The Jefferson Libraries are pleased to announce that we have entered into an institutional open access agreement with ACS (American Chemical Society) Publications. This agreement waives article processing charges (APC) for open access publishing in any ACS journal for manuscripts submitted by Jefferson authors between January 1, 2023 and December 31, 2025. Please visit the libraries’ Open Access Guide for more information and details on the ACS process.   

Formally known as a Transformative Agreement, this new license provides unlimited electronic access to all ACS journals and no-fee open access publishing for Jefferson authors. Jefferson Libraries have joined this agreement as part of our PALCI consortium membership. We will pay ACS Publications an additional annual license fee to participate in this Transformative Agreement. 

At manuscript submission, Jefferson authors must select Thomas Jefferson University as their affiliated institution from the ACS Paragon Plus system drop-down. Jefferson authors must use their Jefferson email address and should confirm that their stated affiliation within the manuscript is Thomas Jefferson University. Once the manuscript is accepted, Jefferson authors will be guided through the Journal Publishing Agreement for the appropriate open access options and the libraries will be notified that an open access manuscript is in process.  

We hope to announce a similar agreement with another publisher in the next few weeks. Please visit the libraries’ Open Access Guide for more information and details on the ACS process.   

FAQs 

• What if I submitted a manuscript to ACS in 2023 before learning of this agreement? 
  
  Please email elizabeth.tenhave@jefferson.edu and we will contact ACS Publications on your behalf. 
  
  
• What if only some of the authors are from Jefferson? 
  
  The only requirement is that the submitting or corresponding author be from Jefferson. 
  
  
• What if the ACS journal I am submitting to is not fully open access? 
  
  All ACS journals have an open access publishing option, and this agreement covers all ACS journals. 
  
  
• Other questions?  Please email elizabeth.tenhave@jefferson.edu  

March is Women’s History Month & International Women’s Month, and this year we’re celebrating with a collection of digital and print resources from the Gutman and Scott libraries on intersectional feminism. Check out the resources and join us on March 8, International Women’s Day, for INTERSECTIONAL FEMINISMS: Many Identities, One Movement. You can attend in-person or virtually.

At the event, Dr. Jane Caputi of the Center for Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Florida Atlantic University will explore the evolution of feminist theory and discuss the current battle over Black, Queer, and Feminist studies in America. A reception will follow the discussion. Learn more and sign up.

And while you’re at it, if you’re on the East Falls campus, check out Gutman Library’s Intersectional Feminism Collection on the 1^st floor (Main Floor) of the library to take out a resource or browse online. The titles in this collection cover how racism, ableism, xenophobia, and homophobia combine with sexism to show how societal discrimination affects every woman differently. If you’re in Center City, visit Scott Library’s 1st-floor Leisure Collection to check out Center City’s resources.

In addition to our print resources, explore our eBooks online:

100 Years of the Nineteenth Amendment: An Appraisal of Women’s Political Activism

And the Spirit Moved Them: The Lost Radical History of America’s First Feminists

Are All the Women Still White? Rethinking Race, Expanding Feminisms

Bodies of Information: Intersectional Feminism and the Digital Humanities

Feminist Disability Studies

Intersectionality in Feminist and Queer Movements: Confronting Privileges

Intersectional Feminist Readings of Comics: Interpreting Gender in Graphic Narratives

Marginalized Mothers, Mothering from the Margins

Medical Entanglements: Rethinking Feminist Debates about Healthcare

We hope you enjoy these resources in honor of Women’s History Month, and we’ll see you on March 8 at INTERSECTIONAL FEMINISMS: Many Identities, One Movement.

Celebrate International Women’s Day on Wednesday, March 8, by joining us for Intersectional Feminisms: Many Identities, One Movement. The discussion and reception will take place in the Media Classroom at the Paul J. Gutman Library on the East Falls campus from 5-7pm. You can attend the presentation virtually via Zoom.

