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Exploring science at the British Library

17 posts categorized "Open access"

15 January 2021

zbMATH Open - mathematical database now free online

zbMATH Open - the first resource for mathematics. The logo is a white square containing a small grey square in the upper left corner and a larger red square in the lower right corner

We are very happy to hear that zbMATH, one of the most important bibliographic databases in the field of mathematics, is now freely available to all online. The database is run by FIZ Karlsruhe, the European Mathematical Society and the Heidelberg Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the funding to make it free to all was provided by the Joint Science Conference, the German national government organisation for science research funding and policy.

The database covers mathematics books and scholarly articles comprehensively since 1868, with some items from considerably earlier. It includes material from the paper abstracts journals Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik (1868-1945) and Zentralblatt für Mathematik (1931-2013). It can be searched by author and subject as normal, but also includes searching by mathematical formula and the subject-specific Mathematics Subject Classification. It includes not just abstracts, but independent reviews of the significance of important articles, although some of these are in German rather than English. It also has both forward and backward citation data. Where possible links to the online full-text item are provided.

The administrators are currently working on developing an API to allow content from zbMATH to be used in other digital information systems on an open access basis.

Anybody with an interest in mathematics is heartily recommended to try it out.

07 May 2020

The Future of Research Outputs

By Susan Guthrie, Maja Maricevic and Catriona Manville

 

Earlier this year, the British Library and RAND Europe hosted a roundtable discussion on how research outputs – the different ways research can be disseminated – are changing. It brought together representatives from research funders, publishers, research institutes, government and universities to explore the issue and its implications.

Workshop participants discussed RAND Europe’s recent study for Research England that showed that researchers currently produce a diversity of output forms, the range of which is likely to increase. Although researchers expect to continue to produce journal articles and conference contributions, they also want and plan to diversify the outputs they produce, with a particular focus on those aimed at a wider, non-academic audience.

The British Library also presented its current work and experience in collecting, preserving and making accessible a range of research outputs such as research data, web and social media, as well as new and evolving output formats.

The discussion addressed the following five questions:

How do we define and identify a research output?

There are many different types of outputs from research, from traditional journal articles and books to more diverse examples such as computer code, artworks, blogs, datasets and peer review contributions. One of the challenges is to identify which are actually outputs for dissemination, and which represent a stage in the development of research on the pathway to producing those outputs. An example of the latter is a Github repository for managing and storing revisions of projects, which may be fluid and changing on an ongoing basis. Other products – for example social media exchanges – are a fixed point but may not represent a researcher’s final perspective on a topic, rather the emergence and discussion of views and ideas. This fluid and dynamic mix of different media emerging over time makes it challenging to understand what is a ‘research output’ as traditionally defined. 

Where does responsibility lie?

Research is increasingly global and research outputs may span national borders – hence, drawing lines between what is and what is not ‘UK research’ is not straightforward. There is a limit on the extent to which a full record of all research endeavour can be provided. Different stakeholders – libraries, funders, institutions, publishers – can either look to shape and drive desirable changes in behaviour or respond to changes as they emerge from the ‘bottom up’. Funders in particular have the potential to drive researcher actions through the use of incentives.

How do we manage quality control?

As the range and nature of outputs broaden, questions emerge around how to assess the quality of the outputs and decide what is part of the scientific record. Peer review, the current approach, has its weaknesses. A key test of the quality and rigour of research is the extent of uptake and use by the academic community over time. In that sense, the change in types of outputs makes little difference to the ultimate assessment of their quality. However, as the volume of research products increase, alongside increasing concerns over reproducibility, fake news and the reliability of evidence, being able to point to legitimate and reliable sources may be of increasing value.

Do we have the support infrastructure for now and the future?

The growing diversity of research outputs creates new challenges in relation to the complex infrastructure needed to support their review, dissemination and storage across different players in the field e.g. funders, publishers and libraries. Identifying areas in which an intervention could make systems more efficient and futureproof could help but needs to be better understood. Securing digital platforms for sharing and collaborating on research could be part of these interventions, as could increasing digital archiving for discovery and access.

What are some possible solutions?

