Implementing a Scholarly Impact Outreach Program for Faculty and Graduate Students

There are two intersecting realities in research and academia today: There are greater expectations for individual faculty and academic departments to substantively demonstrate evidence of research productivity and impact for such applications as promotion and tenure, annual reporting, and benchmarking. Graduate students require knowledge of top articles and researchers in their discipline and those pursuing a career as faculty need to know how to determine their impact towards promotion and tenure. Database vendors and other content providers are regularly developing and offering robust, yet user-friendly, bibliometric and altmetric tools within current as well as new products. Many of the tools are interdisciplinary or generalist in scope, while some are optimal for certain subject clusters. In response to these realities, academic librarians are increasingly offering new or expanded scholarly impact services for faculty and graduate students in the form of activities such as library workshops, research guides, and individual consultations to promote and demonstrate the range of available bibliometric and altmetric tools. This poster will outline the components of developing and implementing a scholarly impact outreach program including challenges, assessment, and suggested readings from the library literature on this topic. Poster content is based on the article below: Helmstutler, B. (2015). Taking research services to the next level: A case study of implementing a scholarly impact outreach program for faculty and graduate students. Journal of Library Innovation, 6(2), 96-104. http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/univ_lib_facpub/119/

Taking Research Services to the Next Level: A Case Study of Implementing a Scholarly Impact Outreach Program for Faculty and Graduate Students

In academic institutions today, there are greater expectations of accountability requiring tenure-track faculty to substantively demonstrate scholarly impact for annual reporting, benchmarking, and promotion and tenure. Database vendors and other content providers are creating robust, yet user-friendly, scholarly impact tools within current products. In response, institutional libraries are offering workshops, individual assistance, research guides, and other activities to promote the value and usage of these tools. However, there is no dedicated scholarly impact outreach program yet documented in the library literature. This article will discuss developing, implementing, and assessing an innovative scholarly impact outreach program based on the author\u27s experience as a librarian at Georgia State University

Becoming a Subject-Specialist Librarian

Before pursuing my MLIS, I had a Master’s degree in Counseling and eight years of experience in higher education. As I began applying for positions before graduating in December 2003, I knew that I wanted to work in academic libraries and that my experience would be an asset, but I questioned whether I would get to directly use my Counseling degree. Two months after graduation, I began work as a subject-specialist (liaison) librarian for Counseling & Psychological Services as well as 3 other related programs. Many academic libraries use the liaison model, in which librarians are assigned to work with at least one academic department (in larger institutions, it may be several). Given that LIS graduates often have prior Master’s degrees and/or substantial expertise in a particular field, this model is of substantial benefit to potential librarians, academic departments, and libraries alike

Moving Ahead Without Moving Up: Seven Ways to Succeed in Academic Librarianship Without Formal Advancement

Librarians just starting out often think ahead to where they want to be in 3-5 years, whether this is self-imposed or part of a formal goal-setting process with a supervisor. This may involve setting a goal to advance to a mid-level management position or achieving a certain level of success without official advancement. If you don’t have a short-term goal of advancement, though, it can be easy to become stagnant once fully trained and comfortable in the job. This article will discuss how you can be proactive in your job – whether you want to be ready for advancement when the opportunity arises, or whether advancement is not of interest, but you want to succeed in your job and contribute to the profession

Promotion & Tenure Outreach: An Emerging Librarian-Faculty Partnership

Current shifts in the process and awarding of tenure suggest greater competition and greater expectations, therefore creating a need to show more comprehensive evidence of scholarly impact beyond citation counts. To meet this need, bibliometric tools within online subscription databases, search engines, and software applications offer indices, graphs, and other exciting data that can make a strong case for tenure across the disciplines. Because libraries offer access to these resources and librarians have the expertise in usage, these tools can be effectively shared with faculty via workshops, online research guides, and individual assistance. Promotion and tenure outreach offers major benefits to both faculty and librarians. Faculty acquire access to online tools that can show comprehensive scholarly impact and elevate their case for tenure; and librarians can demonstrate their value by acting as a partner in research with faculty on a different level beyond the traditional method of resource assistance. In the LIS literature, promotion and tenure outreach has not been specifically defined as such until this study

Towards Virtual Information Literacy: Academic Librarian Integration into Teacher Education Distance Learning Programs

Having convenient, instant access to electronic library resources in academia is excellent as research can be conducted literally anywhere and at any time; however, a level of user self-direction is required for optimal results, creating the need for librarian interaction to guide the user towards acquiring this self-direction most effectively. As more institutions add online degree programs, it is essential that librarians are integrated within so that participating students have access to the same (or at least, equivalent) library resources and services as those who are on campus, and also develop sound research skills for information literacy acquisition. Although librarians have been involved in distance learning for decades, emerging technology has allowed for a more substantial emphasis on librarian involvement in distance learning. This is evidenced by such trends as job responsibilities expanding to include distance learning activities, libraries adding Distance Learning Librarian positions, online library services such as virtual reference and instruction, and journals focusing on library services in distance learning

Research Information Management in the United States : Part 1—Findings and Recommendations. Part 2—Case Studies

The Research Information Management in the United States two-part report series provides a first-of-its-kind documentation of RIM practices at US research universities that presents a thorough examination of RIM practices, goals, stakeholders, and system components. Research information management (RIM) is a rapidly growing area of investment in US research universities. While RIM practices are mature in Europe and other locales in support of nationalized reporting requirements, RIM practices at US research universities have taken a different—and characteristically decentralized—course. A complex environment characterized by multiple use cases, stakeholders, and systems has resulted. This report provides a landscape overview of the state of research information management in the United States, makes sense of the complexity, and offers recommendations targeted at University leaders and other institutional decision makers. Part 1—Findings and Recommendations This report provides much-needed context for institutional leaders to examine their own local practices by proposing: - A summary of six discrete RIM use cases - A RIM system framework - Recommendations for RIM stakeholders Part 2—Case Studies  This companion report offers an in-depth narrative of the RIM practices at five US research institutions:- Penn State University- Texas A&M University - Virginia Tech- UCLA- University of Miam