News

The Lib4RI team wishes everyone a wonderful Christmas, relaxing holidays, and a good start into the New Year!

Beginning in January 2021, Lib4RI will offer a fund to support scientists in publishing research articles in peer-reviewed journals that are available to all on the web without charge. The fund replaces the Eawag Open Access publication fund and the Empa Open Access publication fund and will now support researchers at all four research institutes: Eawag, Empa, PSI, and WSL.

As part of the new COVID-19 protection measures, the Federal Council has decreed the closure of all reading rooms of libraries and archives from 22 December 2020. Therefore, our reading rooms will stay closed until further notice. However, it will be possible to borrow, pick up and return books in the library; shipment via internal mail is recommended. Depending on the development of the COVID-19 pandemic further adaptations may be made in January.

Search and browse all scientific media, access all online content licensed by Lib4RI, and loan print media from all over Switzerland in a single portal: swisscovery. The new nationwide library system operated by the Swiss Library Service Platform (SLSP) has replaced the NEBIS lending network.

This week, swissuniversities announced the outcome of the Open Access (OA) negotiations with the publisher Wiley (see swissuniversities news release). This year’s negotiations concluded without any Read and Publish deal or temporary agreement. The talks will continue in 2021. Wiley has agreed to a «grace period», meaning that researchers in Switzerland will continue to have access to Wiley journals as long as the negotiations continue.

2020 has presented new challenges to us, as it has to many. We were faced with the challenge of continuing to provide our services to you and ensuring you have access to all the resources you need while working remotely. Not only have we succeeded in maintaining almost all our services this year, but we have also adopted new digital tools and developed innovative ideas. We believe that the digital transformation of our library processes and services – a development that has already been steadily progressing over the past decade and has now accelerated – is here to stay.

The time has come. On Monday, 7 Dec 2020, 10:00, swisscovery, the new nationwide library system operated by the Swiss Library Service Platform (SLSP) goes online and replaces NEBIS. Lib4RI has joined the new SLSP network together with more than 470 other academic libraries from all over Switzerland.

Need help writing your scientific manuscript? Use our new service Scientific Publishing to help you through the process.

Time is flying! On 7 December the time has come for swisscovery, the new nationwide library system operated by the Swiss Library Service Platform (SLSP) replacing the NEBIS lending network. We have already provided preliminary information in one of our recent news.

Join our team! We have an interesting job opening for a project assistant, mainly working with electronic ressources, but also participating in the work with our institutional repository DORA.

Thank you so much for your tremendous interest in our autumn webinar miniseries covering selected topics from our regular training modules on Searching & Managing Scientific Information.

The new Swiss Open Access big deals with Elsevier and Springer Nature have been praised as an « important step » and « key milestone » towards achieving the goal of Open Access. Although Open Access big deals undoubtedly offer immediate benefits to scientists, they also might have adverse effects on scholarly publishing in the long run – a downside that is often glossed over. In this commentary, we therefore draw attention to the limitations and flaws of national Open Access big deals.

The global Open Access Week is an opportunity for the academic and research community to continue to learn about the potential benefits of Open Access, to share what they’ve learned with colleagues, and to help inspire wider participation in helping to make Open Access a new norm in scholarship and research. Learn more about how you can get involved at openaccessweek.org.

Due to the ongoing corona situation, our biannual training modules on Searching & Managing Scientific Information usually offered to all affiliates of Eawag, Empa, PSI and WSL will be replaced by a webinar miniseries (via Zoom) covering some selected topics. We hope to be back with a full set of training modules in spring next year.

In early December, the NEBIS lending network will be dissolved and replaced by swisscovery, the new nationwide library system operated by the Swiss Library Service Platform (SLSP). Lib4RI has joined the new SLSP network together with more than 470 other academic libraries from all over Switzerland.

We have a brand-new Lib4RI-Info. The new Lib4RI-Info #P1 on DORA shows you how to use DORA, submit the correct version, search for publications, create publication lists and much more.

Nature Nano is an artificial intelligence enhanced research database on material and nanoscience.

You can now send your manuscripts to us for a free plagiarism check. Plagiarism – in other words copying context from other sources without proper citation – has always been prosecuted and nowadays is thoroughly checked. Many journals and funders check your manuscript for plagiarism and the result can be a reason to reject your submission.

On 8 June 2020, our library premises will reopen with reduced hours and on site offers. It will be possible to borrow, pick up and return books in the library, shipment via internal mail is recommended.

Swissuniversities and Springer Nature have reached a Memorandum of Understanding for the conclusion of a «read and publish» contract (see swissuniversities and Springer Nature). Once signed, this contract will allow corresponding authors affiliated with all Swiss academic and research institutions participating in the agreement – including Eawag, Empa, PSI and WSL – to publish Open Access (OA) in some 2200 Springer Nature hybrid journals.

Lib4RI’s library services are still being affected by the ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). All our premises remain closed until further notice and most of our services will continue to be provided electronically.

Lib4RI’s Spring Training Series 2020, Searching & Managing Scientific Information, including all of its modules, had to be cancelled due to the pandemic and related federal regulations. We are all the more pleased to offer a miniseries of webinars in June 2020 (via Zoom) covering a few selected topics taken from this cancelled spring training series. We hope to be back with all our training modules in autumn.

Lib4RI has overhauled its project management system. We are now planning, organising and documenting all library projects on a single collaboration platform. Having carefully considered and clearly defined the goals, timelines, milestones, tasks, responsibilities and limitations of all library projects, Lib4RI is stepping up its collaboration and productivity.

The ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is also affecting the services of the library. All Lib4RI libraries are closed until further notice. However, most of our services can be provided digitally and we try to maintain them as good as possible

We are now actively harvesting publications affiliated to the four research institutes from external databases. Some of you may have already received e-mails about publications we have recorded in DORA that you have not yet sent to us.

Update: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic all courses are cancelled. We are evaluating digital alternatives.

At Elsevier, corresponding authors of Swiss research institutes can make most of their articles available Open Access for the next three years at no extra cost. This is possible because swissuniversities and Elsevier have reached a memorandum of understanding for both reading access to journals and Open Access publishing last December (see Lib4RI Update #18 and swissuniversities’ press release ). After the negotiations with Springer Nature failed, the publisher announced preliminary access to newly published journal content until end of March 2020.

There’s a lot happening in the world of Open Access (OA): Big deal negotiations are entering into the next round, most research funders have OA policies in place and several publishers offer discounts on OA publication fees. So you don’t lose track of what’s going on, we’re continuously updating our information on the big deal negotiations, research funders’ OA policies and OA discounts.

We are currently streamlining our stock to provide additional space for new PSI offices. While most of our book collection is being transferred to the basement, there also are many books to be sorted out. This is why Lib4RI is organising a continuously restocked book table with giveaway books in front of the library hall (WHGA Foyer – Meeting Point) until mid-February. Many textbooks and standard books from all disciplines are available for free.

Exciting news for all you bookworms out there: We’ve added hundreds of new journals and e-books to our portfolio. At the same time, we’ve cancelled just a handful of products – mainly due to low usage. Here are the most important changes in 2020.