The Authority File

In the second episode of this four-part series, David Gunkel, Presidential Research, Scholarship and Artistry Professor in the Department of Communication at Northern Illinois University, and Amy Harris, Senior Manager of Library Relations and Sales at MIT Press, continue their discussion on the benefits of open monographs. First, David proposes open books as an antidote to the awkwardness around an author assigning their own book to a class or asking fellow researchers to buy their book to learn about their work. Further, David shares how open books help English as a Second Language (ESL) speakers by allowing them to copy and paste text from an open PDF into online translators; this helps the scholarship reach a wider audience and increases the potential for global partnerships. In addition, Amy chats about the advantages of open objects and digs into the challenges of copyright mandates and contract management when making backlist titles open—or, as MIT Press affectionately calls it, a “backflip.”

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This month we welcome back MIT Press to discuss its open book publishing program Direct to Open (D2O) and the author benefits of open access. In addition to MIT Press’s Amy Harris, MIT Press authors David Gunkel and Janaki Srinivasan join the program to share their unique experiences with and advantages of open monographs.

In the first episode of this four-part series, we chat with David, Presidential Research, Scholarship and Artistry Professor in the Department of Communication at Northern Illinois University, and Amy, Senior Manager of Library Relations and Sales, about open book publishing. Amy first provides a refresher on D2O, detailing its development, accomplishments, and surprising trends from participating libraries. Next, David, author of MIT Press’s Person, Thing, Robot, explains his longstanding support for open access and why publishing his book via D2O was a natural fit. Reviewing rapid developments in AI research, David reveals the connections between open publishing and the global AI legal environment, sharing the utility of open books for AI ethics and robotics scholars.

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This month’s episode features Rosalyn Metz, Chief Technology Officer for Libraries and Museum at Emory University. At a 2024 Charleston Conference panel with TAF host Bill Mickey, Rosalyn shared a quick anecdote on how spikes in AI bot traffic on Emory library’s website have lead to service shutdowns. Now, Rosalyn joins the podcast to dig into this frustrating issue, exploring how her library has dealt with this traffic and the ethical implications of making a library’s catalog and metadata openly available on the Internet in the age of AI.

To start, Rosalyn explains the level of traffic the library has experienced in the past year and how staff have worked to distinguish between regular bot traffic and large language models crawling for content. Further, she chats about the protections her library and other institutions have instigated, whether that be turning to campus IT, seeking out vendor partnerships, or locking down library webpages completely. Sharing her concerns beyond interrupting site traffic and the user experience, Rosalyn discusses the implications of AI bots scraping unvetted institutional files and sensitive repository materials.

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Last December Choice’s library technology content vertical LibTech Insights (LTI) featured Digital Initiatives Librarian Eric Lease Morgan in its Job Profiles feature. Eric, currently at the University of Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Libraries, now joins The Authority File to provide a historical context for today’s artificial intelligence landscape. In this episode, he charts the progression of library technology applications, explaining how we’ve arrived at the current moment of machine learning and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) language processing.

In addition, Eric shares how library leaders and managers can advocate for innovative library work, suggesting designated times for librarians to “play,” experiment, and learn new technology skills. Walking through the impressive list of library technology projects he’s lead or been a part of over his career—Code4Lib and Distant Reader among them—Eric highlights how the library profession must adjust its services to better reflect today’s technologically advanced patrons and environment.

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In the final episode of this four-part series, our guests focus on the library’s role as an advisor and guide for data sharing adoption in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS). Dr. Rebecca Taylor-Grant, Head of Open Data Initiatives, and Dr. Emily Farrell, Global Commercial Director for Open Research, both at Taylor & Francis, point out that the research process begins long before an author contacts a publisher; libraries, however, can introduce researchers to data sharing practices, formatting, and repositories at the very start. Aware of both institutional and funder policies that academics may need to follow, librarians have a unique, cross-functional understanding of the broader research ecosystem. As Emily and Rebecca note, many libraries have already embraced data sharing, and further collaboration between libraries and publishers will only provide improvements in the open data landscape.

