C&RL News October 2017 478 N e w s f r o m t h e F i e l dDavid Free University of Washington Libraries implement open access policy As of September 1, 2017, librarians at the University of Washington (UW) will publish their research guided by an open access policy. The new policy promotes the visibil- ity and accessibility of their scholarly work and makes their research freely available to users. The policy, adopted in May 2017, was inspired by current university discussions regarding an open access policy for UW faculty as well as the University Libraries mission “to advance intellectual discovery and enrich the quality of life by connecting people with knowledge.” UW librarians will deposit the final, ac- cepted, post-peer-reviewed version of their research articles prior to final publisher formatting (“Accepted Author Manuscript” or “Author’s Final Version”) in the univer- sity’s institutional repository, ResearchWorks Archive. The policy does not restrict where authors can or should publish, nor require payment of article processing charges. OU Libraries textbook initiative saves students The University of Oklahoma (OU) Libraries- funded open educational resources initia- tive, the Alternative Textbook Grant, has saved OU students $1,631,935 in textbook costs to date. Now in its fourth year, the Al- ternative Textbook Grant was established to reduce students’ textbook costs by support- ing OU faculty members in the adoption, modification, or creation of open education- al resources (OER)—which include teach- ing, learning and research resources that are free of cost to use and repurpose—as well as affordable course content. Using OER in the classroom allows faculty to take steps to control the cost of higher education for students by adopting free or low-cost textbooks and digital course materials. To date, the Alternative Textbook Grant has saved more than 10,000 students the cost of a textbook in courses for which a traditional textbook was replaced with OER content, a savings impact that is 36.5 times greater than the amount awarded in grants from the libraries. The latest grant recipients can be viewed on the libraries’ website at vision.libraries.ou.edu. More information about the Alternative Textbook Grant and other open access initiatives can be found at open.ou.edu. Students teach students in the NCSU Peer Scholars Program This fall, the North Carolina State University (NCSU) Libraries launched the Peer Scholars Program, which gives graduate students or postdoctoral researchers the opportunity to teach specific research skills to their peers. With offerings coming online later in the fall, the program will feature workshops, seminars, and other programming focused on intro-, intermediate-, and advanced-level research and technical skillsets. These will range from advanced skills in statistical soft- ware and computer programming to more effective science communication and how to create a great research poster or presentation. By sharing their expertise with the NCSU community, early career researchers can gain valuable teaching experience, improve their communication skills, and use classroom technology in an informal teaching setting. This partnership between the libraries, gradu- ate students, and postdoctoral researchers also helps meet a growing campus need for instruction in research skills crucial to the success of early-career researchers. Alexander Hamilton papers now online The Library of Congress has put the pa- pers of Alexander Hamilton online for the first time in their original format. The Library holds the world’s largest collection of Ham- October 2017 479 C&RL News ACRL releases The Library Assessment Cookbook, The Self As Subject ACRL announces the publication of The Library Assessment Cookbook, edited by Aaron W. Dobbs, and The Self as Subject: Autoethnographic Research into Identity, Culture, and Academic Librarianship, edited by Anne-Marie Deitering, Robert Schroeder, and Richard Stoddart. The newest addition to the ACRL Cookbook series, The Library Assessment Cookbook compiles lessons and techniques for academic librarians to adapt, repurpose, and implement in their libraries. Assessment examines how library services and resources impact and are perceived by users, and guides strategic planning discussions and development of future acquisi- tions and services. Assessment is fundamental to positioning your library within your organization and effectively demonstrating how it furthers your institution’s goals. The Library Assessment Cookbook features 80 practical, easy-to-implement recipes divided into nine sections and will help librarians of all levels of experience measure and demonstrate their institutional value. The Self as Subject: Autoethnographic Re- search into Identity, Culture, and Academic Li- brarianship is a collection of reflective narratives that explores the varied dimensions of librarian- ship in the