Dr. Eric Archambault Profile
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Against the Grain Volume 28 | Issue 4 Article 32 2016 Dr. Eric Archambault Profile Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/atg Part of the Library and Information Science Commons Recommended Citation (2016) "Dr. Eric Archambault Profile," Against the Grain: Vol. 28: Iss. 4, Article 32. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7771/2380-176X.7476 This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. The Weeding Planner ... from page 36 against thepeople grain profile allergy trigger situations for the librarians, staff members, and student workers involved in the project. President and CEO, 1science and Science-Metrix Weeding is a skill that requires practice 3863, Boulevard Saint-Laurent, Suite 206, Montréal, QC, H2W 1Y1, Canada for maintenance. Without the practice of Phone: (514) 284-9986 • <[email protected]> regularly scheduled weeding, many librari- 1science.com ans and staff members experienced anxiety about their decisions to withdraw items, and BORN AND LIVED: Montreal QC in some cases, entire collections. Second PROFESSIONAL CAREER AND ACTIVITIES: PHD in Science and Technology Policy guessing the withdrawal of items occurred early in the weeding projects. For example, Studies from the Science Policy Research Unit of the U of Sussex, 25 years in research librarians initially selected two book carts and development, worked as a university researcher and taught courses on scientometrics full of materials to retain from a non-unique and the impacts of technology. Founder of Science-Metrix and 1science. collection of older books. A few weeks later, FAMILY: Wife and 1 son, 11 years old. that decision was reversed, and the entire IN MY SPARE TIME: Relax in the woods at my lake house and read. collection — approximately 400 linear feet FAVORITE BOOKS: The World According to Garp by John Irving and Life of Pi by Yann of materials — was to be retained and moved Martel. into compact shelving. As the project pro- gressed, librarians and staff members became PET PEEVES: Slow walkers. more comfortable with weeding tasks and felt PHILOSOPHY: Knowledge is power. more confident in their decision to deselect MOST MEMORABLE CAREER ACHIEVEMENT: That my first company,Science-Metrix , low-use or no-use titles that once supported is still thriving after almost 15 years in the business. long-shuttered academic programs. GOAL I HOPE TO ACHIEVE FIVE YEARS FROM NOW: That 1science is still a leader Other challenges included equipment and in the open access domain. human resource shortages. During the summer HOW/WHERE DO I SEE THE INDUSTRY IN FIVE YEARS: Thanks to the OA2020 initia- months when the project was in full swing, the tive (and our work), the majority of scholarly publications will be open access and journal student worker staff was reduced and librarians Dr. Eric Archambault Dr. subscriptions will be a thing of the past! took vacations and attended conferences. The dumpsters that were used to dispose of books were frequently overloaded and could not be taken away to the landfill by the hauling trucks. A partial solution to this problem was to fill weeding, even when it is a regularly scheduled became more certain of their weeding skills. the dumpsters half way; the real issue was the activity.9 It is also undeniable that weeding Their confidence was validated by the low disposal of the massive amount of items being physical books is not just a library business number of complaints from users even though withdrawn. There were no adequate physical practice but an emotional exercise for library more than 100,000 items were removed from means to dispose of the items efficiently. When employees and users alike: staff feel attached the collection. The project required units that dumpsters reached their capacity, withdrawn to the materials as part of their professional normally had little interaction to work together books could not be offloaded from book carts, roles, and users feel that disposing of books, closely, resulting in improved communication leading to shortage of available carts, which however old, outdated, and in disrepair, is the and relations between library departments and slowed down the project. Some carts were dam- equivalent of a “modern-day book burning.”10 staff and an increased understanding and appre- aged because they were overloaded with heavy Despite these challenges, there were un- ciation for each other’s expertise and work. books, which only made the shortage worse. expected benefits of the project. Librarians Partial serial runs also presented challenges: instead of pulling an entire serial title run and re- moving it from the ILS, each volume in the run Endnotes had to be withdrawn individually. A number of 