HABRI Central

1. HABRI Central Mandate
2. The HABRI Designated Community
3. Subjects and Arrangement
   1. Subjects Covered
   2. Scope of Coverage
   3. Acceptable Formats
   4. Other Preservation/Conservation Considerations
4. Revision of the HABRI Central Collection Development Policy

HABRI Central Mandate

Purdue University Libraries, Press, and the College of Veterinary Medicine (home of the Center for the Human-Animal Bond) intend to create and maintain a digital library/resource – called HABRI Central - to support the study of the human-animal bond, defined as “the dynamic relationship between people and animals in that each influences the psychological and physiological state of the other”. As a truly interdisciplinary field, HAB studies draws on scholarship from traditionally separate areas such as veterinary medicine, public health, (human) medicine, nursing, therapy, psychology, politics, law, and several other areas of study.

HABRI Central will comprise four interrelated online information resources:

 

• A bibliography of published and unpublished literature relevant to human-animal bond studies. Published literature will include journal articles, chapters in edited volumes, and books. Unpublished material will include datasets, multimedia resources (including audio and video), and gray literature (e.g., unpublished white papers, technical reports, and conference abstracts). Where possible, the bibliographical citations will link to the full-text of a cited work, either through a third-party source (for published material not owned by Purdue) or via a Purdue-based repository (for gray literature and Purdue University Press content).
• A repository for published and unpublished material relevant to human-animal bond studies, including datasets, multimedia, gray literature, monographs, and journal articles. HABRI Central will also provide access to published material from Purdue University Press, including approximately 12,000 pages from titles in the Press’s New Directions in the Human-Animal Bond series. This repository may also serve as the central digital research archive for the human-animal bond research community.
• An online publishing venue for original scholarship, including peer-reviewed articles and translational material written for wider audiences.
• A digital community hub that will provide research, collaboration, and discussion tools and foster broad-based human-animal bond interaction through HUBzero, a Purdue University-developed platform for scientific collaboration.

HABRI Central is created and maintained at Purdue University, under the direction of Dr. Alan Beck, Director of the Center for the Human-Animal Bond, and with technical infrastructure and a cataloging schema developed by Purdue University Libraries. It is marketed by Purdue University Press, a unit of Purdue Libraries, well-known for its human-animal bond publishing program.

The project is funded by a grant from the Human Animal Bond Research Institute (HABRI).

The HABRI Designated Community

HABRI Central is aimed at diverse, international audience comprising academic researchers, practitioner experts in both human and animal health, government and non-government officials involved in handling the social implications of human-animal interaction, and the wider public – many of whom are recognized to be highly-involved and interested in these issues. One characteristic of human-animal bond studies is that there are many people engaged in activities such as animal-assisted therapy on a volunteer basis, and the business model adopted for HABRI Central needs to enable the information provided to be open to the interested lay public. Currently this information is widely dispersed and often behind subscription walls. HABRI Central, when possible, acts as an Open Access resource, with the majority of the site’s content being immediately available, without charge, to users. Some material will be available directly in the repository, while other resources will be pointed to outside of the repository. Although some premium content may be available on an access fee basis, maximizing open accessibility will be essential to increasing the site’s impact.

Subjects and Arrangement

Subjects Covered

 

HABRI Central aims to cover subjects related to human-animal interaction. On a more granular level, HABRI Central accepts material relating to the following:

Full coverage:

• Human-animal bond (i.e. human-animal relationships; human-animal relations; human-animal interactions; bonding, human-pet)
• Animal-assisted therapy (including equine-assisted therapy, pet therapy, therapy animals, therapy dogs, service animals, etc.)
• pet loss, grief and bereavement; animal-assisted activities (including animals in education, such as reading to therapy animals and animals in the classroom)
• Animal rescue and animal shelters
• Animal welfare and well-being
• Anthrozoology and paleoanthrozoology
• Attitudes toward animals, including ethics in the human-animal relationship
• History and social impact of domesticated species
• Object attachment to animals/pets
• Pets and people
• Human relations with wild, non-domesticated species
• Transmissible diseases between man and animals (zoonosis).

Selective coverage:

• Animal behavior and ethology
• Animal handling
• Animal law
• Animal rights
• Animals in folklore, legends and mythology
• Animals in history and zooarchaeology
• Hunting, especially ethical issues
• Animals in the literary and visual arts

 

Scope of Coverage

 

Languages included / excluded:

Materials in all languages are accepted into HABRI Central.

Geographic coverage:

Materials from all geographic areas are accepted into HABRI Central. Initial emphasis on Anglo-American material reflects only the geographical limits of HABRI Central staff.

Chronological period(s):

Interest is primarily in print or online materials published or created after 1960.

Currency / dates of publication:

Current imprints are primarily acquired. The acquisition of retrospective materials is usually to strengthen a specific area of the collection, to address new interdisciplinary research areas in which HAB researchers are engaged, or to replace missing materials, and is proportional to available funds, staffing and space (both physical and digital).

