Harriett: | Yes, and Scholarly Communication and Publishing Librarian. | |
| Billy: | That’s fantastic! What a title, that’s big. | |
| Harriett: | Yes, there’s a lot of things in it. | |
| Billy: | Yes, do you want to break it down? | |
| 00:01:37 | Harriett: | Sure. So, as Head of Scholarly Communication and Publishing I’m the head of a unit. So, we have four full-time librarians, library professionals… |
| Billy: | Wow | |
| Harriett: | … plus grad assistants. And we cover different areas of well, scholarly communication… | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | … and open access publishing. So, my particular expertise is in publishing, scholarly communication, especially for humanities and social sciences, and working with people as they try to use, working with researchers and students as they try to use different tools for sharing their research, doing their research work, and just engaging with their scholarship in different ways. | |
| Billy: | That is fascinating. | |
| Harriett: | Mhmm. | |
| Billy: | That’s very cool. | |
| Harriett: | Thank you. | |
| 00:02:19 | Billy: | Yeah. So, what is scholarly communication? What is the field of scholarly communication because you mention so many things there and they all fall under this umbrella. How would you describe it? |
| Harriett: | I envision it as really an ecosystem… | |
| Billy: | Oooh | |
| Harriett: | …of all the ways that people are talking about their research, sharing it, learning, and traditionally scholarly communication has been journals, print monographs, print journals, kind of just the printed page… | |
| Billy: | Yes | |
| Harriett: | …across the disciplines really but we’ve really seen in the last few decades, couple decades especially, really in the sciences and then kind of rippling out to the social sciences and the humanities, people using leveraging, technologies, the internet to share their research in different ways so whether that’s blogs or podcasts such as this… | |
| Billy: | Yeah! | |
| Harriett: | …online pre-prints of their articles, all sorts of ways that people are sharing research data, that’s a huge part, as well. | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| 00:03:15 | Harriett: | So, there’s many different aspects of how people work with content, work with data, and share that data and communicate with each other about it. |
| Billy: | That’s amazing, that’s very cool. Hello, we’re engaging in scholarly communication as we speak. | |
| Harriett: | Yes, we are. So, it’s a really rich field and there’s many many different areas that all kind of connect into it whether it’s copyright, open access… | |
| Billy: | Wow | |
| Harriett: | …there’s many others, I mean I can go on… | |
| Billy: | Please do! | |
| Harriett: | There’s quite a bit of, you know, really thinking through and as librarians how do we…we’ve always been involved in scholarly communication. | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | From, you know, from being the repository… | |
| Billy: | Right | |
| Harriett: | …of where all the things are held but now it’s not just being a repository but we have lots and lots of opportunities to work with students, to work with faculty, to work with all sorts of researchers as they’re seeking to use the research, so not just helping them find it but also working with them throughout their research life cycle. | |
| Billy: | That’s amazing. So, making sure that they’re not just putting something out there that no one is ever going to see. | |
| 00:04:11 | Harriett: | Right, right. There’s many different ways – using our own expertise as information managers and architects of building systems that disseminate information, really opening their eyes to what they can do beyond just printing your paper. What are all the other things that you can do to get people to know about your work. |
| Billy: | What are the other things that you can do? | |
| Harriett: | Sure. In our unit, actually, we support a host of platforms that allow people to at least leverage digital tools to make use of their research for both monographs and journals. So, for journals, we support Open Journal Systems… | |
| Billy: | Oooh | |
| Harriett: | …which is an open source platform. It’s widely used around the world out of Simon Fraser University in British Colombia and the PKP project, the Public Knowledge Project, and that’s actually a great organization that we’re a member of, which builds these kinds of open communication platforms… | |
| Billy: | That’s amazing. | |
| Harriett: | …and so, we’re using both their open journal system platform to help people who want to do open access journals… | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| 00:05:05 | Harriett: | …we’re looking to pilot a couple journals and we already work with undergraduate research journals… |
| Billy: | Wow | |
| Harriett: | …and those have been hosted in OJS for the past couple years and that’s an initiative led by Merinda Hensley… | |
| Billy: | Yes | |
| Harriett: | …in the Scholarly Commons and so that’s one platform then for journals. | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | And then for books or “books” in quotes, which can be a whole host of things, we support Omeka which allows people to do digital exhibitions. | |
