reference on reddit: can we help? jeff maus angela henshilwood
TRANSCRIPT
Reference on reddit: Can we help?
Jeff MausAngela Henshilwood
Introduction to reddit
In 2014 reddit had 174,088,361 unique visitors from 186 countries
3,267,477 (2%) logged in to comment and vote on 6,175,912,111 pages
http://www.pewinternet.org/files/old-media/Files/Reports/2013/PIP_reddit_usage_2013.pdf
reddit Regional Interest - Google Trends
https://www.google.ca/trends/explore#q=reddit
reddit City Interest – Google Trends
Intro to subreddits – e.g. r/books
Source: http://redditmetrics.com/history
r/worldnews
r/IAMA
AMA with Neil deGrasse Tyson
http://tinyurl.com/listacrl
Subreddits recommended by our audience?r/ELI5 (Explain like I’m 5)r/askhistorians
Introduction to r/scholar
r/scholar Rules
Are you requesting? READ THIS.•See if your article is already available by checking libgen (search using DOI), Google, and Google Scholar.•Provide us a link to the downloadable article. If you can't find one, tell us you tried.•If the request isn’t urgent, please try an interlibrary loan (ILL) first. ILL avoids potential copyright issues and lets libraries know which subscriptions are useful.•Fulfill some requests while you wait for yours!
r/scholar Rules cont’d• Are you fulfilling?• Please be aware of copyright issues and Fair Use Copyright.• To share files, ge.tt and zippyshare are free and reliable.• Be aware that many journal sources embed identifying information into
the PDF.• Thanks for helping your fellow scholars!• In an effort to encourage the free distribution of knowledge, please also
consider using these open access links for your research:• Directory of Open Access Journals• List of open-access journals• Public Library of Science• Google Scholar
Our Analysis:
• Looked at 100 requests in r/Scholar (beginning of December 2014)• Covers 9 days • Average 11 requests per day (some days 14, some days 5)
Breakdown of r/scholar requests by discipline
•72% Science & Applied Science•16% Social Sciences•11% Humanities
How files were shared
What is LibGen?
LibGen Usage by CountryGoogle Trends
Source: http://www.google.ca/trends/explore#q=libgen&cmpt=q&tz=
“anyone know of a
virtual “reference desk” on
reddit and would anyone
would be interested in
starting one?”
Sanderson & Rigby (2013)
• “We’ve reddit, have you?:What librarians can learn from a site full of memes”
Marketing
r/UofT
Thank you!Jeff MausAngela Henshilwood
Bibliography
• Sanderson, B., & Rigby, M. (2013). We've reddit, have you? what librarians can learn from a site full of memes. College & Research Libraries News, 74(10), 518-521. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1512200832?accountid=14771• Halavais, A. (2013). Home made big data? challenges and
opportunities for participatory social research. First Monday, 18(10) doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.5210/fm.v18i10.4876• Reddit Draws Readers, Authors, Publishers. (2013). Publishers Weekly,
260(51), 6-7.