Yumma Darruwa Ngunnawal

Acknowledging we are on Ngunnawal and Ngambri country is very important for our Division.

Thanks to all those who have volunteered to assist in the Indigenous project – Della is looking forward to talking to you all!

ANU COVID-19

COVID inspections are no longer required. If you see supplies are running low of hand sanitiser or masks do let the relevant people know in your building.

Please read all the messages from the University about COVID 19.

All COVID updates will be communicated to staff and students via the weekly On Campus email newsletter. You can find previous staff On Campus and student On Campus editions here.

SIS end of year event

Put it in your diary now! DO let Vanessa and Alisha know if you will attend.

SIS Divisional Staff meeting

Come and hear about the ITS Digital Master Plan and service developments and the SIS Indigenous project.

Thursday 23rd November

10am - 11:30am

McDonald Room and Zoom

Zoom link

Meeting ID: 846 2259 1628

Password: 419802

Email address for EA University Librarian

Dinah has had ITS set up a functional email account to make the office work more smoothly - ea.universitylibrarian@anu.edu.au is now live.

Research Infrastructure Committee

The Committee considered a wealth of important matters including:

·       ITS Presentation: Research Infrastructure Initiative in the DICE Program

·       SIS Presentation on Indigenous Knowledge Project

·       Update on Research Infrastructure Strategy

Academic Quality Assessment Committee

A great range of very important issues were discussed at the meeting last week including:

·       2023 Go8 External Peer Review Pilot Report

·       Academic Progress Annual Report 2022

·       University Calendar 2024 - 2026

·       Discipline Rule Annual Report 2022 33

·       Undergraduate Awards

·       Graduate Awards

·       Program Review ANU College of Science

·       Foundation Program Assessment guidelines

·       Timetabling Procedure and Policy Review

·       Student Academic Study Load and Progression policy and Student Academic Study Load and Progression procedure

·       Amendment Late Withdrawal due to special circumstances policy and procedure

·       Draft Academic Accreditation Policy and Procedure Handbook

Library Advisory Committee

Professor Lexing Xie has stood down as the College of Engineering, Computing and Cybernetics representative on the Library Advisory Committee after providing excellent advice over the last 4 years. Dr Yun Kuen (Marco) Cheung has been appointed as the new CECC representative.

WHS

Thanks to everyone who worked so promptly for the issues in the Hancock Library where a client had damaged electrical equipment.

Symonston

The collection at Hume is commencing its move to Symonston.

The move of material from campus to Symonston continues with significant work on the installation and design of shelving.

Digitisation newsletter

The November Digi Newsletter is out now. Fantastic work by a wonderful team.

Chifley lift

On Wednesday afternoon I met with Kone and F&S to discuss some details about replacing the out of order lift in Chifley.

Thanks to Rob for the update on replacing the out of order lift in Chifley

·       Non-disruptive works (site evaluation/establishment, etc.) will start Friday 17th Nov

·       Demolition to start 20th Nov

·       All noisy work to be undertaken out of core (9am - 5pm) hours, keeping in mind it is 24/7

·       Demolition and installation will take about 3 weeks, finishing prior to Christmas if all goes smoothly

·       Testing and commissioning may roll over into the new year, but should only take a week or two.

CAUL & CONZUL

·       Hans W Groenewegen, a very active member of the Australian library profession for over thirty years, passed away on 3 November. He was University Librarian at Monash University and led many innovations.

Copyright

·       Knowledge Rights 21 have released two reports this month, Opening Knowledge: Retaining Rights and Open Licensing in Europe and Secondary Publishing Rights in Europe: status, challenges & opportunities

·       The last Ministerial Roundtable on Copyright will meet in early December – papers have been circulated

·       Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Submits Comment to US Copyright Office re: Deployment and Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) – ““The manner in which companies are developing and releasing generative AI tools and other AI products . . . raises concerns about potential harm to consumers, workers, and small businesses…The FTC has been exploring the risks associated with AI use, including violations of consumers’ privacy, automation of discrimination and bias, and turbocharging of deceptive practices, imposter schemes and other types of scams.”

Exciting new collection material

Following requests from researchers in the Centre of Early Modern Studies (CEMS) and College of Arts and Social Sciences (CASS), the ANU Library has added an extensive number of resources from GALE’s Primary Sources collections as part of the Chifley Flood Replacement project.

The new additions represent a significant investment in the Library’s collection of British historical materials from the sixteenth through to the eighteenth century. What is especially exciting is that these collections bring together millions of digitised original documents from some of the most transformative, turbulent and enduringly significant periods in British history.

Professor Rosalind Smith, Director of CEMS has said of the recent investment “This is absolutely amazing news and I am so grateful for your help in securing these resources for early modern scholars here at ANU”.