| Billy: | Wow | |
| Harriett: | So, if you want to showcase images, audio, video, in an exhibition type platform; Scalar, which allows people to do nonlinear books. | |
| Billy: | Wow | |
| 00:05:37 | Harriett: | So, people can, again, interconnect all sorts of materials and their texts in different ways to really have a dynamic interactive publication; and then pressbooks which is looks like a pretty straightforward typeset PDF |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | But again, allows people to read a book online in a really clean format, like an E-book… | |
| Billy: | Wow | |
| Harriett: | …and then Commons in a Box and that’s a new platform developed at the City University of New York, CUNY. | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | And it’s actually kind of like social network for academics. So, you can mount this platform at Commons in a Box and then research groups can have their own discussion forums, their own WordPress sites… | |
| Billy: | Wow | |
| 00:06:11 | Harriett: | And so that’s kind of another aspect of Scholarly Communication, not just publishing but also how do you work together how do you collaborate, and how are you sharing your data, how are you sharing your documentation and can you see the research happening live? And so Commons in a Box and the CUNY Academic Commons is a great things that we’re going to try to start here at Illinois; allows research groups, student groups, faculty groups to engage in that way too. |
| Billy: | That’s huge, that’s amazing. | |
| Harriett: | Yeah, so it’s going to be exciting | |
| Billy: | And you mentioned all the way down to undergraduates… | |
| Harriett: | Yes, yes there’s…so we’ve actually been, perhaps the most visible work has been undergraduates thus far… | |
| Billy: | Wow | |
| Harriett: | …with the research journals and then also in my earlier work, I’ve worked with undergraduates as they’ve built Omeka sites, as they’ve built Scalar sites for class projects. | |
| Billy: | That is incredible. | |
| 00:06:58 | Harriett: | So, and that’s something that’s interesting as faculty members and teachers are really looking to kind of break open the way that students are doing work, these platforms offer a way for students to really do some cool work but also engage… |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | …in what they’re researching and bring together say video clips of a movie and then doing, you know, a film analysis of that video clip. | |
| Billy: | That’s incredible. | |
| Harriett: | You know, or doing, one group I worked with did video blogs and they put their video blogs on the site and then they did their whole, basically kind of their paper, it was about youth activism… | |
| Billy: | That’s so cool. | |
| Harriett: | …and they did a blog about it so there’re all these things that students are really able to dive in. | |
| Billy: | That’s amazing. | |
| 00:07:35 | Harriett: | So, that’s just the tip of the iceberg… |
| Billy: | Oh wow! | |
| Harriett: | …of things that are happening here at Illinois and then if you look across the country there are so many other things that people are doing, students and faculty are doing… | |
| Billy: | Wow | |
| Harriett: | …to do these kind of very dynamic interactive ways of showing their research. | |
| Billy: | This is a huge field. | |
| Harriett: | It is. There are areas that I probably have no time but like with copyright and with institutional repositories is the other aspect that we cover here. | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | So that’s in my department. It’s called IDEALS. | |
| Billy: | Wow | |
| Harriett: | And that allows people to post articles, post your poster, anything that you’ve produced, and you want it to be preserved in a long-term fashion, you can host in our institutional repository. | |
| Billy: | Wow | |
| Harriett: | And that’s actually the other piece that we’ve had for a long time, since almost ten years ago, ten years, I think now, of having an institutional repository where people can do open access publishing to a certain extent by putting your articles up there. | |
| Billy: | That’s incredible. | |
| 00:08:29 | Harriett: | And now we have a mandate on campus… |
| Billy: | Ooooh | |
| Harriett: | …to strongly encourage faculty to make their work open access, so we had IDEALS and only in the last couple years have we had a mandate to really encourage people to do it. | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | But still very, very much a work in progress. | |
| Billy: | Wow | |
| Harriett: | So, that’s, those are kind of like the big elements of what we’ve been doing or what we have. So we have elements that have existed and now were really trying to build more coherent program… | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | …here at the library that really builds upon the great work that, you know, my predecessors and other librarians have done. | |
| Billy: | And I think when people think of libraries, I don’t think they would often think of publishing or communication even. | |
| Harriett: | No and I mean, there’s still a debate out there… | |