DataCite logoPermanent digital links to research outputs, which act as unique IDs for outputs to enable their consistent identification and referencing, may be a key part of the solution. Ensuring their consistent use, however, is a potential challenge and an important route forward to help make this problem more tractable. Participants discussed the successful example of DataCite in establishing an international solution. AI may also be part of the solution, in terms of discoverability of outputs. However, there are potential risks associated with this, such as biases, and a lack of knowledge around the way information is curated and presented by algorithms (for example, when using Google Scholar). Linked to these technological solutions is the need for data literacy, within and beyond the research community, as well as creating a culture of openness and transparency across all stages of the research cycle.

The changing nature of research outputs has the potential to affect a wide range of organisations and people in the sector. Joined-up thinking and action could help. As the diversity of research outputs increases, we have to make choices. We can either be reactive, responding to needs and challenges as they emerge, or proactive, to help shape and guide the nature and effective preservation of research outputs. A more proactive stance could help drive research towards better practice in information storage, sharing and communication, but requires early action and shared goals at a sector level. Continued dialogue and sharing of views on this topic could be important to make sure these issues are appropriately and adequately addressed.

 

Dr Susan Guthrie and Dr Catriona Manville are research leaders in science and innovation policy at RAND Europe. Maja Maricevic is head of higher education and science at the British Library.

02 April 2020

Publishers offering coronavirus articles free.

A pair of hands in blue disposable gloves frames a green petri dish with a model coronavirus in the centre
Image by danielfoster437 under a CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0 license


As the coronavirus pandemic continues to dominate news and lock down our daily lives, most of the major academic publishers have agreed to make their relevant articles available free online, even if they would otherwise be published with a paywall. Here is a set of links to various publisher sites, whether you are working on it yourself or looking for something to pass the time with.

American Chemical Society

American College of Physicians

Brill

British Medical Journal

Cambridge University Press

Cell Press

Chinese Medical Association

Elsevier

Emerald

European Respiratory Society

F1000

Frontiers

Future Science Group

Healthcare Infection Society

IEEE

IET

Informa Pharma Intelligence

Institute of Physics

Journal of the American Medical Association

Karger

The Lancet

National Academy of Sciences

New England Journal of Medicine

Oxford University Press

Royal Society

SAGE

Science

Springer Nature

Wiley

Wolters Kluwer

23 January 2019

Lab notebooks - handwriting at the core of science

McLaren notebook
Page from Anne McLaren's notebook (shelfmark Add MS 83844) covering embryo transfer experiments in mice, 1950s. (Copyright estate of Anne McLaren)


Today is World Handwriting Day, and we thought we’d pay our respects to the most important role handwriting plays in science, one which you might not have heard of if you aren’t a practicing scientist. This is the “lab notebook”, a scientist’s daily diary of all their experiments, thoughts, and other scientific activities. Until relatively recently, these were always handwritten, as they were meant to record what, in detail, someone was doing as they did it. Waiting to create them until work was finished caused too much risk of forgetting or distorting something.


Lab notebooks grew out of the personal diaries and notebooks of individual researchers. Some notebooks by well-known scientists have become Library treasures in their own right. One of the most famous works in our Treasures of the British Library exhibition is the Codex Arundel, a collection of notes written by Leonardo da Vinci (although probably not in the order they were bound) in the sixteenth century. At the other extreme of history, the Treasures Gallery currently displays the biologist Anne McLaren's lab book on embryo transfer in mice. Outside the BL, most of the lifelong field and theoretical notebook collections of Charles Darwin are digitised and available online, as are some of Albert Einstein's most significant theoretical notebooks. At the other end of accessibility, some of the lab notebooks of Marie and Pierre Curie, held by the National Library of France, are reported to still be so radioactive that they are not safe to handle without protective clothing.