present moment, and examines auto- ethnography’s potential to help librarians answer questions that cannot be answered by traditional, empirical research methods and to reveal voices that are obscured by aggregations of data. Autoethnography is a type of research that uses writing and self-examination to explore far-ranging cultural, political, and social issues through personal experience. It is a qualitative, reflexive ethnographic method where the re- searcher is also the subject of inquiry. Using autoethnography as their research method, the 21 academic librarian authors of The Self as Subject investigate aspects of what it means to be a librarian. Starting with a reflec- tive examination of themselves, they each inves- tigate questions of culture, values, and identity. All of the pieces in this volume share some character- istics: Each one is the result of a rigorous examina- tion of the self and lived experience, and each one moves between the subjective and the cultural in its analysis. How the authors do this, however, varies widely—from a graphic novel to speculative fiction to rigorous academic analysis. The Self as Subject provides an opportu- nity to expand our understanding of rigor and the practice of research in LIS, and explores what it means to be a librarian in this age of disruptive change, and how the various identi- ties and experiences we bring to our practice shape our experience of librarianship. This book is for any librarian interested in research and research methods, the use of literary genres in research, alternatives to large empirical studies, questions of identity and social justice, and those looking to step out of their comfort zones and approach learning from a new and challenging vantage point. The Library Assessment Cookbook and The Self as Subject: Autoethnographic Research into Identity, Culture, and Academic Librarianship are available for purchase in print and as an ebook through the ALA Online Store, in print through Amazon.com, and by telephone order at (866) 746-7252 in the United States or (770) 442-8633 for international customers. C&RL News October 2017 480 Choice, The Charleston Company launch ccAdvisor Choice and The Charleston Company recently announced the launch of ccAdvisor, an online review source for information databases and digital resources. Itself a database, ccAdvisor draws upon the traditions of objectivity and scholarly excellence that characterize both Choice and The Charles- ton Advisor to create the source for the evaluation and selection of digital resources for libraries. In these tough budget- ary times and with hun- dreds if not thousands of resources for libraries to choose from, Choice and The Charleston Com- pany have collaborated to create an authorita- tive and ground-breaking tool that evaluates databases and digital resources. Choice and The Charleston Advisor are well-known and highly respected review sources, and ccAdvisor builds on the architec- ture of both to present a product that is fac- eted, allowing users to filter by subject, type of resource, target audience, or access type (open, subscription, one-time purchase, hybrid), to compile and export lists, save searches, and set alerts. ccAdvisor currently contains 300 reviews and will see at least 200 new reviews added in the first year. Rather than a digital edition of the reviews in the Advisor or Choice Reviews, ccAdvisor is an entirely new product. Be- cause it is a database, not simply an archive of re- views, the information in ccAdvisor will be continuously updated and remain current through round after round of product upgrades and successor versions of standing works. More information on ccAdvisor, including how to register for a free trial, is available by visiting the Choice 360 website at http:// choice360.org/products/ccadvisor. ilton papers—approximately 12,000 items concentrated from 1777 until Hamilton’s death in 1804, including letters, legal papers, and drafts of speeches and writings, among other items. Now, for the first time, these original documents—many in Hamilton’s own hand—will be available for research- ers, students, or the generally curious any- where in the world to explore, zoom in, and read at http://loc.gov/collections/alexander -hamilton-papers. Congress appropriated $20,000 in 1848 to buy Hamilton’s papers from his family, including his widow, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton. The papers were originally housed at the U.S. Department of State and came to the Library in 1904, along with all the depart- ment’s historical papers, at the direction of President Theodore Roosevelt. The Library supplemented the collection over time with additional gifts and purchases. The papers cover almost every aspect of Hamilton’s career and private life: growing up in St. Croix, working as George Washington’s aide-de-camp during the Revolutionary War, serving as a New York delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, becoming the first U.S. treasury secretary, working as a New York lawyer, and more. Harry Ransom Center research fellowship applications The Harry Ransom Center, a Humanities re- search library and museum at the University of Texas-Austin, invites applications for its 2018–19 research fellowships. The Ransom Center will grant ten dissertation fellowships and up to 50 postdoctoral fellowships for proj- ects that require substantial on-site use of its collections. The collections support research in all areas of the Humanities, including liter- ature, photography, film, art, the performing arts, music, and cultural history. The deadline http://choice360.org/products/ccadvisor http://choice360.org/products/ccadvisor http://loc.gov/collections/alexander-hamilton-papers http://loc.gov/collections/alexander-hamilton-papers October 2017 481 C&RL News for applications is November 15, 2017, at 5 p.m. (CST). All applicants, with the ex- ception of those applying for dissertation fellowships, must have a Ph.D. or be in- dependent scholars with a substantial re- cord of achievement. Information about the fellowships and the application pro- cess is available at www.hrc.utexas.edu /research/fellowships/. NLM, AAHSL announce 2018 Leadership Fellows The National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL) recently an- nounced the members of the 2017–18 class of the NLM/AAHSL Leadership Fellows Program. The jointly sponsored program matches fellows and mentors in a one-year leadership development program. Since the program began in 2002, 49 percent of fellow graduates have assumed director positions. The NLM/AAHSL Leadership Fellows Program prepares emerging leaders for di- rector positions in academic health sciences libraries. The program provides a combina- tion of in-person and virtual learning experi- ences for fellows and offers the opportunity to work collaboratively with the cohort of participants. Fellows are paired with men- tors who are academic health sciences library directors. Mentors work closely with their fellows throughout the year, and host their fellow’s visit to their library. Information about the program, including a full list of new fellows and mentors, is available at https://aahsl. memberclicks.net/leadership-fellows-program. New Sony Pictures Classics film streaming options Researchers in film studies can now easily ac- cess the essential titles they need for insight into world cinema from the 1990s to today thanks to an alliance between Alexander Street, a ProQuest company, and Sony Pic- tures Classics. More than 300 classic films are available for streaming at colleges and uni- versities throughout the United States, includ- ing documentaries and award-winning films from filmmakers like Wim Wenders, Ang Lee, Jeff Nichols, Mike Leigh, Asghar Farhadi, Roman Polanski, Michael Haneke, Jim Jar- musch, David Cronenberg, Errol Morris, Ing- mar Bergman, Pedro Almodovar, and others. Three licensing options are available so li- braries can choose collections that balance the needs of their researchers with their budgets: the Sony Pictures Classics Premium Collection includes the top 40 titles, Sony Pictures Classics Essential Collection is comprised of the top 100 titles, and Sony Pictures Classics Complete Collection spans all 300 available titles. Learn more at https://alexanderstreet.com/products /sony-pictures-classics-collection. Tech Bits . . . Brought to you by the ACRL ULS Technology in University Libraries Committee Most of us have heard of, and may even use, LibGuides in our libraries. Even more impressive from Springshare is LibWizard. While it does require a sepa- rate subscription, LibWizard allows you to create forms, surveys, quizzes, and interactive tutorials. Design quizzes and questions to track participants’ under- standing and provide immediate, con- structive feedback. Quickly, and easily, build self-paced tutorials that you can embed within a webpage or research guide to assist users in their time of need, or make standalone tutorials that participants complete as a supplement with library instruction or as part of a distance-learning program. Develop sur- veys and forms to discover your users’ opinions. Are you an existing LibGuides CMS customer? You already have access to LibWizard Lite, which includes forms and surveys. —Melissa Johnson Southern Methodist University . . . LibWizard https://www.springshare.com/libwizard/ http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/research/fellowships/ http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/research/fellowships/ https://aahsl.memberclicks.net/leadership-fellows-program https://aahsl.memberclicks.net/leadership-fellows-program https://alexanderstreet.com/products /sony-pictures-classics-collection https://alexanderstreet.com/products /sony-pictures-classics-collection https://www.springshare.com/libwizard/