Hear from Dr. Jane Caputi of the Center for Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Florida Atlantic University. Dr. Caputi will discuss the evolution of intersectional feminism – the idea that women’s overlapping identity markers like race and age impact how they experience discrimination.

Dr. Caputi will share examples of intersectional activism and also discuss the current attack on Black, Queer, and Feminist studies in America, specifically the recent Florida legislation’s rejection of the A.P. African American Studies curriculum. Learn more and register now.

After the presentation, join us for a reception to get to know others at Jefferson interested in the topic, and check out Gutman Library’s collection of books, magazines, videos, and eBooks on topic of intersectionality.

Register today and we’ll see you on March 8^th! Learn more about Dr. Caputi.

Love Data Week, February 13-17, is the international celebration of data, and is a week dedicated to spreading awareness of the importance of research data management and sharing and preserving data. Celebrate Love Data Week by attending sessions on LabArchives and NIH Data Management.

Introduction to LabArchives ELN for Research (February 15 and 16)
Learn the benefits that LabArchives offers researchers and how it can easily be integrated into your research data management toolkit. Topics covered include:

• Notebook structure
• Audit trail, revisions history, and version control
• Access controls
• Page signing and witnessing
• Creating templates and copying content
• Collaborating internally and externally

Register Now
Session 1: Wednesday, February 15, 10am
Session 2: Thursday, February 16, 1pm

Best Practices and Tips for Establishing Your Notebook’s Structure (February 13 and 17)
The LabArchives Research Notebook begins as a blank slate that is meant to be flexible so that you can customize the structure to complement current workflows. Join this session for a closer look at how you can use our built-in layouts or set up a notebook using other popular structures including: project and grant-based, individual researcher-based notebooks, date-based, or team and company notebooks to manage shared materials for reference purposes.

Register Now
Session 2: Friday, February 17, 10am

Creating Templates to Standardize the Collection and Management of Data (February 15 and 16)
We recommend using templates in LabArchives to create a consistent entry format for documenting and tracking information. Templates can be made from reusable pages or entries that can easily and quickly be copied to help save time. Once created, this form can be reused by all members of the notebook to provide consistency and a clear list of data requirements. Join this session to see examples of templates, how you can create your own, and reuse them.

Register Now
Session 1: Wednesday, February 15, 3pm
Session 2: Thursday, February 16, 11am

Creating a Data Management and Sharing Plan For Your Research (February 14)
This workshop, led by Scott librarians Larissa Gordon and Anita Lai, and Jessica Gutierrez, Associate Director of Research Conduct & Compliance, provides faculty with resources and advice about creating data management plans for research data using the 2016 FAIR Guiding Principles for Scientific Data Management and Stewardship. These plans will be required for NIH grants starting in the new year, but data management is also valuable for every researcher to consider. It can help to preserve your data, make your research more visible, and also aids in the advancement of the scientific community by allowing other researchers to access your data. Special attention will be paid to how Jeffersonians can use LabArchives as an openly accessible data repository.

Register Now
Session 1: Tuesday, February 14, 1pm

Mark your calendar for Intersectional Feminisms – a presentation by Dr. Jane Caputi – on Wednesday, March 8, as we celebrate International Women’s Day.

At Intersectional Feminisms, Dr. Caputi, Professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Florida Atlantic University, will lead a presentation on the general history of intersectional feminism and beyond.

We invite all of the Jefferson community to attend this event on Wednesday, March 8, at 5 pm in Gutman Library’s Media Classroom. After the presentation, a reception will follow. We’ll share more event details and registration links soon.

Dr. Caputi’s primary research is in contemporary American cultural studies, including popular culture, gender and violence, and ecofeminism and environmental justice. 

Dr. Caputi has made two educational documentaries, The Pornography of Everyday Life (2006), distributed by Berkeley Media, and Feed the Green: Feminist Voices for the Earth (2016), distributed by Women Make Movies. Check out Dr. Caputi’s resume to learn more about her work and background. 