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In the third episode of this four-part series, Dr. Rebecca Taylor-Grant, Head of Open Data Initiatives, and Dr. Emily Farrell, Global Commercial Director for Open Research, both at Taylor & Francis, discuss the development of data sharing policies, repositories, and resources. First, Rebecca walks through the creation of T&F’s data sharing policy specific to Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS). Underscoring the need for language applicable to HSS (and not just STEM), Rebecca explains the process of researching existing data guidelines and gathering examples of HSS data. In addition, Rebecca chats about a 2022 exploratory survey on researchers’ current understandings and use of HSS data sharing and her paper on open data in the Humanities, also published in 2022. Next, Rebecca and Emily explore the advantages of data repositories over sharing data via email and outline key open data resources and training available from T&F to aid authors.

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In this episode, Francesca Buckland, Vice President of Product Management for the Web of Science at Clarivate, joins The Authority File to discuss artificial intelligence applications in academic libraries. To start, Fran details Clarivate’s history with developing AI products, including seeking guidance from the library community. Further, she chats about generative AI enhancing research efficiencies and underpinning critical thinking, particularly through Clarivate’s recently launched Web of Science Research Assistant. As Fran explains, the tool offers scholarly overviews, visualizations, and guided research workflows, all based in the Web of Science Core Collection. Digging into the needed balance between automation and human oversight, our guest also covers key topics like AI transparency, ethical design, and data security.

Next, Fran highlights Clarivate’s recent Pulse of the Library report. Revealing librarians’ progress toward establishing institutional AI plans, the report dovetails with Clarivate’s interest in utilizing AI for core librarian tasks and to support the library mission. Finally, as industry standards and guidelines on AI continue to enter the scholarly landscape, Fran anticipates better guardrails around ethical AI use and transparency, in addition to more advanced AI analytics tools to assess large data sets.

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In the second episode of this four-part series, Dr. Rebecca Taylor-Grant, Head of Open Data Initiatives, and Dr. Emily Farrell, Global Commercial Director for Open Research, both at Taylor & Francis, dig into the benefits and challenges of data sharing in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS). Rebecca starts by outlining the community aspect of data sharing and how that aligns with T&F’s own initiatives toward open research and responding to cultural changes in the scholarly communication landscape. Next, Emily walks through her 2024 coauthored book, Life in a New Language from Oxford University Press. The title evaluates six different ethnographic data sets on adult language learning, providing a helpful use case for sharing data between researchers. Last, our guests surface the unique concerns from humanists and social scientists over data-sharing policies and how these could potentially be addressed.

Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates, and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!

In this four-part series, Dr. Rebecca Taylor-Grant, Head of Open Data Initiatives, and Dr. Emily Farrell, Global Commercial Director for Open Research, both at Taylor & Francis, join the program to discuss data sharing in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS). While STEM fields have largely established official channels for sharing and accessing research data, HSS disciplines still lag behind. Particular issues arise in identifying what qualifies as data in these fields and the purpose of making this information accessible to fellow scholars. Covering current data sharing policies and data categorization variations between the Humanities and Social Sciences, our guests investigate why HSS data sharing is important and how librarians can support this work through guidance and institutional services.

In this first episode, Emily and Rebecca examine the current landscape for HSS data sharing. They explain what can be categorized as data in HSS, how the social sciences have a slight leg up in this area, and how T&F has developed explicit guidance to help researchers recognize potential data sets. Our guests also share thoughts on how the 2022 OSTP Nelson Memo has impacted data sharing and speculate on how the incoming Trump administration may affect these policies in the US.

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In the final episode of this four-part series, Lori Beckstead and Dario Llinares, coeditors of the forthcoming Podcast Studies: Practice into Theory, look ahead to the future of scholarly podcasting. First, Lori underscores podcasting’s ability to center marginalized voices by spotlighting lived experiences and demonstrating oral communication as a legitimate form of scholarship. Further, Dario parses through the benefits of creating podcasts to study the medium itself, much like the way media studies scholars create video essays about their research.

Next, Lori explains how librarians can help establish podcasts in traditional scholarly communication channels by preserving academic podcasts in institutional repositories. Our guests also recommend a list of scholarly podcasts including The Amplify Network, Her Media Diary, and Dario’s own The Cinematologists. Last, Lori and Dario postulate about the potential impacts of Google’s NotebookLM, a generative AI tool that creates extremely realistic-sounding podcast episodes from user-submitted prompts.

Missed an episode? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Choice Podcast Updates, and check out the Authority File Round-Up on our blog, Open Stacks!