What’s to be done about academic journals?

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A lively debate has been generated amongst academics on both sides of the Atlantic following Harvard University’s decision to encourage academic staff to publish in open access journals because of the dramatic rise in the cost of journal subscriptions. This move was prompted by a memo sent out by Harvard University Library warning that it could no longer afford to pay for many commercially published journals.

Needless to say, this is a problem which also faces academic libraries in the UK and here in Cambridge the Journals Coordination Scheme set out to address the issue by pooling budgets and eliminating the duplication of subscriptions.  However, this alone cannot meet the annual price rises and so the RLUK, of which Cambridge University Library is a member, continues to make great efforts to negotiate price reductions through projects such as the Affordable Subscriptions for Periodicals Initiative (ASPI).
But what will happen in the future?  The situation as it stands is unsustainable, as John Naughton points out in his article in the Guardian, which includes a link to the campaigning website The Cost of Knowledge, which enables academics to register their objections to Elsevier.

If members of the academic community turn their backs on the big players like Elsevier, the world of academic journal publishing could be very different in a few years time – follow the progress of Open Access Publishing on this Cambridge University Library timeline ….

 

Latest Education ebooks

We have added another 26 ebooks (including the 4 pictured) to our collection. These can be accessed through the Faculty Library CamTools site.

For a full list of our latest titles, click here.

If you have any problems or questions about accessing  ebooks (or any other electronic material), please contact the Faculty Library team and we will be happy to help you.

The results are in…

 

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We’ve had a fantastic response (553 / 32%) to our print book/ebook Library survey – a BIG BIG thank you to everybody who took the time to complete it for us.

The 3 winners of the Amazon vouchers have been selected at random and will be contacted very soon.

Initial findings show that 25% of respondents have yet to use an ebook from the Faculty/University collections!  A dislike of reading on screen was given as the most common reason for not using ebooks.

 

Of those of you who do read ebooks, 60% just look at a few pages or read a chapter and only 2% of respondents are happy to read the whole of an ebook on screen.

Overall, less than 10% of you prefer ebooks to print books; almost 50% of you prefer print and 42% like to be able to use both.  The latter is echoed in the qualitative data which suggests that we need to continue to provide both print books and ebooks to meet your research needs.

We were overwhelmed by the lovely comments that you took the time to write!  Many of you said how much you valued the knowledge, expertise and helpfulness of the Library staff, and as professional Librarians we were delighted by this.  We are a reflective team and we aim to provide a responsive service to all of our users within current financial constraints.

We have noticed that several of you have asked specific questions and if you would like us to respond individually to those, please get in touch with us (library@educ.cam.ac.uk).  We have a wealth of information to evaluate and we will post updates on this blog over the coming weeks as we analyse it.  Watch this space!

Coming soon – Musical Creativities in Practice

We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of Pam Burnard’s latest book Musical Creativities in Practice. There is a book launch in the Faculty tomorrow (13th April) and it will be available to borrow from the Library soon.

Musical Creativities in Practice is full of case studies and real-life examples from people working in music across the world, and explores the social and cultural contexts of musical creativity. Students and researchers in the fields of music education and music psychology will find this a fascinating read.

More information about Musical Creativities in Practice can be found here.

Be Cambridge

 

“Be Cambridge” is an online campaign set up by the University Admissions Office to encourage students from all backgrounds to apply to Cambridge University. A series of short videos has been made to promote different courses, one of which is the Education Tripos.  The Faculty Library plays a starring role in the video and shots of it underline comments from one of the students interviewed about the fact that it provides an exceptionally good study environment. And of course the Library is not just a pretty face – we do as much as we can to support all students, by providing a personalised service, including provision of a wealth information, links to reading lists etc. via tailored Library VLE (CamTools) sites for each different course. The video can be viewed below, or on the Faculty of Education Undergraduate site.

 

New to the Library: Learning In and Out of School

The Routledge World Library of Educationalists series publishes compilations by international experts of what they consider to be their most significant writings. John MacBeath’s book, Learning In and Out of School is one of the most recent titles in this series and the different papers reflect the full range of educational issues which he has researched  and written about over the past 30 years. Some of his co-authors are also current members of the Faculty and include Peter Gronn, David Frost and  Sue Swaffield.

Check Library availability here.

We’ve Got Everything from A to Z!

Do you need to take resources to use on your school placement? Whatever topic you have to teach, we’re likely to have something relevant.  After all, we’ve got books and resources on everything from A to Z:

Aztecs, Butterflies, Castles, Dinosaurs, Easter, Fractions, Galileo, Hinduism, Inventions, Jamaica, Keyboards, Levers, Measuring, Numbers, Oceans, Puppets, Queens, Robots, Shapes, Tutankhamun, USA, Volcanoes, Xylophones, Yoghurt and Zoos

Are print books becoming obsolete?

Statistics just out show that the use of ebooks across the University has increased dramatically this year compared to last. With 5 out of 10 of the top most accessed ebooks being Education titles we would have expected the use of our print books to decrease drastically too.  So do we still need print copies? Looking at the print use of our most borrowed titles which are available as ebooks the answer is more complex than you would expect.  Yes, there are significant drops in the print use of some titles but also, some surprising increases in the use of others.

 Increase or decrease in use of print copies of titles available as ebooks at the Faculty of Education Library during 2010-2011 compared with 2009-2010

Overall borrowing from the Faculty Library seems to be increasing too: figures for this Michaelmas Term (2011) show a small increase on those from two years ago (2009), despite a drop in student numbers and the increased availability of electronic material.

Figures from another library in Cambridge reveal a similarly complex picture:  Libby Tilley, the English Faculty Librarian, found that over the past 5 years there has been an overall slight increase in borrowing of the print Cambridge Companions which are all available as ebooks.

It looks as if students in the Humanities and Social Sciences still like to use print as well as ebooks, but what do you think? We are hoping that Faculty of Education staff and students will let us know their views via an online survey which we are launching on Thursday 8^th March.  Watch this space for findings later on!

 

New to the Library: Children’s Picturebooks

Most people have fond memories of picturebooks they enjoyed as children – perhaps it was something by Quentin Blake or Where the Wild Things Are or Rosie’s Walk. All of these and many more produced by illustrators and artists from across the world are celebrated in  Morag Styles and Martin Salisbury’s book Children’s Picturebooks: the Art of Visual Storytelling. It is a fascinating exploration of the art of the picturebook as well as a visual treat. Check for Library availability here.

New to the Library: Politics and the Primary Teacher

In his new book  Politics and the Primary Teacher, Peter Cunningham addresses teachers and all those concerned with primary schools. He points out that it’s almost impossible to avoid the politics of education when it appears daily in the news media. His book aims to  support the reader’s understanding of the many complex political issues which affect the life and work of every primary school teacher. As Peter states in the final chapter, all those involved in primary education ‘need to remain alert to the political dynamics and be ready to engage in an informed way with parents, local community and in national debates.’ This book is therefore essential reading.

Check Library availability here.