The New Year is a time to acknowledge the accomplishments of the past and prepare for all of the changes still to come.

This January, we’re highlighting resources that support self-care, mental health, and more. Topics include seasonal affective disorder, psychedelics, aging, and knitting.

Electronic Resources

Iceland : Deep In The Polar Night (video)

Mindful Knitting: Inviting Contemplative Practice to the Craft by Tara Jon Manning (eBook)

The New Year–The Old Year by Ida B. Wells (article)

Stacks (Scott Memorial Library)

Five Tuesdays in Winter by Lily King

How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan

Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore

Graphic Medicine (Scott Memorial Library)

The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel

In the summer of 2020, the NIH began a pilot program to add Covid-19 related preprints featuring research funded by the NIH to its databases. Two years later, evaluations of this pilot program are positive (Funk, 2022). The National Library of Medicine (NLM) successfully managed the technical hurdles of including and properly labeling preprints into PubMed and PubMed Central (PMC). Including preprints increased the discoverability of NIH-funded research, increasing the speed of access by more than 100 days, according to one published statistic, while not decreasing trust in the NLM or its research tools. According to the NIH, indexing preprints in multiple places had value because researchers access and discover information differently. Due to the success of this pilot, the NIH is expanding its incorporation of preprints into the database and will soon start including all preprints supported by NIH funds published after January 1^st, 2023 (NLM, 2022).

It is important to note that the NIH will only include preprints posted to servers that it identified during the first phase of its pilot program as having policies and practices that align both with the mission of the NIH and with recommendations made by groups such as the Committee on Publication Ethics. Eligible preprint servers currently include bioRxiv, medRxiv, arXiv, and Research Square, although the list may change over time.

In support of this new phase of its pilot program, the NIH has updated its search functions and record displays, including an updated information banner on preprint records, more prominent identification of final published journal articles on preprint records, and the ability to exclude preprints from a search as well as limit a search to preprints only (NLM, 2023). Figures 1 and 2 show how the updated peer-reviewed articles are displayed on preprints in PubMed and PMC.

At the end of 2023, the second phase of this program will be assessed to evaluate its continued success in increasing the discoverability and maximizing the impact of NIH-funded research.

Learn more about preprints and contact us with questions.

References:

Funk, K., Zayas-Caban, T. & Beck J. (2022). Phase 1 of the NIH Preprint Pilot: Testing the viability of making preprints discoverable in PubMed Central and PubMed. BioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.12.12.520156

National Library of Medicine. (2022, December 14). NIH Preprint Pilot accelerates and expands discovery of research results: Expansion of pilot planned for early 2023. https://www.nlm.nih.gov/news/NIH_Preprint_Pilot_Accelerates_Expands_Discovery_Research_Results.html

National Library of Medicine. (2023, January 9). Next phase of the NIH Preprint Pilot launching soon. NCBI Insights. https://ncbiinsights.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2023/01/09/next-phase-preprint-pilot/

If you are interested in learning more about the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), join the Academic Commons’ new SoTL Community. This community is open to anyone interested in teaching and learning – including faculty, staff, postdocs, and graduate students. Complete the interest form to get started.

SoTL is a growing field in higher education that uses systematic and methodological inquiry to research the impact of teaching practices and learning experiences. SoTL is a valuable exercise to reflect on your teaching practices, with the overall goal of improving participant learning. SoTL projects aim to improve learning by finding better, more engaging ways to teach. 

As a member of the SoTL Community, you will learn the steps involved in SoTL research, develop your own SoTL plan, share progress on your project, and offer feedback to colleagues. Our community will meet three times during the spring 2023 semester (February, March, and April) for one-hour sessions. To learn more about each session’s goals and topics, read our earlier article.

If you are interested in joining this community, complete this interest form. Please complete the form by Friday, January 20, 2023.

Are you interested in creative writing and feel you’ve got a story to tell but don’t have the time or feel intimidated? Join the Write Your Story Creative Writing Series!

