HCA Scholarly Articles

The following is a model open-access policy in the Harvard style—with a freely waivable rights-retaining license and a deposit requirement. This language is based on and informed by the policies voted by several Harvard faculties, as well as MIT, Stanford University School of Education, Duke University, and others. I have added some annotations explaining why the wording is chosen as it is. Extensive information about good practices for university open-access policies is provided in a widely endorsed guide from the Harvard Open Access Project (http://bit.ly/goodoa). We would greatly appreciate your help in assessing how institutions are using the model open-access policy and how it could be improved.

Creative Ideas in Technical Services Interest Group (CITSIG) is an interest group under the auspices of the American Library Association’s (ALA) CORE division, a nonprofit library organization. The group seeks to engage its membership through a variety of in-person and virtual mechanisms to identify new and creative approaches to technical services work. Interest Group Week, in March, is a virtual event. The ALA roundtable meetings have remained in-person events. Over the past year, CITSIG has sought to engage its members in a variety of ways.

This study characterizes the materials and construction methods of a fourth- to fifth-century ce over-lifesized, polychromed head of a Buddhist figure in the collection of the Harvard Art Museums that is believed to be from Hadda, Afghanistan. Many sculptures from this monastic site and others in Greater Gandhara (located in parts of modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan) were described using the general term “stucco” by the Europeans who collected them in the early twentieth century. Through technical imaging and analysis, this investigation identifies the specific materials of this object to provide a basis of comparison for related sculptures in other collections. While a great variety of materials and techniques—used alone or in combination with others—have been identified on related objects, few of these objects have undergone imaging and analysis to verify materials and visualize construction methods. Examination and analytical methods used in this study included visual examination, micro-computed tomography (micro-CT), radiocarbon dating, and materials analyses by x-ray fluorescence (XRF), scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive microanalysis (SEM-EDS), Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and thin-section petrography. The micromorphology and analysis of samples indicated that the solid head is composed of a lime stucco mixture including varied silicates and carbonates (both calcite and dolomite), and inclusions of fired ceramic and rock fragments. This mixture was applied in layers in situ starting with a coarse-grained core and finishing with a fine layer, with a higher proportion of lime binder. A wooden post, with a likely nineteenth-century date, is embedded within the damaged internal structure and may have been added to replace part of an original armature. Pigments used for polychromed details were identified as ochers and carbon black, with limited use of red lead.

This paper is about cellulose acetate microfilm from the British Library perspective. It traces how acetate microfilm became an issue for the British Library and describes cellulose acetate deterioration. This is followed by details of what has already been done about the situation and what action is planned for the future.

The Harvard Medical School Countway Library’s Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Best Practices for Biomedical Research Data Management launched on Canvas in January 2018. This report analyzes student reported data and course generated analytics from January 2018, through July 8, 2020, for the course Best Practices for Biomedical Research Data Management. By comparing the findings from the enrollment period through March 8, 2020 (pre-pandemic) to the period through July 8, 2020 (during-pandemic), the main goal is to investigate potential shifts due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Harvard Medical School Countway Library’s Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Best Practices for Biomedical Research Data Management launched on Canvas in January 2018. This report analyzes learner reported data and course generated analytics from March 2020 through June 2021 for the course. This analysis focuses on three subsets of participant data during the pandemic to understand global learner demographics and interest in biomedical research data management. Related preprint: 10.31219/osf.io/9qbg4

Antibiotic use is often blamed for increases in the prevalence of infections due to antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This paper clarifies the effects of antibiotic exposure on bacterial antibiotic resistance by developing models that describe the growth of competing bacterial strains whose antibiotic sensitivities differ. The analysis generalizes logistic growth models to include first-order growth parameters that are arbitrary functions of antibiotic levels. It derives closed-form solutions for population size, composition, and average antibiotic sensitivities as functions of antibiotic exposure. Strategies to minimize the bacterial population size are analyzed in the context of the model. These heuristic models explore in formal terms the population dynamics thought to underlie resistance development.