Write-offs

A big thank you to everyone who has worked on write-offs. Great work!

The approved write-offs are:

·       Menzies new books – 7,750

·       Menzies reference - 749

Missingham & Jenks fund awardees

I am delighted to congratulate the following staff who have successfully applied for funding from the award. Thank you to the assessment committee ably led by Tom Foley.

·       Tina Anderson is funded to attend the Initiative: ALIA Greening Libraries Conference

·       Nithiwadee (Wan] Chitravas is funded to attend the AIM Emerging Leader course

·       Emma Gerts is funded for the fee for the ALIA National Conference 2024 with a contribution for travel

Congratulations to Erin and Brindabella Chorus

Congratulations to 2024 Harmony Classic Division A Champion Brindabella Chorus. Winning this international award is a major achievement. Congratulations to Erin – a brilliant member of the Chorus! You can watch the official trailer here.

Feedback

Gallup Analytics renewal –

From CBE: Hi Cameron,

Many thanks to you and Alisha for your work on this. We are pleased this will benefit the whole university.

Roxanne Missingham

Director, Scholarly Information Services

From HR

Call for mentors and mentees

The ANU Professional Staff Mentoring Program has been running since 2020. The response and engagement from professional staff during that time has showed a high demand for this kind of development opportunity, with 432 mentor and mentee pairs participating in the program over the last five programs.

Participants have given very positive feedback about their experience and valuable suggestions for improvement which have been incorporated into subsequent programs.

Expressions of interest are now open for the next program commencing in February 2024 and we have places available for both mentors and mentees.

Please promote this opportunity to the professional staff in your teams, and particularly encourage more experienced staff to consider being involved as mentors.

Mentors can be professional staff from ANU classification level 6/7 or higher and can be in ongoing, fixed-term or continuing contingent funded positions for at least the duration of the mentoring program, in this case until the end of November 2024.

More information about the program and how to apply as a mentor or mentee can be found on the Professional Staff Mentoring Program web page.

If you have any questions about the program, please contact Emily Lawton in our Talent and Capability team via hrd.development@anu.edu.au

Changes coming to the PDR form

•       New performance tool and process to replace current PDR system will be developed

•       Soft launch from February 2024 with opt-in available for new system

•       All staff to transition to new approach by January 2025

ARDC

New Machine Learning Service for Australian Researchers

The Machine Learning eResearch Platform (MLeRP) is here to give Australian researchers more flexible and greater access to valuable GPU resources for a wide range of machine learning tasks.

Read more here

National Digital Research Infrastructure Strategy Open for Comment

The Draft National Digital Research Infrastructure Strategy for Australia is open for consultation until 20 November 2023.

Read more here

ANU Press and open access

Celebrating La Trobe University Press

La Trobe University and Black Inc. have celebrated La Trobe University Press at an event held at the State Library of Victoria. Prof Frank Bongiorno gave a great speech. Read about it here.

Supporting open access publishing for books: Collective funding models event summary

This blogpost from JISC begins “The UKRI open access policy for monographs, book chapters and edited collections goes live on 1 January 2024, and UKRI have confirmed that their ring-fenced fund of approximately £3.5 million can be used to support a range of open access models, including Diamond agreements (such as Purchase to Open or collective models) as well as the more traditional book processing charge and book chapter processing charges.” It summarises webinars with publishers, libraries and on infrastructure.

New titles

The Compleat Busoni, Volume 2: Busoni’s other music: A complete survey

Authored by: Larry Sitsky

The Compleat Busoni, Volume 3

Authored by: Larry Sitsky

Open repository

Open Data 2023

This long running assessment is based on a survey containing approximately 58 questions, which drew 6,091 usable responses. The report commences with opening remarks from Springer Nature’s CPO, Harsh Jegadeesan, and Digital Science’s CEO, Daniel Hook, Authors Mark Hahnel, Graham Smith, Niki Scaplehorn, Henning Schoenenberger and Laura Day provide a valuable context for the data. The major findings were:

·       Support is not making its way to those who need it

·       One size does not fit all

·       Challenging stereotypes

·       Credit is an ongoing issue

·       AI awareness hasn’t translated to action

How can open data sharing policies be more attentive to qualitative researchers?

Susie Weller outlines how an ethics of care is essential to making open qualitative data practical and ethical.

