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Data science has had a tremendous impact in the private sector and is increasingly being applied in the public sector. The Data for Good Exchange (D4GX) is an annual conference centered on these novel problems and applications. This article describes the history of the conference and introduces a selection of the best papers from the 2017 conference that focus on human services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conference presentation report introduces the zine collection at the Vassar College Library and describes the research and planning that went into advocating for and building the collection. The discussion addresses several key workflow factors that need to be considered when building a zine collection, including collection development, acquisitions, and cataloging. The report also shares local problems and solutions implemented at Vassar College. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes a project documenting and analyzing the electronic resource workflows for the library at Baruch College, CUNY (City University of New York). The presenter discusses her approach, how background research informed the documentation process, and explains the methodology and framework used to analyze the lifecycle of the electronic resources. Multiple interviews conducted with staff, faculty, and stakeholders involved in these workflows offered clarification of the steps involved and afforded the opportunity to delve into lengthier discussions about the process. This presentation highlights some outcomes of the project, focusing on “gaps” in the lifecycle, indications of where the workflow could be streamlined, and examples of beneficial conversations within library departments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Last year saw the 20th anniversary edition of JECP, and in the introduction to the philosophy section of that landmark edition, we posed the question: apart from ethics, what is the role of philosophy 'at the bedside'? The purpose of this question was not to downplay the significance of ethics to clinical practice. Rather, we raised it as part of a broader argument to the effect that ethical questions - about what we should do in any given situation - are embedded within whole understandings of the situation, inseparable from our beliefs about what is the case (metaphysics), what it is that we feel we can claim to know (epistemology), as well as the meaning we ascribe to different aspects of the situation or to our perception of it. Philosophy concerns fundamental questions: it is a discipline requiring us to examine the underlying assumptions we bring with us to our thinking about practical problems. Traditional academic philosophers divide their discipline into distinct areas that typically include logic: questions about meaning, truth and validity; ontology: questions about the nature of reality, what exists; epistemology: concerning knowledge; and ethics: how we should live and practice, the nature of value. Any credible attempt to analyse clinical reasoning will require us to think carefully about these types of question and the relationships between them, as they influence our thinking about specific situations and problems. So, the answers to the question we posed, about the role of philosophy at the bedside, are numerous and diverse, and that diversity is illustrated in the contributions to this thematic edition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the highlights of the North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) annual conference held from June 6-9, 2013 in Buffalo, New York. Topics covered at the pre-conference workshops include a course on the Program for Cooperative Cataloging and Cooperative Online Serials practices. The focus of the vision sessions are mentioned to include the impact of mobile technology on the flow of information, and the legal, moral and intellectual challenges to Big Data programs.

Starting in the fall of 2012, the staff at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) Library began to plan for a library-wide reorganization of staff and services. Every staff member would be affected by the reorganization process, including the library’s serials and e-resources team. In what could be a most chaotic time, the serials and e-resources team chose to use the North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) draft version of core competencies for electronic resource librarians as a guide to help in selecting members for the e-resources team that would emerge following the reorganization. The presentation on which this article is based reviews the situation at UTA, the core competencies, and how the serials/e-resources team used the core competencies along with a self-assessment tool to help select the most qualified staff for the team. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Salisbury University and the University of Maryland, College Park, both undertook projects to evaluate the effectiveness of EBSCO Information Service’s EBSCONET® Usage Consolidation product and the usefulness of the extracted data for collection development decisions. The goals of implementation were to centralize the collection and analysis of e-resource usage data and to allow collection management librarians easy access to usage and cost per use data to aid in their decision making. The presenters discussed how staff at each institution populated Usage Consolidation and presented usage reports to collection managers; how collection managers responded to the data; and how they used the data to inform collection management decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The loss of co-workers due to retirement has a profound impact on the people who are left to carry on with the work of the unit. The process of recovery from the loss of experienced and long-serving support staff members is analogous to the stages of grief that a person experiences after the death of a loved one. This article describes how the Serials Services unit at the University of Victoria Libraries is coping with the consequences of the retirement of its two most experienced library assistants and discusses the steps taken in order to continue to provide quality service to users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linked data have the potential to expose descriptive metadata about serials and serials relationships on the open Web and allow creative connections between library information about serials and the seemingly infinite elements of Web data. Linked data may also hold the potential to solve some classic serials dilemmas including latest versus successive entry and single versus multiple records for print and online. How do these possibilities mesh with the evolving current state of linked data projects in the commercial and library sector as well as with the Library of Congress’ Bibliographic Framework Initiative (BIBFRAME)? The three sections of this article will present different viewpoints about linked data and serials. An “early experimenter” and member of the group modeling BIBFRAME serials will discuss her experiences and thoughts on future directions. The head of the United States International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) Center will take an ISSN perspective, looking