Libfocus Link-out for December 2024

Welcome to the December edition of the Libfocus link-out, an assemblage of library-related things we have found informative, educational, thought-provoking and insightful on the Web over the past while.

Images featured in this month's link-out articles

‘Systematic reviews’ that aim to extract broad conclusions from many studies are in peril.
Junk papers written by paper mills are threatening to diminish the value of systematic reviews, reports Holly Else in Science.

Podcast on “Thesis for sale”.
What do you do if somebody else publishes your thesis as a book? Hear from Andrew Vonasch on the Human Robot Interaction podcast whose PhD thesis was “pirated” and sold on Amazon.

Top 100 list of banned books 2024.
Wondering what to buy the bibliophiles in your life this Christmas? Look no further than this Journo list of 100 books that have been challenged, banned or burned over the years for alleged obscenity, sexual content, religious reasons and more.

New research report: OER in public libraries.
The Library Futures report, “Keeping an Open Mind: Awareness, Use, and Perspectives of OER in Public Libraries,” takes a first look at how public librarians in America are using and perceiving OER. Tova Gaster outlines how public libraries are opening doors to a world of educational resources that are otherwise locked behind proprietary licenses.

Strength in numbers: How donors, friends, and volunteers drive library advocacy.
For libraryjournal.com, Jonna Ward looks at uniting key stakeholders behind public libraries in the US to advocate for funding, for service expansion, and for general support for their library in challenging times.

Let’s talk about toy books!
Yasmeen Khan, Graduate Trainee Resource Description Assistant at Oxford Libraries looks at the ‘Toy Book’ collection at Osney, a selection of legal deposit material requiring special care for a variety of reasons.

A library specific guide to Bluesky for academic libraries and librarians.
During November 2024, the social network Bluesky underwent a significant transformation. What had been a platform where a few libraries set up experimental profiles with mixed results, suddenly became a space where many libraries were achieving substantial engagement. In short, Bluesky has reached a critical mass, with enough users leaving Twitter and joining the platform for it be considered a legitimate X-replacement. This guide is a good place to start if you or your library wants to make the most of Bluesky.

10 Tips toward accessibility.
Elizabeth B. White provides some tips on making instructional material accessible using principles of Universal Design for Learning in American Library Magazine.

How to identify AI-generated text: 7 ways to tell if content was made by a bot.
In this Mashable article, Chance Townsend looks at strategies for evaluating text and determining if it has been AI generated.

What characterises LIS as a fragmenting discipline? 
In the Journal of Documentation, Pertti Vakkari characterises library and information science (LIS) as a fragmenting discipline both historically and by applying Whitley’s (1984) theory about the organisation of sciences and Fuchs’ (1993) theory about scientific change.

Who cites the contributions by information science?
Kalervo Järvelin and Pertti Vakkari endeavour to find out which research topics and methods in information science (IS) articles are used in other disciplines as indicated by citations.