Jaarverslag 2012 » Projects

Copyright Information Centre

Frank den Hollander — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 08:56:13 +0000

Esther Hoorn co-wrote a report on the developments in the digital learning and working environment of higher education, which was presented during the SURF Education Days. Together with a lawyer from Nijmegen, under the auspices of the VSNU, she prepared the administrative ground for the negotiations on the new reader regulation and an investigation into copyright material in Nestor. The final report of the Library Support of Digital Readers project was approved by the MT in 2012. As a result, and following the example of the GMW library, the library will be providing support and advice on the inclusion of compulsory literature in Nestor.

Together with the Zernike library, the Copyright Information Centre organized a Towards Sustainable Data Sharing seminar during Open Access Week. Many colleagues seized this opportunity to become acquainted with new library tasks in the field of archiving research data.

In addition, three new Open Access newsletters were published in 2012 in cooperation with the Transfer & Liaison Group.

The Copyright Information Centre also organized various publication strategy and Open Access workshops for PhD students, as well as presentations on copyright, Open Access and OpenCourseWare (e.g. at the Hanze University of Applied Sciences).

Learning Grid

Frank den Hollander — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 10:51:36 +0000

The Learning Grid (LG) project started off officially in 2012. The MT determined that the LG will be located on the 1^st floor of the UB, incorporating half of room 190 (westside), the MOC and rooms 121 and 124. The rooms in the ‘postzegelpand’ (‘stamp building’, rooms 126, 128 and 107) will be renovated and added later. Consultations with the project team of the University Services Department regarding the construction and implementation of the LG began in July 2012.

University of Groningen architect John Timmer has been brought in to help with the design. In cooperation with the LG project group, a basic design has been made which will be further developed in early 2013. Plans for the IT facilities will also be made and discussed around this time. The plan is to convert the rooms in two phases: the MOC and room 121 in April/May 2013, and rooms 190 and 124 in July/August 2013. The project is on schedule.

‘Showcase’ project

Frank den Hollander — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 10:50:07 +0000

Excellent, prominent researchers, capable of communicating their passion to students and society, determine the success of the University of Groningen as a research institution. Researchers operate in an increasingly competitive environment, which places higher and higher demands not only on quality and performance, but also on transparency and cooperation (both national and international).

Improving the transparency and visibility of research results and achievements and simplifying reports are important elements in supporting researchers.

It is important that the research results of this University are clearly visible, not only to attract potential staff, students, partners, sponsors, journalists, research information brokers and evaluating bodies, but also because we value knowledge transfer and social relevance in general. The University therefore strives to present publications of University staff in an accessible way by providing a direct link to the full text – if available.

The PURE system that will be launched by the Showcase project offers great ways to showcase the successes of academic research on the internet. PURE also enables users to see how the departments, their researchers and all related publications are connected, and will also provide access to information such as awards won, popular publications, contributions to conferences, and so on and so forth.

The information in PURE will be automatically updated through a periodical feed with data from PeopleSoft and Planon, and also with online publication details from, primarily, Web of Science. All researchers will receive a digital staff page with professional content.

The project has a Sounding Board with representatives from all faculties on tactical and strategic levels of the research domain. In addition, there are five working groups responsible for the presentation of results.

The working groups are:

Showcase Functionality: responsible for the structured presentation of information on profile pages (MePa), integration with the University of Groningen website, etc.
Research Information Management: responsible for setting up and implementing new possibilities for analyzing and reporting aggregated information.
Architecture and Migration: responsible for providing the system with accurate content, for keeping the information up-to-date, and for migrating existing information to PURE (Metis and repositories).
Processes and Support: responsible for providing support to researchers and other users of the system, for the organization of the workflow, and for checking the data input. The library will play an important role here.
Communications: the goals of this project can only be achieved if all stakeholders are optimally informed and if there is sufficient support. The working group is going to tackle this with a communication plan.