1. Fine Brothers Entertainment. “Teens React to Encyclopedias,” Jul 12, 2015. https://www. historical collections had also been dispersed in youtube.com/watch?v=X7aJ3xaDMuM the stacks over the years, including a rather im- 2. John C. Hitt Library. “Coming attractions: 21st century library project,” http://library.ucf.edu/ portant collection of economics books. Without about/libraries/john-c-hitt-library/. records to show the scope and extent of these 3. George A. Smathers Libraries University of Florida. “Florida Academic Repository,” http:// collections, librarians were instructed to check cms.uflib.ufl.edu/flare/Index.aspx. for book plates denoting a book’s inclusion in 4. NCSU Libraries. “Hunt Library: bookBot” https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/huntlibrary/bookBot one of these collections, adding another layer of 5. Wolff, C., Rod, A., and Schonfiled, R. (2016). “Ithaka S+R US Faculty Survey 2015.” complexity to these weeding projects. ITHAKA S+R http://www.sr.ithaka.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/SR_Report_US_Faculty_Sur- vey_2015040416.pdf Change and Resistance 6. Kenney, A. (2014) “Leveraging the liaison model: From defining 21st century research librar- The weeding projects at LSU Libraries ies to implementing 21st century research universities.” ITHAKA S+R http://www.sr.ithaka.org/ can serve as textbook case studies for change wp-content/uploads/2014/03/SR_BriefingPaper_Kenney_20140322.pdf management practices. Resistance to large- 7. Association of College & Research Libraries. (2015). “Framework for Information Literacy scale weeding and repurposing projects largely for Higher Education.” http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework originates in the lack of control that many 8. John K. Kotter and Leonard A Schlesinger, “Choosing Strategies for Change,” Harvard feel when faced with sudden change. Change Business Review (1979): 107; Rosabeth Moss Kanter, “Ten Reasons People Resist Change,” often requires staff to participate in projects Harvard Business Review, September 25, 2012, accessed May 3, 2016, https://hbr.org/2012/09/ that they may fundamentally oppose or do not ten-reasons-people-resist-chang. understand.8 As has been noted in a recent 9. Rebecca Vnuk, “Weeding without Worry: Transparency and Communication Help Ease Weeding article published in American Libraries, library Woes,” American Libraries, May 2016, 51. employees at all levels, from staff to adminis- 10. Ibid. tration, may not understand the rationale for Against the Grain / September 2016 <http://www.against-the-grain.com> 37 Making the Most of Library Collections, While Multitasking: A Review of Best Practices for Marketing and Promoting Library Collections by Jennifer Jackson (Undergraduate Experience Librarian, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607) <[email protected]> s library users’ demand for information reading collections (graphic novels, fictional libraries are varied and can be high impact continues to evolve, libraries must not series, contemporary non-fiction), gaming at minimum or no cost to the library. These Aonly keep up with the demand, but stay collections, and popular cinematic collections, benefits include: increase awareness of relevant and interesting in the process. Some or the marketing and promotion of curriculum library services and exposure to non- users, libraries may point a finger at Google and the or subject based materials. potential for increased literacy, potential Internet, but library professionals have to be for establishing and strengthening campus realistic. Often what libraries fail to acknowl- Trends for Popular Collections partnerships, promotion of a positive image edge is that in the 21st century they are not With more and more academic libraries and challenging stereotypes of the library and only competing for users attention, but they there is interest to acquire resources that not extending the life of older library collections are often competing with multi-million dollar only support evolving and cutting-edge course (Davis et al. 2015). businesses. Businesses that most likely spend curriculums, but also support the emotional and For an academic institution, a pop-up money, time and resources marketing and personal needs of library users. library can be accomplished by gathering rel- promoting their information to potential library Displays — Displays are often a simple evant subject materials such as new textbooks users. Why shouldn’t libraries expect to do the and inexpensive way to highlight current col- or subject based materials, and having a subject same? Or better yet, why would lections. Library collection dis- librarian go to the department creating a mobile libraries believe that users plays can take two forms, display.