Laboratory notebooks later became an even more important record of exactly what was done, as lone researchers were replaced by academic and private-sector research groups, science and technology became ever-more important to society, and scientists were expected to describe their methods in detail so that they could be replicated and turned into innovative technologies, materials and treatments. Additionally, until quite recently, American patent law worked on a “first to invent” basis whereby the person who could prove that they had the idea for an invention first, or their employer, had the right to a patent. Laboratory notebooks were the main source of evidence for this. In recent years, scientific misconduct has become a higher-profile issue, as scientists worry about a “replicability crisis” where too many uncertain or exaggerated results have been published. Lab books help prove that the work was done as the researchers claim, or the detail expected in them make discrepancies easier to recognise. And the notebooks of eminent scientists are a rich source for scientific historians.


By the latter part of the twentieth century, some organisations had very detailed instructions for how laboratory notebooks should be completed and stored. Lab books had to be written exactly as the work was carried out, or as soon as possible – no jotting notes on scraps of paper and writing them up at the end of the day. Notebooks were considered the property of the employer or the university, and could not be removed from the lab. And they had to be clearly paginated with no chance of pages being removed or replaced.


Many laboratories still use paper notebooks, due to the ease of simply writing notes down as you go. In many types of science, electronic devices are at risk of being exposed to spillages or damaging electromagnetic conditions, or are simply unwieldy. Some researchers also like to keep their detailed records to themselves instead of sharing them with a group. Some research groups and organisations are now moving to electronic recording, but the lifetime of electronic data can be questionable due to failure to back up and the lifespan of media. Specifically-designed electronic laboratory data systems are more secure. They are more common in industry than academia, as academics are more independent and less likely to respond to top-down orders, and academic institutions can be less able to afford the necessary software and hardware. The advantages of electronic research notes systems are that you can save large amounts of original data directly into the system without retyping or printing it, clone records from earlier experiments to save time, search your records more easily, share data within the group easily, and track the history of records. Now data is often electronically recorded and can be directly copied into a laboratory system without a transcription stage. It is possible to use general project and collaboration software packages such as Evernote, SharePoint, or GoogleDrive but specifically-designed software is now available. 


In 2011, Gregory Lang and David Botstein published a scanned copy of the entire lab notebook covering the research leading to a paper on yeast genetics, as an attachment to their e-journal article.


Modern lab books rarely find their way into the British Library collection, but our most famous example is the collection of Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin (also including records of earlier experiments by his mentor Sir Almroth Wright). As well as the material by Anne McLaren mentioned earlier, we also have some material from the photography pioneer Henry Fox Talbot, electrical inventor David Edward Hughes, and biologist Marilyn Monk.

Sources and further reading:
Barker, K, At the bench: a laboratory navigator, Cold Spring Harbor: Cold Spring Harbor Press, 2005. pp. 89-99. Shelfmark YK.2005.b.1888
Baykoucheva, S. Managing scientific information and research data, Oxford: Chandos Publishing, 2015. Available electronically in British Library reading rooms.
Bird, CL, Willoughby, C and Frey JG, "Laboratory notebooks in the digital era: the role of ELNs in record keeping for chemistry and other sciences", Chemical Society reviews, 2013, 42(20), pp. 8157-8175. Shelfmark (P) JB 00-E(105) or 3151.550000.
Elliott, CA, "Experimental data as a source for the history of science", The American archivist, 1974, 37(1), pp. 27-35. Shelfmark Ac. 1668 or 0810.390000, also available electronically in British Library reading rooms.
Holmes, FL, "Laboratory notebooks: can the daily record illuminate the broader picture", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 1990, 134(4), pp.349-366. Shelfmark Ac. 1830 or 6630.500000, also available electronically in British Library reading rooms.
Stanley, JT and Lewandowski, HJ, "Lab notebooks as scientific communication: investigating development from undergraduate courses to graduate research", Physical review: physics education research, 2016, 12, 020129, freely available online at https://journals.aps.org/prper/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.12.020129.
Williams, M, Bozyczko-Coyne, D, Dorsey, B and Larsen, S, "Appendix 2: Laboratory notebooks and data storage", in Gallager, SR and Wiley, EA, Eds. Current protocols essential laboratory techniques, Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2008. Shelfmark YK.2008.b.6299 or m09/.30081

29 August 2017

I4OC: The British Library and open data

In August the British Library joined the Initiative for Open Citations as a stakeholder. The I4OC’s aim of promoting the availability of structured, separable, open citation data fits perfectly with the Library's established strategy for open metadata which has just marked its seventh anniversary. I4oc logo

In August 2010, responding to UK Government calls for increased access to public data to promote transparency, economic growth and research, the British Library launched the strategy by offering over 16m CC0 licensed records from its catalogue and national bibliography datasets. This initiative aimed to remove constraints created by restrictive licensing and library specific standards to enable wider community re-use. In doing so the Library aimed to unlock the value of the data while improving access to information and culture in line with its wider strategic objectives.
 