| Billy: | Really? | |
| Harriett: | …should libraries be involved in this kind of work? But we’re seeing and it’s still very new I’d say, it’s only in the last ten years that you’ve seen libraries doing publishing, building repositories, institutional repositories, and there’s been some pioneers: Like Michigan, University of Michigan has been doing this for a while. | |
| Billy: | Wow | |
| Harriett: | And I think University of Virginia has been doing quite a bit of work the last couple of decades, as well. | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| 00:09:30 | Harriett: | But on the whole, it’s all still very new. But we see that there’s this gray area where you have University Presses which is where faculty are trying to publish their books… |
| Billy: | Right | |
| Harriett: | So, they can get tenure. | |
| Billy: | Yes | |
| Harriett: | And commercial publishers like Random House or Simon & Schuster, which is also another way people sometimes share scholarship. | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | But there’s a big gap in getting your book with the University Press or getting your article in the super, super prestigious journal… | |
| Billy: | Right | |
| Harriett: | …that takes two years to come out and all this work that’s going on constantly. | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | And so, people at the very minimum, we’ve seen both, you know, just here my own work and across the country, that faculty and students are looking for agile, quicker ways to share their work. | |
| Billy: | Right | |
| 00:10:12 | Harriett: | And so, it’s not just the super finished project that’s a book or a, you know, nice journal but also maybe work in progress. Maybe putting a preprint up there so people can see oh, here’s an early version of the article or getting the work out there with the audio or art images that you used. |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | And getting it up there a lot faster than again, waiting for that book with the flat images on there… | |
| Billy: | Right | |
| Harriett: | …three years down the road, so we see that there’s this whole world of scholarship that needs, wants to be shared. | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | In the digital age, we’re in now, you know, we expect things. You know, things are tweeted every millisecond. | |
| Billy: | Exactly | |
| Harriett: | People are blogging every day and when you compare that to, you know, the four years it takes to put out a book, especially in the humanities, it’s taken two years to get from a journal to, you know, submitting your article to even seeing it in print, that’s you know, there’s a whole realm of things that should be happening in between that space. | |
| Billy: | Wow | |
| 00:11:07 | Harriett: | And libraries have the agility. We have the infrastructure to really support digital publishing… |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | …and different ways of engaging in scholarship and faster ways. | |
| Billy: | Yes, definitely. | |
| Harriett: | And it’s evolving but it’s something we’re seeing a need for and I think its continuing. And there’s quite a bit of literature out there, as well. | |
| Billy: | Oooh | |
| Harriett: | A recent report from the Association of Research Libraries just put out a report about libraries and publishing in presses that I encourage people to read. | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| 00:11:35 | Harriett: | It’s a SPEC Kit number 357 |
| Billy: | Wow | |
| Harriett: | And so that one’s got a lot of good data, really recent data on what’s happening, as well. | |
| Billy: | Yeah, now, you’ve mentioned open access, the speed of publishing, and libraries role in that… | |
| Harriett: | Mhmm | |
| Billy: | What would you say is currently the biggest issues in the field of scholarly communication? | |
| Harriett: | Well, in thinking about this, I might say, you know, there was a hole with open access… | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | The big thing was this very, activist, like, we’re going to make all the information free… | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | …it’s going to be out there, we have to liberate the information but now there’s nuances to that and we’re now realizing, you know, everything from concerns of different disciplines, you know, the way they work in terms of being able to expose patents or expose different types of data. How do we honor, you know, medical data… | |
| Billy: | Right | |
| Harriett: | …and HIPPA data that might be embedded in that. | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| 00:12:25 | Harriett: | And there’s ways around that, as well, but also thinking about, you know, indigenous cultures and you know, making information free… |
| Billy: | Right | |
| Harriett: | …making open data free, well what are the cultural ramifications of that, as well? | |
| Billy: | Right | |
