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In order to learn more about the strengths and weaknesses of Resource Discovery Services (RDSs) and Online Public Access Catalogues (OPACs), we selected three universities from Spain which met the following requirements: 1) they taught Library and Information Studies, since our expertise in this scientific field would enable us to determine the relevance of the results retrieved, and 2) they had implemented different tools. We conducted several subject and author searches in RDSs and in OPACs, with the overall objective of exploring the efficiency of the search process and the relevance of the results retrieved when using each tool. The specific objectives were: to determine the comprehensiveness of the relevant results retrieved in a parallel search of OPACs and Resource Discovery Services; to analyze these results; to identify the filter functions for selection and how they were organized in RDSs and OPACs; to determine the ease with which the results could be refined and/or the search could be widened by making use of facets, indexes, or advanced search features; and to assess the implementation and usefulness of recommendations of related documents and user opinions/reviews in the form of tags, comments and ratings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on a study of the views and actions of nearly a hundred scholars - mostly academic researchers from four European countries and four disciplines - in regard to scholarly reputation in the Science 2.0 age. It specifically looks at the role that 'emerging' reputational mechanisms and platforms are playing in building, maintaining, and showcasing scholarly reputation in the digital age. Popular examples of such platforms are ResearchGate and Academia. edu. Data were obtained through one-to-one interviews and focus groups, supported by desk research. The main findings were: (a) it is early days and uptake is light and patchy with platforms largely used for non-reputational purposes, such as sharing documents; (b) most users were passive and did not fully engage with the social aspects of the platforms; (c) the reputational focus was very much on just one scholarly activity (research), on just two outputs of that activity (publications and conferences) and one measurement of that activity (citations), but there are the stirrings of change; (d) young researchers are set to profit most from the emerging platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the current state of authority control development in Spanish university repositories. As a decade has now gone by since the initiation of the first projects for institutional repositories in Spain, it would seem a suitable time to draw attention to authority control, an element of the first rank in evaluating the consistency and integrity of systems for recovering bibliographic information. The work is focused on examining the implementation of authorities in twenty-six Spanish university repositories, taking into account the information provided by the standardization experts working in them. The study considers the responses of the coordinators for these digital collections using a set of analytic criteria set out in the study. The handling of authorities in the group of university repositories studied may be described as uneven. Greater interest may be observed in controlling author entries, with laxer solutions for authority control of subjects. It suggests the need to establish effective policies for the management of authorities by means of cooperative efforts permitting the building up of corpora of entries for authorities that would aid the processes of cataloguing, metadata creation, and information retrieval in systems based on syntactic and semantic interoperability in which manual intervention should be minimal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose — This study aims to explore the current presence of e-books in the collections of Spanish academic libraries, from the viewpoint of the contents on offer. Design/methodology/approach — Exploration of the library web sites was undertaken in order to gauge the level of presence of packages that distribute electronic books. In evaluating the extent of content available, the data recorded were compared with those derived from another research carried out in 2004. Similarly, an approximate indication of the topic areas with greatest representation was attempted, distinguishing multi-disciplinary suppliers from those specializing in one field. Findings — Out of the 50 existing universities 36 support the subscription of at least one collection of electronic books. The universities of the communities of Andalusia, Catalonia and Valencia are those that have reached a greater implementation of e-books. There is a considerable diversity — many universities have subscribed to collections specializing in literature and in the field of engineering. The main multi-disciplinary collections purchased by libraries are E-libro and NetLibrary. Practical implications — This is a sector that is definitely taking off in Spain and will require progressive acceptance on the part of the academic community. Librarians have the responsibility to aid their users in understanding the growing complexity of the information market and the increasing range of resources available for research. Originality/value — The research is a necessary approach to the integration of collections of e-books into Spanish public universities. Encouraging the use of monographs in electronic format takes on great importance, when it is borne in mind that e-books will have a crucial role in the new model for education advocated by the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this article is to highlight the role of science repositories in the development of e-science. It aims to provide an overview of the open access collections currently operating in Spain. Design/methodology/approach - This paper is an examination of the tools, type of contents, coverage and aims of the digital research collections generated by Spanish academic bodies. Findings - There is only a limited development of institutional repositories, although it is possible to detect a growing tendency to create them. At the present moment, these digital collections seem principally to be seeking visibility for scientific output such as theses, journals, work in progress, preliminary results and other fringe or unconventional literature, without currently making use of academic teaching and learning materials or corpora relating to the cultural heritage. Practical implications - It would be desirable for government to become involved in encouraging open access within a new model for academic communication. It would appear crucial for the repositories aimed at spreading knowledge of scientific research to set in place mechanisms for rigorous peer assessment, so as to ensure the quality of the scholarly work deposited. Originality/value - This paper considers the role of science repositories in the development of eScience. The availability of resources for e-science, the need to support the compilation of repositories of information in electronic format and the access to digitized content is a matter of maximum priority for any national science policy. Designing a new model for academic communication requires collaboration from the authorities, from universities, from librarians and also support from researchers themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Analysis of the scientific content distributed electronically by Emerald, Kluwer, ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, Taylor & Francis and Wiley InterScience. Three indicators were established for the evaluation: horizontal, thematic, and vertical coverage. The study was performed based on the subscriptions held by the University of Leon (Spain), with the exception of Kluwer and Taylor & Francis for which the analysis was done via free web access. These electronic suppliers are multidisciplinary, though the content offered is fundamentally limited to the areas of natural sciences, health sciences, and social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]