The initial release was followed in 2011 by the launch of the Library’s first Linked Open Data (LOD) bibliographic service. The Library believed Linked Open Data to be a logical evolutionary step for the established principle of freedom of access to information, offering trusted knowledge organisations a central role in the new information landscape. The development proved influential among the library community in moving the Linked Data debate from theory to practice.

Over 1,700 organisations in 123 countries now use the Library’s open metadata services with many more taking single files. The value of the Library’s open data work was recognised by the British National Bibliography linked dataset receiving a 5 star rating on the UK Government Data.gov.uk site and certification from the Open Data Institute (ODI). In 2016 the Library launched the http://data.bl.uk/ platform in order to offer copies of a range of its datasets available for research and creative purposes. In addition, the BL Labs initiative continues to explore new opportunities for public use of the Library’s digital collections and data in exciting and innovative ways. The British Library therefore remains committed to an open approach to enable the widest possible re-use of its rich metadata and generate the best return on the investment in its creation.

I4oc users
I4OC users by country

 

As the example of the British Library’s open data work shows, opening up metadata facilitates access to information, creates efficiencies and allows others to enhance existing and develop new services. This is particularly important for researchers and others who do not work for organisations with subscriptions to commercial citation databases. The British Library believes that opening up metadata on research facilitates both improved research information management and original research, and therefore benefits all.

The I4OC’s recent call to arms for its stakeholders is therefore very much in tune with the British Library’s open data work in promoting the many benefits of freely accessible citation data for scholars, publishers and wider communities. Such benefits proved compelling enough to enable the I4OC to secure publisher agreement for nearly half of indexed scholarly data to be made openly accessible. This data is now being used in a range of new projects and services including OpenCitations and Wikidata. It's encouraging to see I4OC spreading the open data ideal so successfully and it is to be hoped that it will also succeed in ensuring open citations become the default in future.

Correction: Image shows users of BL open data services by country, not I4OC

08 June 2017

Untangling academic publishing

Untangling
Untangling Academic Publishing logo. Creator uncredited, published under CC-BY

On the 25th of May we attended the launch of the report Untangling Academic Publishing by Aileen Fyfe and others (https://zenodo.org/record/546100). The report describes the history of scholarly publishing from the nineteenth century to the modern era of open access, “crises” in affordability of journals and books, and controversy over commercial publishers’ profits and competing business models.

The report discusses the post-WWII evolution of scholarly publishing from an original model where learned societies saw dissemination of research results as simply a part of their essential activity, with no expectations of profit and many copies of journals distributed free to public, academic and scholarly subscription libraries. After WWII an alliance became formed with profit-seeking scholarly publishers, under the pressure of the increasing quantity of publically-funded academic research and increasingly large numbers of universities and professional researchers in the developed world, and a growing proliferation of subdisciplines. Commercial publishers turned scholarly publication into a profitable business by setting up journals for subdisciplines without their own journals or learned societies, selling to institutions, and internationalising the market.

It was during this time that the current system of peer review was developed, and publication metrics became increasingly used to assess the prestige of individual academics and reward them with career progression and funding.

However, since the 1980s this period of close association between the interests of scholars and commercial publishers has ended, due to further expansion of the research base, reduced library budgets due to inflation and cuts in funding, and in the UK specifically issues related to exchange rates. University libraries have struggled to afford journal subscriptions and monograph purchases, leading to a vicious circle of declining sales and increasing costs. Increasingly scholars at all but the wealthiest institutions have found themselves unable to legally obtain material that they need to read, and resentment of the profit margins made by the “big four” commercial scholarly publishers in particular has developed.

