What’s New

Spring 2020

Photo: UN Library

Chris Bourg Speaks on Open Science at the UN
Libraries Director Chris Bourg participated in the first United Nations Open Science Conference in New York on November 19, organized by the UN Dag Hammarskjöld Library in collaboration with the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC). With a theme of “Towards Global Open Science,” the conference aimed to elevate the discussion about open science and open research to the global level and to examine the role of open science in advancing the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Bourg spoke on a panel entitled, “Open Science and Library Infrastructures.” See video from the conference and other materials at research.un.org/conferences/OpenScienceUN.

Libraries Negotiate Innovative Open Access Agreement with ACM
Developed in collaboration with the University of California, Carnegie Mellon, and Iowa State University, a new agreement with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is the Libraries’ first publisher contract completed under the principles for open scholarship in the MIT Framework for Publisher Contracts, released in October. Under the agreement, the MIT community will continue to receive unlimited and unrestricted access to all articles in the ACM Digital Library. As of January 1, 2020, articles with by MIT authors published during the period of the agreement in ACM journals, conference proceedings, and magazines are made openly available at the time of publication at no cost to the authors. Additionally, ACM will make deposits into the institutional repository DSpace for all MIT co-authors. The new agreement also expands the range of rights MIT authors retain when publishing with ACM.

New Active Learning Classroom Opens
Hayden is not the only library getting an upgrade. IAP 2020 saw the official opening of the Barker Active Learning Classroom in Barker Library. Located on the library’s sixth floor, the newly refreshed space includes wall-mounted monitors, rolling whiteboards, and seating for 40 people. The space was designed primarily for Libraries-hosted classes and workshops for the MIT community and is especially well suited for hands-on activities.