Yumma Darruwa Ngunnawal

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

The next Indigenous Cultural Intellectual Property training run by Terri Janke and Company is on Tuesday 6 February at 9:30am – 1:00pm.

Please let Dinah (ea.universitylibrarian@anu.edu.au) know if you’d like to book in and haven’t done so already.

A reminder that the 2024 series of talks and discussions around Indigenous knowledge, research and education commences on Monday 12 February with the first speaker being Peter Swanton who will talk about Indigenous astronomy. Peter is an astrophysics graduate from ANU and Gamilaraay/Yuwaalaraay man from Mackay, Queensland. He has been working closely with Dr. Brad Tucker (ANU) and Prof. Brian Schmidt (ANU) looking into Dark Sky Parks for their cultural and scientific significance.

Last week we formed a sharing circle to discuss supporting academics on the journey to embedding “Insight into Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ Knowledges and Indigenous Peoples’ Perspectives” into the curriculum. Over the coming months we will develop information on our collections relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and relevant international resources which will be shared with SIS staff and the academic community. We will also be working with partners across the University including the Indigenous education network on this journey.

Finally, thanks to the work of the University of Sydney Library - the Metadata Services team at The University of Sydney Library has been adding headings from the AIATSIS Thesauri into their library records since 2019. Since December 2022, the Metadata Services team has been working with AIATSIS and Ex-Libris, their library services platform vendor, to discuss the possibility of adding the AIATSIS Thesauri into Alma. On 18th January 2024, the AIATSIS topical thesaurus (aiatsiss) was available in the Alma's community zone as one of the authority vocabularies. The AIATSIS topical authority records are now searchable in the authority index. A great step forward!

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 in your building know.

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

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

WHS

WHS has been a strong focus so far this year. We met with Sheren to better understand the current approach of the University for the election of HSRs. She will provide templates and the call for nominations is likely to occur in February.

Sheren also provided a copy of the University’s WHS plan. The SIS plan cascades from that plan so work will now commence on the SIS WHS plan for 2024. The University’s plan has six elements, and remains in the same format as previous years. A reminder that all plans are published on the library intranet and promoted through the newsletter and work groups.

The Symonston static risk assessment is in revised draft form.

The WHS hazard and risk assessments draft local guideline, local guideline on the difference between a static risk and risk register draft risk register and additional documents will be circulated shortly for review and comment.

The annual (fourth quarterly) WHS reports are being prepared and will be made available when approved.

Symonston

Nearly all the collection from Hume has been packed up. Shelving dismantling is next and the space planning has been discussed at a number of meetings including architect’s drawings. Things are moving apace.

2024 Digitisation plan

The 2024 digitisation plan is live on the website.

Thanks to Erin, Steph, Nic and Michelle.

Chifley bathrooms

Thank you Dinah for persevering – F&S have confirmed that majority of the buttons have been replaced except for one of the toilets which is waiting on the parts.

CAUL & CONZUL

·       Natasha Bradley has taken up the role of University Librarian at Swinburne University of Technology

·       Kate Elder has been appointed to the role of Director, Library Services, at Charles Darwin University

·       Jane Miller has been appointed as the University Librarian, Victoria University.

Copyright

·       The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement over the use of articles and other content from the Times in training large language models and generating content from them. Read more here.

·       Kathy Bowrey, Tom Cochrane, Kylie Pappalardo, et. al., Managing Ownership of Copyright in Research Publications to Increase the Public Benefits from Research

Feedback

Hi Nithiwadee,

I hope you've had a refreshing break and wish you all the best for 2024.

I wanted to share my appreciation for Fonny's work. I had a query about accessing an article that was just outside of the Uni's subscription. Fonny not only quickly ran checks into the ANU databases to confirm we couldn't access it and point me to the document request form but actually went through the trouble to find an open access copy of the article on the web. That included finding and discarding another article with (confusingly) the exact same title.

This level of support was very welcome and made my day. Many thanks to you and to your team and colleagues for all the outstanding support you provide to the ANU community.

Cheers,

T 

--

Roxanne Missingham

Director, Scholarly Information Services

Coming events

ALIA Library Technicians Symposium

When? 20 March 2024

Where?  online

More details. The theme is “Embracing the library Revolution”. The aim of the symposium is to explore how recent social and political 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. Click here 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. Click here for more information.

IFLA Presidents meeting

When? 9 September and 2 October 2024.