at ISSN’s potential in the linked data environment as well as discussing international work modeling serials according to Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (object-oriented) (FRBR-oo) and how ISSN fits into the development of BIBFRAME. Finally, a publisher from a company that has reorganized some of its infrastructure and processes to facilitate linked data will share the goals and provide examples of the benefits of that project. The two constant themes throughout the article are linked data and serials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The landscapes of libraries’ print collection have changed significantly over the past decades. On an institutional level, libraries need to evaluate available resources, local researchers’ needs, and find the right balance between print and electronic material in order to support parent institutions’ development and growth. On a national level, we have seen different schemes being developed in several countries to support libraries’ activities in a time of change. When more and more libraries are adopting electronic-only policies, what impact does losing print have? This article aims to share United Kingdom (UK) Research Reserve’s experience so far and how the UK Higher Education (HE) sector dealt with challenges and uncertainties through collaboration and partnership. It also explores further opportunities within and beyond the UK borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This comprehensive preconference focused on transitioning serials catalogers experienced inAnglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd Edition(AACR2) to the new cataloging code,Resource Description and Access(RDA), using the most current Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) and Cooperative Online Serials (CONSER) RDA decisions and practices. The sessions were taught in six modules: Introduction to CONSER RDA cataloging; Getting started; Identifying manifestations; Identifying works and expressions; Related works, expressions, manifestations; and Working with copy and When to create a new record. Participants received hands-on exercises from actual machine-readable cataloging (MARC 21) records that reinforced each module’s objective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a report of a concurrent session presented by Katherine Hill and Maria Collins of North Carolina State University (NCSU) Libraries at the 2013 North American Serials Interest Group conference. NCSU Libraries is a participant in the Global Open Knowledgebase (GOKb) project, which will provide an openly available knowledgebase for Kuali Open Library Environment (OLE). Results from a survey conducted by NCSU librarians are discussed, which focus on the e-resource management community and their expectations of the data provided in knowledgebases. The survey investigates problems and improvements in respect to data quality. Respondents also commented on their expectations of a community-managed project as well as the viability of a project like GOKb. Future directions and initiatives in the knowledgebase space were also summarized in the presentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Megan Oakleaf is an Associate Professor of Library and Information Science in the iSchool at Syracuse University and provides consultancy services on academic library value, outcomes assessment, evidence-based decision making, information literacy instruction, and information services. She is the author of theValue of Academic Libraries Comprehensive Review and Report. Her research areas include outcomes assessment, evidence-based decision making, information literacy instruction, and academic library impact and value. In this presentation Megan discusses the evolution of library services and the corresponding changes in how a library’s value may be measured and assessed within the larger context of an organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combined influence of rapidly changing technology and the economic downturn has forced librarians and publishers to reassess their respective roles in the delivery of information. Many are realizing that the costs of traditional collection management through journal subscriptions and particularly the “Big Deal” are not only burdensome but unsustainable. The result of these forces will likely be continuing diversification in access models, with institutions acquiring content through subscriptions, aggregators, patron-driven acquisition (PDA), document delivery, and repositories. Increased complexity in business models and the high cost of information will bring increasing need for careful evaluation and analysis of financial efficiencies. The obvious place for such analysis to occur is in the library. PDA offers inherent cost savings for libraries, as the library only pays for the content that is read. In this article, we will describe a trial of a PDA service for scholarly journal articles, using ReadCube Access technology, and executed in partnership between the University of Utah and Nature Publishing Group (NPG). The goals of the project are to provide instantaneous access to journal content for patrons, while providing the means for just-in-time delivery, at a reduced cost per usage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kathryn Johns-Masten of Penfield Library at the State University of New York-Oswego presented on her library's experience implementing a mobile website using the iWebKit framework. Penfield librarians identified user needs, learned from other libraries' sites, chose a framework compatible with desired devices that fit available resources, and evaluated their site through focus groups and analysis of usage statistics. Johns-Masten proposed best practices for libraries considering a mobile site and led a discussion of factors involved in choosing a framework and issues related to technical support of mobile websites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Serials Spoken Here" has reports on a symposium on "The Transition to Open Access Scholarship" held at the University at Albany, New York, and the 2004 North Carolina Serials Conference, both held in April 2004. Serials Review 2005; 31:66-69. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the guest editors discuss the special issue which is based on the November 2009 Conference of the Collaborative for Palliative Care of Westchester County and the New York State Southern Region ("the Collaborative").

In May 2016, right around the time that this issue of the Hastings Center Report should be published, The Hastings Center is holding a conference in New York City titled 'Bioethics Meets Moral Psychology.' The goal of the conference is to consider the lessons that bioethicists should learn from the raft of literature now accumulating on how the mental processes of perception, emotion, and thinking affect things that bioethicists care about, from the education of health care professionals to the conflicts that arise in clinical care, the 'culture wars' over bioethical policy issues, the status of different cultures' value systems, and the very understanding of the values that are foundational in moral thinking. The articles in this issue simply provide more evidence that bioethics is meeting moral psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]