The promise of academic libraries - [occupying a different space within the campus community]

Interesting article looking at ideas on how to 'turn outward' -  "new possibilities as academic libraries span boundaries and occupy a more visible, catalytic role on campus".

April 2014 College & Research Libraries News vol. 75 no. 4 182-186

 "By turning outward, we have found common purpose with colleagues and students across the university"

Reimagining the liaison role of librarians - "embedding services in the teaching, learning, and research processes" ; “getting in the flow of users”

Community conversations about the undergraduate experience - engaging with university leaders and students -  "opened new possibilities for librarians to engage more actively with colleagues across the campus." 

Moving from talk to action - "clarify our value within the academy as we develop a sense of common purpose and set realistic goals"

Pockets of change - "identify and take intentional steps toward a more engaged approach to library programs and services" (examples: engaged celebrations; promote civic engagement activities; strengthening partnerships with other units; launching more outward-looking team structures; redesigning positions to respond more effectively to campus initiatives.)

Measuring impact (new ways to gauge progress) -  "beyond reporting on what we have done" ; "why and what difference [library activities] make in the broader university context" ; What kind of indicators will measure the success of community engagement?

 

 

 

Top 5 altmetrics trends to watch in 2014

FROM

Openness
Acquisitions by the old guard
More complex modelling
Empowered scientists
Growing interest from administrators and funders

Read more 

Altmetrics could enable scholarship from developing countries to receive due recognition

The Web of Science and its corresponding Journal Impact Factor are inadequate for an understanding of the impact of scholarly work from developing regions, argues Juan Pablo Alperin. 

Alternative metrics offer the opportunity to redirect incentive structures towards problems that contribute to development, or at least to local priorities. But the altmetrics community needs to actively engage with scholars from developing regions to ensure the new metrics do not continue to cater to well-known and well-established networks.

'Ivory tower' bucking social media

Christine Greenhow, Benjamin Gleason. Social scholarship: Reconsidering scholarly practices in the age of social media. British Journal of Educational Technology, 2014

This conceptual exploration inquires, what is scholarship reconsidered in the age of social media? How ought we to conceptualize social scholarship—a new set of practices being discussed in various disciplines? The paper offers a critical examination of the practical and policy implications of reconsidering scholarship in light of social media's affordances toward a conceptualization of social scholarship. For each dimension of Boyer's original framework, we explain its epistemologies and practices. Next, we take a critical approach to inquiring how each dimension, reconsidered through the lens of social scholarship values and social media affordances, might be envisioned today. This exploration provides concrete examples of how scholars might enact social scholarship with what benefits and challenges.

Providing Library Research Support for Scholarly Publishing Literacy

This paper argues that scholarly publishing literacy should be treated as an extension of information literacy delivered through a broader research support framework. This paper presents a research librarian's perspective, and draws on literature and the author's practice to illustrate key points. Issues for further investigation are identified.