Measuring the value of librarians?

Interesting read from Librarian by any other name 

 

" ......In this post, I want to ask instead how we measure not the value of libraries, but librarians. What are the altmetrics that we need to collect on ourselves to demonstrate that the work we do matters to our patrons?............ 

what does ......  say regarding my value as a librarian to the research community that I serve here at the University of Massachusetts Medical School? How do I measure that? What altmetrics are there that I can track and collect and show to my administrators to prove to them that I am, in fact, adding value to the work of the people that I serve and thus, ultimately, to the library?........

 

.... To me, this  (see her story on the blog post) is an unequivocal demonstration of my value as a librarian on that particular day. I did my job and I did it very well and I have the proof, in a tweet, of this fact. Great, isn’t it? But short of taking screen shots of tweets and email replies, short of catching conversations with grateful patrons on video and posting them to YouTube, short of saving notes and phone messages and journal entries describing “good days”, how do I systematically capture all of this “value”? It’s a challenge. It’s perhaps THE challenge that any and all of us who work in information, innovation, and intellect, and the service roles that operate in those realms, face. It’s perplexing..............

 

 This week I’ve been reading Kim Dority’s book, Rethinking Information Work, and I really resonated with her sentiment that ultimately we are all self-employed.

And believe it or not, this is good news. Because if we understand that regardless of our current employment situation we are solely responsible for the well-being of our careers (and paychecks), that means we can take control. We can focus not on lifetime employment, but on lifetime employability.."

 

The most famous book thief in history?

Guglielmo Libri Carucci dalla Sommaja (born January 1, 1803 in Florence, Italy; died September 28, 1869, in Fiesole, Italy) was an Italian count and mathematician, who became known for his love and subsequent theft of ancient and precious manuscripts.

Appointed the Inspector of Libraries in France, Libri began stealing the books he was responsible for, fleeing to England when caught, along with 30,000 books and manuscripts inside 18 trunks. He was sentenced in France to 10 years in jail in absentia; some of the stolen works were returned when he died, but many remained missing.

In June 2010, one of the documents he stole—a letter from the French philosopher René Descartes, dated May 27, 1641—was handed back to France after being found in a library in Haverford College, in Pennsylvania. The letter had been donated by the widow of a college alumnus in 1902, and was discovered only after a philosopher from Utrecht University in the Netherlands read about it on the Internet, and contacted the college to tell them what they had in their library; the existence of the letter had been known to philosophers, but not its contents. The letter was written by Descartes to Father Marin Mersenne who had been overseeing the publication of Descartes's Meditations on First Philosophy.

Can we “fix” open access? (re the recent 'sting' article in Science)

Following all the hype around  the recent 'sting' article in Science (which has indeed "set off lots of smug satisfaction amongst those who fear open access...") I was happy to read these comments by Kevin Smith from Duke University  (some RUL staff met Kevin at the Berlin10 conference in Stellenbosch last year)

 

 As Duke University’s first Scholarly Communications Officer, Kevin Smith’s principal role is to teach and advise faculty, administrators and students about copyright, intellectual property licensing and scholarly publishing

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As Duke University’s first Scholarly Communications Officer, Kevin Smith’s principal role is to teach and advise faculty, administrators and students about copyright, intellectual property licensing and scholarly publishing. - See more at: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/author/ksmithl2duke-edu/#sthash.k2gT4FzL.dpuf

As Duke University’s first Scholarly Communications Officer, Kevin Smith’s principal role is to teach and advise faculty, administrators and students about copyright, intellectual property licensing and scholarly publishing. - See more at: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/author/ksmithl2duke-edu/#sthash.k2gT4FzL.dpuf

Another useful link - from The Guardian Higher Education network

Open access publishing hoax: what Science magazine got wrong

The sting operation on publishers doesn't point to the real crisis, says Curt Rice – the meltdown of the peer review system

 

 

As Duke University’s first Scholarly Communications Officer, Kevin Smith’s principal role is to teach and advise faculty, administrators and students about copyright, intellectual property licensing and scholarly publishing. - See more at: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/about/#sthash.k4FiY4bs.dpuf

As Duke University’s first Scholarly Communications Officer, Kevin Smith’s principal role is to teach and advise faculty, administrators and students about copyright, intellectual property licensing and scholarly publishing. - See more at: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/author/ksmithl2duke-edu/#sthash.k2gT4FzL.dpuf

As Duke University’s first Scholarly Communications Officer, Kevin Smith’s principal role is to teach and advise faculty, administrators and students about copyright, intellectual property licensing and scholarly publishing. - See more at: http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/author/ksmithl2duke-edu/#sthash.k2gT4FzL.dpuf

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