Hopes that digital publication would allow cost-cutting have failed to materialise, with publishers arguing that the actual costs of distributing and printing hard copy publications are relatively small compared to editorial costs, and that providing online access mechanisms with the robustness and additional features that users want is not as cheap as some initial enthusiasts assumed. Open access, which covers a variety of business models not based on charging for access at the point of use, has been promoted for almost twenty years, but has failed to replace subscription publishing or, to a great extent, to challenge the market dominance of major commercial publishers, with much open access publishing based on the “gold” business model funded by article processing charges paid by authors or research funders, often offered by commercial publishers as an alternative. Hence universities often find themselves faced with paying both subscriptions and article processing charges instead of just subscriptions, and mechanisms offered by publishers to offset one against the other have been criticised as lacking transparency.

At the event, there were presentations by Dr. Fyfe, her co-author Stephen Curry (whose views can be found here), and David Sweeney, Executive Chair Designate of Research England. Mr. Sweeney welcomed the report for describing the situation without demonising any parties, and pointed out that publishers are adding value and innovating. He suggested that a major current issue is that academics who choose how to publish their work have no real connection to the way that it is paid for – either by their institutional libraries paying subscriptions or by funders paying APC’s – and hence are often not aware of this as an issue. It was pointed out in discussion after the event that the conversation about publishing models is still almost completely among librarians and publishers, with few authors involved unless they are very interested in the subject – the report is aimed partly at raising awareness of the issues among authors.

The general argument of the report is that it is time to look again at whether learned societies should be taking more of a role in research dissemination and maybe financially supporting it, with particular criticism of those learned societies who contract out production of their publications to commercial publishers and do not pay attention to those publishers’ policies and behaviour. Although there is no direct allusion, it is interesting that soon after the report’s launch, this post was published on Scholarly Kitchen, discussing the concept of society-funded publication and putting forward the name of “diamond open access” for it.

27 March 2015

Access to Understanding 2015: Who Won What?

With the Access to Understanding awards ceremony just about wrapping up, we can now announce the winners…

First place was awarded to Philippa Matthews for her entry ‘Rolling back malaria: A journey through space and time’, which described research exploring the changing patterns of malaria risk across Africa. The piece was praised by our judges for its enthusiasm, clear writing style, and sense of narrative; “using the facts to tell the story” with a “sense that the research team were on an expedition”. Congratulations Philippa!

Trophy4web

Second place went to Juliet Lamb for her entry ‘Who you are, or who you’re with? Age predicts disease risk’. The judges felt that it was “confidently written” and did a “great job of clarifying the use of mathematical models in research”. And third place was awarded to Peter Canning for his entry ‘Breaking through cancer’s acid shell’ which “didn’t shy away from the hard science” of drug absorption in the acidic environment around tumours.

And finally, the People’s Choice Award – a key part of our competition – read by you and voted for by you. The overwhelming response to the award, with over 1600 votes across all entries, yet again demonstrates the public appetite for accessible science writing. This year’s winner with over 400 votes was Sabrina Talukdar with her entry ‘The persistent perils of puberty’. One reader commented that it was a “well written piece, making the original paper very accessible to lay people” which is exactly what Access to Understanding is about.

The standard of entries this year was very high, and it’s great to see the enthusiasm, talent and motivation of all the scientists who entered the competition.

You can read all of the shortlisted articles on our website, with topics ranging from body clocks to tinnitus. If you want to delve deeper, every article is also accompanied with a link to the original research paper freely available from Europe PMC – the European gateway to biomedical research.

Boudewijn Dominicus

11 November 2014

Science writing competition - now open for entries!

We are excited to announce the launch of 2015's Access to Understanding science writing competition - a prestigious, international competition aimed at PhD students and early career post-doctoral researchers where the challenge is to summarise a cutting-edge research article for a non-specialist audience.

The winner will receive an iPad and have their entry published in eLife. Read on for more…

A2U competition flyer_2015

For more information: http://EuropePMC.org/ScienceWritingCompetition

Questions: [email protected]

The competition is developed by the British Library, eLife and Europe PMC for Access to Understanding. It is supported by the Europe PMC Funders.

