There is an avalanche of events on topics in scholarly communications coming in the next few weeks. Come get snowed under at the library!
To see a workshop description and a link to registration, click on a title in the following list.
Finding and Using Open Educational Resources (OER)
Elvis Bakaitis
Wednesday, February 19, 1:00-2:00pm, Room 8301
Interested in learning more about lowering the cost of course materials? Whether you’re teaching at the graduate or undergraduate level, Open Educational Resources (OER) offer an alternative to high textbook fees. In this workshop, we’ll discuss ways to find free, openly-licensed content, and strategies for effective implementation.
Fair Use for Nonfiction Authors
Jill Cirasella and Roxanne Shirazi
Tuesday, February 25, 1:00-2:30pm, Room 8301
This workshop is designed for nonfiction authors of all types—including historians, biographers, scientists, and scholars of literature, theatre, art, and music—who want to know more about using copyrighted materials. The workshop will help researchers who want to do things such as:
- Include song lyrics in a paper discussing musical trends;
- Quote from a novel to analyze the author’s use of metaphors in a work of literary criticism;
- Incorporate a photograph in an article about the photographer’s use of light and shadow;
- Use a chart in a scientific paper critiquing a researcher’s methodology and findings; or
- Quote from unpublished letters in a biography or memoir.
Join us to review principles and limitations of fair use for common situations nonfiction authors face when incorporating copyrighted works into their writings.
Gender Gap in Citations
Thursday, March 5, 1:00-2:30, Room 8301
In this workshop, Margaret Smith (NYU) will discuss the “gender citation gap”: what it means, why it matters, and what we can do about it. She will also describe various strategies/tools to better capture and communicate your scholarly impact, and to help scholarly credit be given more equitably.
Fake Journals and Conferences: What to Know About the Faux
Jill Cirasella
Tuesday, March 10, 1:00-2:30pm, Room 8301
As a researcher, you are eager to publish your work in journals and present at conferences. But don’t let your eagerness allow you to be fooled by fake (often called “predatory”) journals or conferences. These low-quality outlets exist for the sole purpose of profit, not for the dissemination of peer-reviewed research. Indeed, they frequently lie about their peer review practices and engage in other forms of deceit. Come learn how to spot these bad actors, and how to critically evaluate any journal or conference before submitting a paper or proposal.
The Life-Changing Magic of Open Access: Best Practices for Finding Others’ Research and Publicly Sharing Yours
Jill Cirasella and Adriana Palmer
Tuesday, March 24, 1:00-2:30pm, Room 8301
Whether or not you’ve ever heard or uttered the phrase “open access scholarly literature,” you probably know something about it. For example, you probably know that you can find free copies of many journal articles online. But do you know how to determine if a specific journal article is freely (and legally) available online? In this workshop, we will help you understand the types of sites where open access works can be found, and demonstrate a variety of tools for quickly determining whether a specific item is available open access.
Further, we will introduce a range of options for making your own scholarly work open access, and offer some compelling reasons why you might want to. We’ll pay particular attention to CUNY Academic Works, CUNY’s open access repository, and review some steps you can take to boost your online scholarly profile and maximize the discoverability of the works you place online.
Understanding and Negotiating Book Publication Contracts
Jill Cirasella
Tuesday, March 31, 1:00-2:30pm, Room 8301
Do you want to publish a book? Do you want to understand the basics of copyright law, negotiation, and publication contract terms before you agree to a book deal with a publisher? If so, this workshop is for you!
The workshop will cover the clauses that frequently appear in publication contracts, explain in plain language what these terms mean, and present strategies for negotiating “author-friendly” versions of these clauses. We’ll also cover:
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- Copyright basics for academic authors;
- Contract and negotiation fundamentals;
- Pros and cons of assigning and licensing your copyrights;
- Your obligations to your publisher;
- Responsibilities of authors and publishers in preparing, designing, and marketing a book; and
- Options for ensuring your book is available to readers after its commercial life is over.
When you understand and negotiate your book contract, you can maximize your creative, scholarly, and pragmatic goals for your work. Join us to learn more!
PHOTO: Avalanche in Zinal (Fêta d’Août) by dahu1 via Wikimedia, shared under license CC0
This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
Katherine Pradt is the Adjunct Reference and Digital Outreach Librarian at the Graduate Center. 