Where?  Brisbane

More details. Early notice is here

ARDC

New Self-Assessment Tool to Promote FAIR Research Software

Developed by the Netherlands eScience Center and the ARDC, the FAIR Software Checklist can be used to assess how your software is aligned with the principles of findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability (FAIR).

Read more here.

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 shown 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

ANU Press and open access

Books without barriers

APA has released Books without barriers, which outlines the barriers to reading that people with print disability may experience if their needs are not supported, and describes how to avoid creating these barriers at each stage of the publishing process. It is in four parts:

1. Planning for inclusive publishing – the diverse ways in which the audience reads, developing an accessibility policy for publishers, and planning the publishing workflow.

2. Developing content – writing and editing, creating accessible tables, considerations for mathematics and science, and considerations for children’s books.

3. Describing images and tables – how to write image descriptions, the steps involved in drafting them, and examples of descriptions for different types of illustration.

4. Producing accessible books – design, digital formats, audiobooks, and testing and reviewing for quality assurance.

European Accessibility Act: Working Toward Compliance and Beyond

This blogpost puts the spotlight on the European Accessibility Act (EAA) directive and how different organisations are getting ready to make their publications and services EAA compliant.

New titles

Redeveloping China’s Villages in the Twenty-First Century: The Dilemmas of Policy Implementation

Authored by: Lior Rosenberg

Open repository

Library catalogue

Change to Primo – records for material in the repository now contain the statement “Open Research: Access to full text may be restricted.” Thanks to Erin and Rebecca, Morgan and Mason for their work on this.

New research resources

·       Baseline characteristics and age-related macular degeneration in participants of the "ASPirin in Reducing Events in the Elderly" (ASPREE)-AMD trial

·       A novel method for obtaining diffuse field measurements for microphone calibration

·       Transductive zero-shot learning for 3D point cloud classification

·       Patterns and predictors of nicotine replacement therapy use among alcohol and other drug clients enrolled in a smoking cessation randomised controlled trial

·       Recipe components and parents’ infant and young child feeding concerns: A mixed-methods study of recipe posts shared in Thai Facebook groups for parents

New Read and Publish agreement with CSIRO

We are excited to announce a new Read and Publish agreement with CSIRO!

The new agreement will accelerate progress towards open science and allow ANU authors to publish open access in all 19 CSIRO owned journals without having to pay Article Processing Charges (APCs).

Disciplines covered by CSIRO journals include Botany, Chemistry, Zoology, Agricultural sciences and Health sciences.

Further details are available in the Library’s Read and Publish Agreements guide.

A big thank you to Rebecca, Bee and the team for bringing this together.

Keeping up to date

Educause 2023 Higher Education Trend Watch

The report focuses on the workforce, cultural, and technological shifts for ten macro trends emerging in higher education in 2023. The top trends are:

AI

·       A Generative AI Primer. Launched on 2 January, this is a useful guide by Michael Webb published by JISC’s National Centre for AI

·       Licensing Options for Generative AI – another useful tool from JISC’s National Centre for AI

·       Establishing a Resource Hub for AI Success Stories in Education – also from JISC’s National Centre for AI

·       Ed Husic, Minister for Industry and Science has released the government’s interim response to the Safe and Responsible AI in Australia consultation. The Government’s response is targeted towards the use of AI in high-risk settings, where harms could be difficult to reverse, while ensuring that the vast majority of low risk AI use continues to flourish largely unimpeded

·       The US Government Accountability Office report on AI offers 35 recommendations and notes “Federal law and guidance have several requirements for agencies implementing AI, but they haven't all been met. For example, there's no government-wide guidance on how agencies should acquire and use AI. Without such guidance, agencies can't consistently manage AI. And until all requirements are met, agencies can't effectively address AI risks and benefits”.

WEF: biggest global risks

The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2024 says the biggest short-term risk stems from misinformation and disinformation. In the longer term, climate-related threats dominate the top 10 risks global populations will face.

Launch of Scopus AI

Scopus AI is designed to help Researchers navigate the World of Research.

Document Delivery and Resource Sharing: Global Perspective

The Document Delivery and Resource Sharing Standing Committee (DDRS) has shared its latest open access publication Document Delivery and Resource Sharing: Global Perspectives. The publication was realised by the HERMES project, funded by the European Union, with the goal ultimately being to create new, open source software for resource sharing, and to provide a training manual for librarians. 

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