Investigating the need for scholarly communications positions in Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries member institutions.

Kim Mears,Sandra L Bandy

doi:10.5195/jmla.2017.208

Abstract

BackgroundThe role of health sciences librarians has expanded in the scholarly communications landscape as a result of the increase in federal public access mandates and the continued expansion of publishing avenues. This has created the need to investigate whether academic health sciences libraries should have scholarly communications positions to provide education and services exclusively related to scholarly communication topics.MethodsA nine-question online survey was distributed through the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL) email discussion list to gather preliminary findings from and opinions of directors of health sciences libraries on the need for scholarly communications positions.ResultsThe survey received a 38% response rate. The authors found that AAHSL members are currently providing scholarly communications services, and 46% of respondents expressed the need to devote a full-time position to this role.DiscussionOur survey reveals a juxtaposition occurring in AAHSL member libraries. While administrators acknowledge the need to provide scholarly communications services, they often experience budget challenges in providing a full-time position for these services.

Highlights

More than ten years have passed since the Budapest Open Access Initiative, the first open access movement, was established [1]
Other services that were offered include serving as an NIH publisher, providing instruction on SciENcv, and serving as a writing center for manuscript or publication support
Cooper and Crum found that scholarly communications librarian positions emerged as a new role when they examined job announcements posted between 2008 and 2012 but did not find evidence of this trend in the literature [7]

Summary

Introduction

More than ten years have passed since the Budapest Open Access Initiative, the first open access movement, was established [1]. Defined as “the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evaluated for quality, disseminated to the scholarly community, and preserved for future use” [3], the scholarly communications landscape has exponentially increased and resulted in changes in institutional needs from libraries Librarians are meeting these needs by providing new services. The role of health sciences librarians has expanded in the scholarly communications landscape as a result of the increase in federal public access mandates and the continued expansion of publishing avenues This has created the need to investigate whether academic health sciences libraries should have scholarly communications positions to provide education and services exclusively related to scholarly communication topics

Methods

Results

Conclusion