| Harriett: | If you’re dealing, especially in anthropology, sociology, some of the social sciences that are dealing with cultures and ethnicities… | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | …where you have to be context of where this data’s coming from. | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | How are we sharing this scholarship? So, I think as we’re grappling with that… | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | …and how to really both expose the broadest range of scholarship but also honor and really take into account the ethics of data, the ethics of cultures that we’re working with as we do our scholarship. | |
| Billy: | Wow | |
| 00:13:01 | Harriett: | And then, also, with impact. And as, I think, a struggle with this, as scholars, are engaging in new forms of scholarship. How do they show impact of their work? |
| Billy: | Yes | |
| Harriett: | And it’s not, it can’t just be oh, you know, five people tweeted about my work. But, how do you convey that to a tenure committee? | |
| Billy: | Right | |
| Harriett: | And so there’s this tension of that we want to encourage scholars, encourage students to, you know, try new digital tools, try these new ways of publishing and sharing scholarship but at the same time how can we help them still advance in their own careers? | |
| Billy: | Right | |
| Harriett: | Or how can they… | |
| Billy: | Right | |
| Harriett: | …you know, still make, get tenure, still advance at the academy through these very traditional means. | |
| Billy: | Right | |
| 00:13:41 | Harriett: | So, I think the ways of working of the academy and the way scholarship is happening, there’s still a tension, there’s still, and you know, that’s something that we had to already confront, is, you know, as we try to, you know, bring people in to work with us. |
| Billy: | Right | |
| Harriett: | Helping to work to address all their needs because this is real need alongside, you know, the equal, equally valid… | |
| Billy: | Right | |
| Harriett: | …pressing need to making information free is but, you know, what are all the contexts… | |
| Billy: | Right | |
| Harriett: | …how do we make sure that everybody can participate in this ecosystem… | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | …and still be able to meet the needs they have? | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | If that makes sense. | |
| Billy: | It does! I love that description: ecosystem. | |
| 00:14:15 | Harriett: | Mhmm, I mean, it’s more and more, it’s not just one thing or another, but there’s lots of players, there’s lots of parts and there’s no, and it really depends on the context you’re working in. |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | Us, at a Research University, is very different from, you know, the small liberal arts college, like Illinois College, down the road. | |
| Billy: | Right | |
| Harriett: | There’s too…there’s so many different factors that get involved. | |
| Billy: | So within this ecosystem, I’m sure that we’ve talked about everything from undergraduates to graduates students to faculty to librarians, what should varieties of people know about this field? What should students know? | |
| Harriett: | I think, it behooves students to be aware of where you’re getting information. There’s, you know, when you click on to download a journal article knowing, you know, what’s behind that, you know, the library paid $20,000… | |
| Billy: | Right | |
| 00:15:05 | Harriett: | …to get you that article to you or where’s that book coming from? If it’s coming from interlibrary loan realize there’s a whole system of people and money that’s behind that, getting that book to you and shipped to you and so I think both students and you know, even faculty, you know, being aware of where this information is coming from, it isn’t free. |
| Billy: | Right | |
| Harriett: | There’s a lot of different infrastructure behind that… | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | …in both appreciating it but also, advocating for ways to make it more free. | |
| Billy: | Right | |
| Harriett: | So, when we talk about open access that requires on the part of the part of students and faculty being willing to make their scholarship open… | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | …so, that maybe librarians don’t have to pay as much and maybe your best friend who doesn’t go to a school that has as many resources as Illinois, they don’t have to beg you to send it but they rather… | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | …which we’re aware that happens, but rather everybody has equal access to the information. | |
| Billy: | Right | |
| 00:15:52 | Harriett: | So, that’s one thing I would say, is just students just being aware of where your research is coming from, where you’re getting information. And then, you know, ways that they can participate… |
| Billy: | Right | |
| Harriett: | And then, you know, along those lines, like with educators especially faculty who publish… | |
| Billy: | Right | |
| Harriett: | …and researchers who publish, being aware of your author’s rights. That’s another issue. | |
| Billy: | Wow | |
| Harriett: | That’s a big issue in scholarly communication. | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | Yeah, that might go as one of the bigger issues in the field, as well, but making people aware of their copyrights. | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| 00:16:19 | Harriett: | And that, you know, all too many publishers when you sign the standard agreement you basically are like, “Oh here. Have my entire thing and you can do whatever you want with it,” |