Level (popular, general academic, research, professional, etc.):

Research and professional works are included comprehensively. General academic works related to the key aspects of human-animal bond also are included when available. Popular works, including fiction, are included in the bibliography when their impact on the human-animal bond field or a related area is substantive. A majority of the bibliography focuses on peer-reviewed journal articles (both print and online), as well as theses, dissertations, books, book sections (chapters), videos, etc.

 

Acceptable Formats

A variety of digital material formats are accepted into HABRI Central for Resources.

Common file types are:

• Text: Microsoft Word, PDF, TXT, XML
• Image: GIF, JPEG, JPEG2000, TIFF
• Video: WMV, MP4, AVI, FLV, VOB, MOV
• Audio: MP3, WAV, WMA
• Web: HTML
• Other: PPT

HABRI Central is not just an access solution but a preservation solution as well; therefore we encourage the deposit of preservation formats so that your material is sustained for the long-term.

Preservation file types:

• Text: PDF, XML
• Image: TIFF
• Video: AVI
• Audio: WAV
• Web: HTML

We encourage you to deposit in a preservation format, but if this is not possible, access formats are also welcome.

Preservation format conversion can be complex; that is, there might be a presentation in PowerPoint, and a Powerpoint might be embedded with several image or video or audio files. Thus, each presentation will need to be evaluated to see what type of media are embedded before preservation actions are taken, and for this, consultation with the HABRI team might be necessary. To ask any questions regarding complex file preservation, please email our digital repository specialist.

Below is a list of the kind of material that is accepted for each resource type. If you have an older format type (eg microfilm, audiotape) that you would like to be placed into HABRI Central and you do not have the means to convert it, please send an email to our digital repository specialist and we’ll consult with you to see how that can best be converted and deposited.

• Audio: MP3, WAV, WMA
• Book Sections: Microsoft Word, PDF, TXT, XML
• Books: Microsoft Word, PDF, TXT, XML
• Conference Papers: Microsoft Word, PDF, TXT, XML
• Datasets: Excel, SAS, SPSS
• Government documents: Microsoft Word, PDF, TXT, XML
• Journal articles: Microsoft Word, PDF, TXT, XML
• Magazine articles: Microsoft Word, PDF, TXT, XML
• Newspaper articles: Microsoft Word, PDF, TXT, XML
• Pamphlets: Microsoft Word, PDF, TXT, XML
• Posters: GIF, JPEG, JPEG2000, TIFF
• Presentations: GIF, JPEG, JPEG2000, TIFF, PPT, PDF
• Reports: Microsoft Word, PDF, TXT, XML
• Soft lit/narratives: Microsoft Word, PDF, TXT, XML
• Still Images: GIF, JPEG, JPEG2000, TIFF
• Theses: Microsoft Word, PDF, TXT, XML
• Tools:
• Videos: WMV, MP4, AVI, FLV, VOB, MOV

Other Preservation/Conservation Considerations

HABRI Central aims to ensure authenticity of the items it preserves, whether the items have been published elsewhere or not. The HUBzero platform, on which HABRI Central runs, does file backups on a nightly basis.

Trustworthiness and Scholarly Nature of Materials

Material in HABRI Central aims to be of a scholarly nature. While HABRI Central librarians strive to verify the quality of content held within the library, individual contributors are ultimately responsible for the material they contribute.

HABRI Central librarians use special badges to denote content with particular quality or characteristics:

Peer-Reviewed

Peer review is a process that most scholarly journals use to ensure that the articles they publish are the best scholarship currently available. When an article is submitted to a journal that is “peer-reviewed,” the editors send the article out to a board of reviewers or other scholars in the same field (the author’s peers) to have them evaluate the quality, validity and reliability of the article. This review process frequently is “blind,” meaning that the reviewers or peers do not know the names or academic affiliation of the authors and the authors do not know who is reviewing their work.

To verify that a journal is peer-reviewed or refereed, one can check the journal or its website, usually in its author guidelines or instructions, or check the journal in UlrichsWeb Global Serials Directory.

In HABRI Central, the “peer-reviewed” badge indicates that the given article appears in a journal that is “peer-reviewed” as verified in UlrichsWeb Global Serials Directory or the journal itself.

Evidence-Based

Evidence-based scholarship is that which is based on rigorous, empirical evidence.

Fiction

Fictional materials are those that describe imaginary or hypothetical situations or events. To be included in the HABRI Central library, fictional materials must have a demonstrated impact on the study or understanding of human-animal interaction. 

Revision of the HABRI Central Collection Development Policy

HABRI Central is committed to maintenance, periodic review, and revision of all its policies, procedures and documentation as outlined in the Digital Preservation Policy. This Collection Policy is included in this practice. Users who wish to challenge HABRI Central’s Collection Policy, or offer suggestions or comments on it may do so through the digital repository specialist. The digital repository specialist can be contacted at repository@habricentral.org.