Over 336,000 People Have Accessed UAlberta's Hosted Open Access Journals! Have You?

Open Access journals hosted by the University of Alberta Libraries have been viewed for free by almost every country in the last year. More than 336,000 users have visited our journals nearly half a million times.

Have you accessed any lately?

We host nearly 40 online journals using a popular open source software, Open Journal Systems. Each of our journals are edited and managed independently by diverse groups, such as scholarly societies, research groups, and student associations. They publish articles across a wide range of disciplines, from English to Pharmacy, but all share a common element: their articles are available entirely free of charge, to anyone who wants to read them.

Our journals have attracted readers from countries around the world. Not surprisingly, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia are our most frequent visitors. However, India, Germany, China, South Africa, Brazil, and Indonesia also make the top ten list. Visitors from the Turks and Caicos Islands spend the most time per visit on our site, while visitors from Iran have some of the highest rates of return visits. The only countries not represented are North Korea, and the Central African Republic.

Open access journals can be critical sources of high quality research information for scholars, students, practitioners, and the public, especially those who may lack access to well-resourced libraries or research centres. and we’re pleased to provide our hosting service free of charge to any Canadian journals who commit to making their content open access.

For more information about the UAlberta Libraries free journal hosting service, please contact ojshelp@ualberta.ca.

Research and Collections Resource Facility Update

We are keeping apace with our planning for the new Research and Collections Resource Facility (RCRF).  In fact, one of our key updates is that we’re considering a new name for the facility which better captures its function and sense of place…Bookmark.  What do you think?  Please comment with your feedback below.

At the building site on South Campus, you’ll see that the RCRF is literally taking shape!  The images below capture highlights from construction in June.

In addition to the advances made on the physical site, over the past eight weeks our RCRF Planning Team has been engaged in a range of activities:

• We hosted a stakeholder focus group to solicit input regarding the RCRF’s public spaces - the reading room and multi-purpose room.  Feedback from this group crystallized recent decisions regarding carpets, paint colours and furniture.
• CJ de Jong, our Access Services Coordinator and a key member of our planning team, recently visited the University of British Columbia’s Library Preservation and Archives (PARC), a similar storage facility, to learn more about their workflows, shelving and software.  Gleanings from this trip, and others to date, will continue to inform our planning process going forward.
• Larry Laliberte, our Geographic Information Systems Librarian, has been reviewing our map collection at BARD to identify potential candidates for digitization and ready the collection for its relocation to the RCRF.  
• We are working with Spacesaver to finalize our shelving needs.  We’ve also been talking quite a bit about how and when best to manage the process of cleaning collections as they are moved from BARD to the RCRF.  This is much more complex than you think.  Stay tuned! 

Visit the RCRF web page for more information and updates.

Post any questions or feedback below and and we’ll get back to you!

Share the Air

The University of Alberta Libraries are committed to being a welcoming space for all our users. As part of our ongoing courtesy campaign, we want to draw your attention to the potential effects of scented products on others in our community.  Scents are added to many personal hygiene products and detergents and those with a sensitivity to scents can often suffer a range of impacts due to even short-term exposure.  Please be considerate of those who are sensitive to scents and reduce your use of scented products while in library spaces.

Our efforts to heighten awareness of this issue dovetail with those of our broader University of Alberta community, which is striving to create a scent-reduced environment by promoting the use of environmentally-friendly cleaning products and building materials.  Your cooperation in limiting the negative impact of scents on students, staff and visitors is greatly appreciated.
Click here for more information.