We’ll gather (on Zoom) the last Wednesday of every month at 5:30 pm from January to May to work on creative writing projects. Our first session is Wednesday, January 25.

The Write Your Story series is open to everyone at Jefferson – no experience with creative writing is required. We hope you’ll join us!

In the Write Your Story series, you’ll receive:

• Guidance on writing and genres
• Creative prompts
• Dedicated writing time
• Feedback on your work

Everyone deserves to tell and preserve their stories, and writing gives you the means to do it. We hope you’ll join us at Write Your Story!

Check out this flyer for more information. Write Your Story is brought to you from the Academic Commons’ Office for Professional Writing, Publishing, and Communications (OPWPC) and Eakins Writing Project.

Science Slam is a competition where scientists explain their research in short talks in an easily understandable and entertaining way for a non-expert audience. Jefferson’s Science Slam, on Thursday, February 16, will grant cash prizes for all participants. Everyone at Jefferson is invited to participate. Science Slam is organized by Jefferson’s Graduate Student Association.

Save the Date for the Science Slam Competition:
Thursday, February 16, 5pm
Venture Café at University City Science Center

Science Slam Info Session (for participants):
Thursday, January 19,  3pm
Bluemle Building, Room 105
Sign up here

Learn more about Science Slam by checking out this flyer. Questions? Email GSA@students.jefferson.edu

This January 1, another selection of books, movies, and songs will come into the public domain. A curated list of these works that will fall out of copyright at the start of 2023 can be found on The Public Domain Review’s website.

Last year, the star of the show was Winne-the-Pooh. In our 2022 Public Domain Day post, we discussed how creators could now use this character without paying a fee to a rights holder because those rights had now expired. However, the story is a bit more complicated. Because only the first Winnie-the-Pooh book has come into the public domain, there are some limitations on what creators can do with this character. The world of Winnie-the-Pooh evolved after the first book was published. New characters, like Tigger, were introduced in subsequent books, and some significant changes were made in their design over time, including the addition of Pooh’s signature red shirt. These substantial changes to the characters are still considered under copyright, and creators who come too close to the Disney version may violate copyright law. Just because a character enters the public domain does not mean that everything about that character is fair game for creators to use.

For Public Domain Day 2023, this principle is perhaps best illustrated by the character of Sherlock Holmes. While most stories about this character are in the public domain and have been for many years, several of the last stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle about his famous detective are under copyright in the United States until January 1, 2023. This has led many creators to continue paying fees to the Doyle estate to avoid potential litigation. The estate has also sued creators for infringing on their rights, most recently Netflix over its Enola Holmes series. The estate claimed that elements of the new series, such as the warmer and more compassionate depiction of Sherlock Holmes, were only present in the later short stories that were still under copyright. While this lawsuit was ultimately settled out of court, it provides a great example of how nuanced copyright law can be.

However, it is also important to remember that the rules regarding public domain works are relatively straightforward compared to the concept of fair use that creators must be familiar with when they seek to use aspects of a work that is still under copyright. Students and faculty who create scholarship meant to be shared with the public, such as blog posts, infographics, and educational handouts, would benefit from an overview of copyright. Visit the Thomas Jefferson University Libraries Copyright Guide to ensure you have the analytical skills needed to know if an academic and/or popular work is consistent according to the law (Gaede & Thornhill, 2022, p. 187).

Email askalibrarian@jefferson.edu if you have questions or would like to discuss integrating these topics into your course.

