Academic libraries are increasingly evolving from information providers into active participants in scientific and societal communication processes. This article examines how co-creation can serve as a strategic approach to strengthen dialogue-based communication in academic libraries. Drawing on a case study from the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, it analyses the collaborative development of a communication project on open science in business research. The study highlights how co-creation fosters mutual understanding, credibility, and organisational learning by integrating researchers, designers, and communication professionals in shared meaning-making processes. It also discusses structural and cultural preconditions for successful co-creation as well as implications for the evolving role of communication departments as facilitators within academic libraries. The findings suggest that co-creation contributes to sustainable relationship building and enhances the visibility of libraries as mediators and partners in research transformation.
This case study examines the implementation and impact of a job shadowing scheme at University of Nottingham Libraries. Job shadowing, as a low-cost staff development initiative, was introduced to address issues of staff engagement and retention in academic libraries. The paper outlines the scheme’s development, from its inception to full-scale implementation, highlighting its role in fostering cross-departmental understanding and breaking down silos. Key aspects include the commitment to inclusivity, the logistics of running the scheme, and the overwhelmingly positive feedback from both shadowees and hosts. The study shows how job shadowing contributes to staff engagement by providing opportunities for professional growth, networking, and a broader understanding of library operations. It also demonstrates the scheme’s potential for improving staff retention by offering insights into different roles and career paths. The paper concludes with key recommendations for other academic libraries seeking to implement similar initiatives and notes that, while developed in a university context, the model has the potential to be adapted by other organisations.
The motivation for this paper is the need of the German National Library to massively increase its web archiving activities as the 12,000 snapshots collected per year are considered not to be enough to reflect the German web appropriately. As collecting everything which could be defined as the German web is impossible, the concept of selecting an “exemplary diversity” is introduced and substantiated by the guiding principles of relevance and diversity. The long-term goal is to find methods to (semi-)automatise the selection process and the prerequisite for this are well-defined selection criteria and sources of relevant as well as diverse topics that can be exploited. First steps to operationalise the guiding principles are outlined and supplemented by technological challenges and requirements to support the selection process as well as in the light of the advancement of web technology. Finally, the paper proposes a mix of curational and automatised measures and sources of information that should be taken into consideration to cater for a good coverage of relevance and diversity, supplemented by technological aspects regarding alternative representations of web content in web archives to be discussed to bring the content of web archives closer to the original user experience.
This article examines the evolving role of research libraries in supporting the recognition of datasets as legitimate academic outputs through data publishing. Although the academic community increasingly acknowledges the value of treating research data as standalone contributions, there remains a lack of comprehensive frameworks and services to support this shift. Research libraries are well-positioned to lead in data curation and publication by collaborating with researchers, institutions, and other stakeholders. Using a qualitative, multi-method approach—including a literature review, an exploratory survey of university libraries in the Nordic and Baltic countries, and professional experience—we investigate current practices, challenges, and institutional perspectives on data publishing. Our findings highlight inconsistent terminology in data policies and evolving services for data appraisal and visibility. We differentiate data publishing from general data sharing, emphasizing critical aspects such as data citability, quality control, and ethical reuse. The article discusses various publishing pathways—such as data journals, repositories, and article supplements—and their respective implications. We identify key service gaps in libraries, particularly in data evaluation and discoverability, and propose strategies for libraries to promote data journals and domain-specific repositories. Ultimately, we advocate for libraries to expand their role by developing integrated services for data appraisal, curation, and preservation, and by strengthening staff competencies in data management. Such efforts are essential for increasing the visibility, credibility, and scholarly impact of research data. This paper is a continuation to a presentation provided in Liber Conference 2022. The presentation paper was acknowledged with the Innovation Award.
Research data management policies are ubiquitous in UK Higher Education Institutions, and are often written and managed by, or with, the library team. RDM policies attempt to balance the requirements of keeping data safe and secure when necessary and opening up data to allow reuse and to support research integrity. This article uses a framework analysis approach on 134 policies to investigate whether the UK RDM policies have become more open over time in terms of policy points and language. The investigation shows that recent policies have shown an increased likelihood of being more open in several areas: how long data should be archived for, sharing of software, and the mandatory inclusion of data availability statements in journal articles. Language around FAIR data terms have increased, as has using research integrity as a key reason to manage data according to best practices.
