Oxford University: Bodleian Libraries Planning For “Significant Reduction” In University Funding For The 2015-16 Academic Year & ORA-Data Pilot Launches

In a new edition of a newsletter sent at the conclusion of each term, Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian provides a roundup of news and developments at Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries.
The full text of the newsletter is available here (4 pages; PDF).
Here are a few items we noted in the newsletter:
Funding

After finishing the 2013-14 academic year by achieving our budgetary target, the Bodleian Libraries are now engaged in planning for a significant reduction in University funding for the 2015-16 academic year, as part of the University-wide budget strategy. These cuts will be among the most challenging for the Libraries in recent memory, and the Curators of the University Libraries will be discussing the approach to this situation at their 9th week meeting. I will report in more detail on how the Libraries will respond to this difficult financial situation in my Hilary Term newsletter.

Discovery

An upgrade of the software that powers SOLO (Primo), is planned for the morning of Tuesday 9 December. The upgrade will not only fix some issues but also includes some new and interesting features including: a ‘date slider’ which provides a more visual tool to search by date, ‘Times Cited’ information for some articles as well as ‘Altmetric icons’ for certain results.

Text and Data Repositories

rom September to November 2014 there were over 5,396 downloads of full text items from the Oxford University Research Archive (ORA) by library users; a 27% increase on the same period last year.
This term has also seen the launch of a pilot research data archive and catalogue lead by the Bodleian Digital Libraries Systems and Services (BDLSS) department. This new service, ORA-Data, is an extension of the existing ORA (publications) service. Through it researchers will be able to create records for data that underpin publications and (if required) deposit their dataset for safe keeping and reuse. A new self-deposit form has also been designed so that datasets from any discipline can be described and deposited for long-term preservation. DOIs can be assigned to datasets held in ORA-Data so they can be accurately cited, and so researchers obtain proper attribution for their work. A legal framework is nearing completion, and a draft charging model is ready to be considered for approval by the University’s Research Data Management Working Group. Guidelines and instructions for users are being prepared in readiness for release.

Full text of the newsletter is available here (4 pages; PDF).

Filed under: Academic Libraries, Data Files, Funding, Libraries, Management and Leadership, News, Open Access, Patrons and Users, Preservation, Roundup