| Billy: | Right | |
| Harriett: | You don’t have to sign that. | |
| Billy: | Oooh | |
| Harriett: | You can just tell them, they just need, and as Sara [Benson] has told you… | |
| Billy: | Yes, Sara’s been on the program. | |
| Harriett: | …copyright is a bundle of rights. | |
| Billy: | It is. | |
| Harriett: | And she says that in much more expert details so I’ll let listeners listen to that episodes but its, you know, being discerning of how you give up your copyrights. | |
| Billy: | Right | |
| Harriett: | You know, what your scholarship is being used for, where is it going? | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| 00:16:50 | Harriett: | And just, you know, that’s a thing we’re really trying to do in my department is really educate researchers on their rights, what they can claim, what they should retain… |
| Billy: | Wow | |
| Harriett: | …and how to really, you know, retain their scholarship and their intellectual property. | |
| Billy: | Right | |
| Harriett: | So, that’s something that I think all, everybody, anybody who wants to engage in scholarship should know. | |
| Billy: | Definitely, know what you’re signing up for… | |
| Harriett: | Right | |
| Billy: | … when you get into that huge journal. | |
| Harriett: | Exactly, exactly. And then also, as you’re creating stuff, you know, fair use. So, we have, especially, in education realm, you know, the ability to use pieces of music and art and literature. | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | …within our works as part of fair use. | |
| Billy: | Right | |
| 00:17:32 | Harriett: | And, you know, there’s many different bills through Congress, and the Mickey Mouse Act, that really are all about claiming copyright to the fullest extent. |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | When there are ways that we can use and remix works. So, this is no way any kind of advice. | |
| Billy: | No | |
| Harriett: | But, you know, people should be aware of fair use basically and don’t be afraid to employ it if you’re, you know, doing work and creating work. | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| 00:17:55 | Harriett: | Now, there are guidelines, there are parameters and there’s a great checklist on our website: the copyright guide for the fair use checklist. And that’s a really good way of, you know, ascertaining, you know, are you within the bounds of fair use. |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | So, there are guidelines, but, you know, don’t be afraid to use is, as well. | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | And so, I would say as students and creators and researchers. | |
| Billy: | That’s fantastic | |
| Harriett: | And then with librarians and information professionals, I think you know, nowadays, I think, every information professional really should know more about copyright and scholarly communications issues. | |
| Billy: | Definitely | |
| 00:18:26 | Harriett: | Because especially as were helping people, you know, whether, you’re in a special library with a, you know, working in a law firm or something, or you’re working the reference desk… |
| Billy: | Right | |
| Harriett: | …people are coming to use more and more with these questions… | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | …of how, what can they use, how can they share their own work and there’s basic levels of education that I think everybody really needs to know especially if you work in the information profession. | |
| Billy: | Yeah, and that we would all benefit from. | |
| Harriett: | Yeah, yeah | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | And there’s more and more materials out there, you know the Creative Commons has a new curriculum coming out that they just got IMLS [The Institute of Museum and Library Services] funding for. That’s going to be a resource. | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| 00:19:01 | Harriett: | And then my unit, a couple people were doing the Library Publishing Curriculum which is another IMLS project and we’re participating in that, and that’s another way for people to learn more about all the ins and outs, as well. |
| Billy: | Wow | |
| Harriett: | So, there’s more and more materials out there that people can self-educate, as well as, learn. | |
| Billy: | Yeah | |
| Harriett: | Yeah | |
| Billy: | So there’s plenty of information. | |
| Harriett: | Right | |
| Billy: | There’s always a place to learn. | |
| Harriett: | Right, always. | |
| 00:19:25 | It Takes a Campus is a podcast brought to you by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Scholarly Commons, located in the Main Library. If you want more from us be sure to check out our blog, Commons Knowledge at publish.illinois.edu/commonsknowledge and follow us on Twitter at ScholCommons. That’s S C H O L Commons.
The opening and closing song is Tranquility Base by AAA Alto. You can find their album, “Bright Colors,” in the Free Music Archive by searching for A A A Alto at freemusicarchive.org.
Thanks for listening. |