New research resources

·       Single-anchor two-way localization bounds for 5G mmWave systems

·       Japan search: Introducing a new research tool for scholars of Japan and its region

·       Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene sites in the montane forests of New Guinea yield early record of cassowary hunting and egg harvesting

·       Flaking stone activity in the tradition of iron smelting from the 8th to 17th centuries AD in the Matano region, South Sulawesi, Indonesia

·       Dignity Discourses in Struggles for Basic Legal Freedoms in China

Keeping up to date

Guidelines for First Nations Collection Description for the Australian library sector

Guidelines for First Nations Collection Description authored by Tui Raven, Yamaji/Noongar consultant, writer, and curator has been launched this week. The Guidelines are the result of a ground-breaking collaboration between the Australian Library & Information Association (ALIA), National and State Libraries Australasia (NSLA), the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) and CAVAL. For many years, libraries across Australia have been grappling with the question of how best to describe the contemporary and historic First Nations materials in their collections respectfully, meaningfully and consistently. Since 2022, a working group made up of representatives of the five organisations and Tui Raven has been working to create a set of high-level guidelines for the Australian library sector that will ensure descriptions are respectful, accurate, and considerate of historical biases, and support equitable representation of these communities’ perspectives and experiences. Access the guidelines here.

A steady takeover: Exploring the impact of AI on academic publishing

OASPA 2023 Conference on Open Scholarship | Panel Session | A steady takeover: Exploring the impact of AI on academic publishing Session speakers: Danny Kingsley, OAPEN Foundation and Charles Sturt University, Australia; Katherine Malan, University of South Africa and South African Computer Journal, South Africa; Avi Staiman, Academic Language Experts, Israel; and Joris van Rossum, STM Solutions, The Netherlands. Moderated by Andrea Chiarelli, Research Consulting, UK and Alex Mendonça, SciELO, Brazil. Listen to the session here.

Generative AI and libraries: 7 contexts

Lorcan Dempsey’s post gives great perspectives. He concludes “So, AI is becoming mainstream, unevenly, and is at once productive and problematic. It is being introduced into products and services, in different ways. Library users are engaging with AI tools and techniques, also very unevenly. This means that the library discussion is necessarily moving towards forms of engagement, cautiously, as questions come up in terms of user support and awareness, procurement, staff preparedness and medium-range planning.”

Navigating Risk in Vendor Data Privacy Practices: An Analysis of Elsevier's ScienceDirect.

SPARC have released this report. Produced in collaboration with Becky Yoose of LDH Consulting Services, the report documents a variety of data privacy practices that directly conflict with library privacy standards, and raises important questions regarding the potential for personal data collected from academic products to be used in the data brokering and surveillance products of RELX’s LexisNexis subsidiary.

To accompany the report SPARC have published a blog describing both continuing and forthcoming work SPARC will be undertaking to support libraries in taking action based on these privacy concerns.

NSLA Webinar Recording: AI Essentials for NSLA Libraries

The recording has been released on the NSLA website. The webinar on AI Essentials for NSLA Libraries offers great insights that will be of interest to all.

ANA analysis paper, ‘Friend, foe or frenemy: Foreseeable impacts of AI on arts, culture and creativity

Arts and culture think tank A New Approach has published an analysis paper, ‘Friend, foe or frenemy: Foreseeable impacts of AI on arts, culture and creativity’, which explores the depth and diversity of AI in Australian arts and culture, and highlights the need for enhanced understanding and coordinated governance. The paper illustrates how AI is already being used by creators across mediums and platforms. It also explores how AI is being used to recommend and moderate content, preserve language and heritage, and increase access to arts and culture through translation and captioning (From the APA newsletter).

‘Academic Libraries Reimagined’

From ChatGPT to speech recognition, academic libraries are in a unique position where applications of artificial intelligence can assist staff with internal information processing and help make collections more discoverable and analysable for researchers. It also means that librarians now require a solid grounding in data science and machine learning especially as we move toward the possibilities of the virtual reality library.

In this session, speakers present examples of how libraries are leveraging AI in research and learning.

Coming events

Canadian-Australian Partnership for Open Scholarship conference

When? 28-29 November 2023

Where? Sydney

More details. Conference Theme: Creative Approaches to Open Social Scholarship. Click here for more information.

ALIA Library Technicians Symposium

When? 20 March 2024

Where? TBA

More details. The theme is “Embracing the library Revolution'. The aim of the symposium is to explore how these issues and events are impacting the roles of library technicians, library officers, librarians and allied information professionals to revitalise our professional practice and services; review our commitment and impact to the Sustainable Development Goals; and reposition and promote our value in the broader contextual environment. Visit the website for more information.

ALIA national conference

When? 6-9 May 2024

Where? Adelaide

More details. Conference Theme: Truth and Dare. With this theme, we extend an invitation for First Nations Truth Telling, we showcase the battle against disinformation, and we dare ourselves to push our work forward to continue to bring vibrant, relevant services to library users and communities. Visit the website for more information.

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