Sources and further reading:

Jenkins, J. (2022). This Bear’s For You! (Or, Is It?). Center for the Study of Public Domain. https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2022/bcvpd/

Perrotti, N. (2020, December 3). Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Copyrightable Character. NYU Journal of Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law. https://blog.jipel.law.nyu.edu/2020/12/sherlock-holmes-and-the-case-of-the-copyrightable-character

Xiao, C. (2022, February 22). How ‘Public’ is the Public Domain? Winnie-the-Pooh Illustrates Copyrights Limitations of Public Domain Works. IPWatchdog. https://ipwatchdog.com/2022/02/22/public-public-domain-winnie-pooh-illustrates-copyright-limitations-public-domain-works/id=146207/

Gaede, F. & Thornhill. K. (2022). Teaching copyright through pop culture for public scholarship-based instruction. In. Johnson, M. E., Weeks, T.C., & Davis, J.P. Integrating popular culture into the academic library (pp. 181-280).  Roman & Littlefield. Via Thomas Jefferson University Libraries

Register now for an introductory webinar on BioRender. BioRender Premium is available to all Jefferson students, staff, and faculty. Use it to create professional, beautiful scientific images in minutes.

BioRender Introduction Webinar
Wednesday, December 7, 12pm
REGISTER HERE

Sydney Burniston, BioRender’s Scientific Communications & Customer Success Manager, will lead the webinar. Download BioRender and read more about its features and tools. BioRender is a website application used by researchers to create and share professional science figures. It includes over 40,000 icons you can use to create scientific posters, presentations, and publications.

Register for the BioRender webinar on December 7: https://biorender.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_IMDzDWJsRIit94ubPoFsjw

Check out this flyer for more information.

In December 2020, the journal eLife announced that it would become the first journal to only publish articles that had been posted as preprints and peer-review comments would become part of the public record. You can read more about this in a previous post. 

This move aligned with eLife’s stated commitment to replacing what they consider the outdated traditional print-based model of publication and peer review with one that makes more sense given the various online tools available in our digital age.

On October 20th, they announced they are taking another step in their quest to improve scholarly publishing. Now, there will be no accept/reject decision made by the journal based on peer review results. The publicly available peer review commentary will stand on its own as a testament to the article’s worthiness. eLife will still make editorial decisions about which articles to send out for peer review, but now every article that is reviewed by eLife will officially be considered to have been published by the journal.

In a statement made on eLife’s website, they note that they “have found that these public preprint reviews and assessments are far more effective than binary accept or reject decisions … at capturing the nuanced, multidimensional, and often ambiguous nature of peer review.” Richard Seever, co-founder of the preprint platforms bioRxiv & medRxiv, noted on Twitter that this change means that “publication as [a] proxy for [the] veracity/quality” of an article will be a thing of the past, at least for this journal.

Authors can change their article based on peer review comments (which can remain anonymous or not as the reviewer requests) or let their version stand while also including a published response to peer review comments. eLife also stated that they will reduce the Article Publishing Cost (APC) to $2,000 per article, down from $3,000.

Furthermore, while authors can choose to assign a copy of their articles as the “version of record,” this step is now optional, meaning that some works might become “living papers,” able to be changed at any time. According to Richard Seever, this might make the work of databases, which index articles to make them findable on their platforms, more challenging and confusing. For example, authors funded by the NIH will need to designate a version of record for eLife to post to PMC.

With any new publishing model, there are bound to be uncertainties, and the scholarly publishing community will have its eyes on eLife in the coming months to see how this new change works in practice. eLife’s editors hope that the journal will become respected for the quality of its peer review and not just its selectiveness.

However, not everyone is excited about these new changes. Some researchers believe that academics will simply switch to criteria other than the reputation of a journal as a proxy to evaluate the quality of an article, such as an institution’s reputation. This could put early career scientists and those at smaller institutions at a disadvantage. Other authors who have published with eLife in the past are concerned that the journal will lose its reputation for publishing high-quality work. They view this change as the journal’s attempt to “destroy the traditional” model of publication rather than simply helping to improve the system or create a new publishing model. 

Based on eLife’s own statements, it seems that this is exactly what they are attempting to do. Members of its editorial board note that there is an “urgent need to fix scientific publishing,” and that “the power to fix it resides uniquely with scientists” who should “not let [a] fear of change limit” the actions that are needed to create a system that will better support the work that scientists do in the future.

Do you publish in eLife, or would you consider it under their forthcoming model? Let us know.