Course of the item

Frank den Hollander — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 10:44:39 +0000

In the library world, the ‘course of the item’ is a well-known concept. This refers to every step in the process from the moment of placing an order to the moment of making the document available to the user.
In 2012, a PhD student examined the efficiency of the ‘course of the item’. It turned out that quite a bit of time can be saved if certain actions are carried out by just one person. In addition, several tools have been developed to automate some of the manual work.

Album Promotorum Universitatis Groninganae

Frank den Hollander — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 10:36:13 +0000

The Album Promotorum Universitatis Groninganae is a database containing information about PhD graduates of the University of Groningen from 1914 to the present. The list contains personal details (name, years of birth and death, place of birth, gender), thesis title, discipline, supervisors, and the location of the thesis within the collection, sometimes with a link to the online version. In 2012, some 450 new entries were added to the database. The total number of entries is currently about 10,000.

In 2012, it was decided that the database contained sufficient entries to make the website publicly available.

Relocating collections and reorganizing journals

Frank den Hollander — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 09:51:02 +0000

In 2012, the Book Management team (Stacks and Dispatch) put tremendous effort into reorganizing journals (e.g. those also in JSTOR) in order to create shelf space for journals from the Mathematics and Natural Sciences Library.

The merger of the libraries of FEB, FRW, and FWN into the Zernike Library involved a great deal of work for the team, but by being resourceful they managed to successfully relocate the collection to the stacks.

Relocation of the Protestant Theological University Kampen collection to the Zernike stacks

Frank den Hollander — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 09:47:37 +0000

Over the summer, part of the library collection of the Protestant Theological University in Kampen was moved to the Zernike stacks. A thousand metres of shelf space had been reserved for this purpose.

The books are only listed in the PThU catalogue, via which PThu staff and students can request them. The request forms are printed on a separate printer in the Zernike stacks and the books are delivered twice a week to the building in the Oude Ebbingestraat. PThU staff and students are given access to the electronic databases (proxy), for which they receive a P or S number. They also receive a free library card so that they can borrow books from the UB collection.

Temporary Self-Service Project begins

Frank den Hollander — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 09:44:55 +0000

In the run-up to the implementation of full self-service, a self-service section has been created next to the current Loans Desk. One or more self-service machines make it possible for most services to continue at weekends and evenings without the need for the Loans Desk to be staffed. Since the introduction of this self-service system it has not been necessary to staff the Loans Desk on Saturday mornings. Preparation work and minor renovations began at the end of 2012, and the new service started on 1 February 2013.

The results of a recent survey of University Library visitors showed that the respondents were much in favour of a returns box (24/7) for borrowed materials. A suitable location has been found close to the entrance. The idea of this 24/7 returns box is being further developed in 2013.

Launch of the Stacks Capacity project

Frank den Hollander — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 09:42:58 +0000

The UB stacks are practically full; with an estimated 2 out of the 75 km of shelf space left, the currently available stack space is scarce.

Since the UB opened its doors in 1985, space has not really been an issue; there was sufficient room for growth, and when the UB stacks threatened to fill up, temporary space was rented (Dierenriemstraat) and a permanent facility was added (Zernike stacks).

The library is being faced with a limited, fixed capacity on the one hand and the pressure of books offered for storage on the other. There is a lot of pressure as it is, and it will only increase in the next five years as a result of the planned clustering of library locations, which will mean that large parts of the collections on open shelves (almost 25 km in total) will be moved to the closed stacks.

Despite the increase in digital publishing, printed material will continue to be added for quite some time.

The stacks will have to undergo a reorganization in the coming period in order to create sufficient shelf space. New material has already been subjected to a critical deselection procedure based on locally and nationally established criteria. Last year, the project group managed to make some room to accommodate the upcoming relocations, but this will not be enough. A large deduplication project is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2013.

The Stacks Logistics project

Frank den Hollander — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 09:39:29 +0000

The Stacks Logistics project, launched in 2012, has led the Book Management team to adopt a different working method as of 1 February 2013. The team now collects requested items in one-hour blocks, with nine rounds in total. The plan is to gradually reduce the number of rounds even further by introducing (temporary) self-service.

They have also started a gradual transition towards processing requests and returns in one round.