Access to Understanding is a collaboration promoting wider understanding of biomedical research findings.

03 November 2014

Access to Understanding

This week we share the final video from our Beautiful Science events season - the Access to Understanding science writing competition.

‘Access to Understanding’ is a science writing competition that challenges early career researchers to summarize a recent biomedical research article for a public audience.  The competition is delivered by the British Library in partnership with Europe PMC – the free life sciences information resource.  Although the move towards open access publishing means that scientific research is more easily accessible, access does not always equate to understanding as scientific papers often contain highly specific technical language. Access to Understanding aims to bridge this gap between access and understanding. 

Winning entrants were recognised at a prestigious awards ceremony, which included speeches by Sharmila Nebhrajani (Association of Medical Research Charities) and the Government Chief Scientific Advisor Sir Mark Walport on the importance of communicating science in an understandable way. As keynote speaker Sir Mark Walport said, “Science is for everyone - not just to be shared within a small closed community”.

First place went to Elizabeth Kirkham for her entry which explained research investigating the role of the brain in musical beat prediction and was published by eLife. 2014 also saw the launch of the People’s Choice award, which invited members of public to vote for their favourite shortlisted entry. You can read all the winning entries in the competition booklet

This year’s Access to Understanding competition launches later in November. We’ll be sharing more information on this blog very soon so stay tuned!

Katie Howe

07 July 2014

Crick retreat moves forward

Katie Howe reflects on the 3rd Francis Crick Institute post-docs’ retreat held at the British Library in June.

Over the past few years Team ScienceBL have watched with interest over the building site located at the north end of the British Library’s St Pancras site. The building under construction is the Francis Crick Institute, which when it opens its doors in 2015 will be a leading centre for biomedical research employing over 1000 scientists.

Picture4
The Francis Crick Institute - viewed from the ScienceBL office window

We are excited that the Francis Crick Institute will be our newest neighbour and were particularly pleased to collaborate with the Crick on this year’s post-docs’ retreat. The event was hosted at the British Library Conference Centre and brought together about 200 post-doctoral researchers from the Crick’s partner institutes for an interactive day of science, careers and networking. This is the third such retreat and the second time we have hosted the event here at the British Library.

The programme was organised by a committee of post-docs from the Crick’s partner institutes and included a range of sessions, covering everything from careers advice to the parasitic behaviour of cuckoos. There was plenty of time for scientists from all six institutes to get to know each other over lunch and in the coffee breaks as well as during a dedicated post-doc networking session. One thing that stood out for me was the non-linear career trajectories that were followed by many of the speakers. Especially enlightening in this regard were talks from Dr Nessa Carey and Prof Mark Lythgoe, both of whom had had varied and non-conventional career paths before ending up where they are now. This was a very refreshing insight for early career researchers who are considering their career options.

Picture3
L to R: The post-doc networking session; Nessa Carey (Photos: David Bacon, LRI)

The ScienceBL team were pleased to be invited to host a session entitled ‘Open Access for Early Career Researchers’. From our work with biomedical researchers we know that it is not always clear what is meant by the term Open Access and so in this session we wanted to shed some light on this complicated and often misunderstood area. Our own Anna Kinsey (EuropePMC Engagement Manager) kicked off the session by breaking down some common misconceptions about Open Access and explaining what it means for researchers. Anna went on to explain how EuropePMC can help biomedical researchers access a wide range of Open Access content. The Open Access session also included a thought-provoking talk from Steve Royle (Senior Cancer Research UK fellow at Warwick University) who shared his perspectives on Open Access publishing from the point of view of an early career researcher. Steve pointed out some of the pros and cons of publishing your research Open Access and explained why he felt that it is important for early career researchers to embrace this new development in publishing practice.

The Crick-BL retreat was finished off with a drinks reception in the Library’s terrace restaurant overlooking the Crick building before the post-docs headed off on an urban orienteering trail around the St Pancras area. We think we can safely say a good time was had by all and we look forward to working with the Crick in future years!

Katie Howe

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