Scholarly Communication Librarians Research Articles

Creating the E-Buzz around Collaborative and Collective DEI Efforts

Like many academic libraries, the Leatherby Libraries at Chapman University (USA) is committed to supporting and promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) for students, faculty, researchers, and staff and has increased its efforts in the last several years to reflect that commitment through its resources, services, and outreach activities. However, in the wider literature, the efforts of scholarly communication librarians in DEI initiatives outside of open-access advocacy are less discussed. Nevertheless, precisely because scholarly communication librarians are concerned with advancing the dissemination of knowledge, they fit naturally into DEI efforts that seek to elevate new or historically marginalized voices and can and should work with library marketing teams to increase the reach and impact of those efforts. This paper focuses on several collaborations between the DEI and marketing librarian and the scholarly communication librarian and invites all library workers to imagine new and unique collaborative opportunities to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion within their institutions.

Empowering early career humanities researchers to successfully navigate the scholarly publishing process

This case report illustrates how a scholarly communication librarian partnered with a humanities subject librarian and others to address knowledge gaps that graduate students and early career researchers at a large public research institution have about the scholarly publishing landscape. To address frequently asked questions the organizers identified from their individual experiences working with researchers, they chose a panel format where each speaker responded to a common scenario posed by a moderator. The webinar was recorded and shared internally on various sites as a reference. Feedback indicated the webinar was informative and helpful, and organizers plan to use it as a blueprint for future webinars or videos on specific topics about scholarly publishing.

Intersections of Open Access and Information Privilege in Higher Education and Beyond

Despite its capacity to reach readers irrespective of affiliation or geographic location, conversations about Open Access (OA) frequently center academic stakeholders in high-income countries. This presentation will examine opportunities for technical services librarians to explore with students some of the inequities of the scholarly communications landscape, including various approaches to and aspects of OA, and to consider the disparate levels of access available to individuals based on institutional affiliation. Because higher education settings afford students a high degree of information privilege, academic librarians face the challenge of teaching students to appreciate the value of information, acknowledge barriers to it, and identify and evaluate the freely available resources and content to which they will have access post-graduation. Although technical services and scholarly communication librarians tend to have fewer teaching responsibilities than those working in public services, our experiences with collection development, licensing, and resource description provide insights to share with students regarding information value and privilege. A case study on student projects which included the editing of Wikipedia entries highlights tensions between institutional privilege and open resources. Teaching students about the costs, processes, and value of information production empowers them to understand their privilege and responsibilities.

Critical Adaptability and Collaboration: A Student Reflection on Preparing for Scholarly Communication Librarianship

The quickly changing landscape of the scholarly communication ecosystem necessitates critical reflection on the preparedness of students entering this area of librarianship. A literature review of common roles, skills, and competencies of scholarly communication librarians followed by a personal reflection on learning and development as a Masters of Library and Information Studies (MLIS) student reveals that collaboration and adaptability are required to succeed in this area.

Academic Librarians in Spanish-Speaking Latin America See a Growing Need for Librarian Role in Scholarly Publishing Literacy

A Review of:Buitrago Ciro, J. (2022). How are academic libraries in Spanish-speaking Latin America responding to new models of scholarly communication and predatory publishing? Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 54(3), 373–388. https://doi.org/10.1177/09610006211016533Objective – To examine the current state of knowledge among academic librarians in Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America regarding open access and predatory publishing. Furthermore, the study sought to explore actions or potential plans among this group that could allow them to better assist researchers with these aspects of scholarly publishing literacy. Design – An online survey, followed by interviews with self-selected participants. Setting – Academic libraries in Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America. Subjects – 104 librarians in the online survey and seven librarians in the interviews, each holding a position in an academic library in Spanish-speaking Latin America. Methods – An anonymous survey in Spanish consisting of 34 required questions was built with SurveyMonkey and distributed to participants between 30 July 2020 and 20 September 2020. Survey respondents were directed to contact the author via email if they wished to participate in follow-up interviews. Interviews were then conducted in Spanish over Zoom between 10 October 2020 and 10 November 2020, and the transcripts were coded and analyzed with NVivo. Main Results – Of the survey’s respondents, 31.73% indicated that their library has a scholarly communication librarian, 29.81% noted that the library receives requests for assistance with finding journals in which to publish at least once per week, and 16.35% reported this type of request at least 1-2 times per month. In specific regard to predatory publishing, almost 52.88% of respondents indicated that they never receive questions on this topic, and 25.00% answered that users seek this kind of information less than once per month. Additionally, 31.73% responded that information on predatory publishing is not available at their library, and 42.31% rated their own knowledge of predatory publishing as fair to very poor. Finally, 44.23% reported plans to develop training or information to educate their institution’s research communities about predatory publishing, and 2.88% planned to recruit a scholarly communications specialist. In interviews, all participants agreed that exchanging information with other institutions with more knowledge and services related to predatory publishing would be beneficial. Three interviewees saw a general role for the library in providing information on predatory publishing, and three others indicated that this should be a leadership role when working in conjunction with other departments. All participants saw a lack of knowledge about predatory publishing as one of the primary difficulties for academic libraries, and three reported that the survey itself had led them to recognize the importance of the library’s role in scholarly communication literacy and create plans for their library to assist researchers in regard to predatory publishing. Conclusion – Academic libraries in Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America are not yet offering robust support for researchers concerning predatory publishing, but there is growing recognition of the issue, as well as interest in further developing expertise among librarians. Collaboration and exchanges of information with other institutions with more developed resources related to predatory publishing is viewed positively and may build upon existing knowledge of open access publishing.

Research Productivity Among Scholarly Communication Librarians

Introduction: A growing number of academic libraries have specialized their support for scholarly communication by creating new positions or by expanding units with a focus on providing relevant services. This study was undertaken to explore the extent to which librarians with scholarly communication responsibilities produce research and scholarship, their motivations for doing so, the nature of that productivity, and the perceived impact of that activity on their professional responsibilities. Methods: The authors administered a survey of librarians who identified as having their primary job responsibilities in scholarly communication. Results: Almost all study participants produced their own scholarly work. However, a high percentage indicated that they received no relevant training in their library degree programs, and the majority experienced imposter syndrome pertaining to their own scholarship. Although most respondents were motivated to produce research by institutional expectations for promotion and tenure, greater percentages were driven by personal or professional interests. In addition, participants indicated a strong correlation between producing their own scholarship and their ability to effectively carry out their professional responsibilities. Discussion: There may be an emerging convention for scholarly communication librarianship, i.e., one that includes open education services. Findings suggest a need for scholarly communication training to be more prominent in library degree programs. They also point to the utility of making research production a job requirement, regardless of institutional expectations for professional advancement. Conclusion: The authors argue for adjustments in library education curricula and the inclusion of research production in the portfolios of scholarly communication librarians. Future research directions are proposed.

Preparing Library and Information Science (LIS) Students for Scholarly Communication Librarianship

A growing number of academic librarians have been responsible for scholarly communication (SC) roles and responsibilities, and other related services. Previous studies (Finlay, et al., 2015) show an increase in job opportunities for librarians with SC expertise. Eighty-four percent of the students in the Hollister (2017) study described the SC as either relevant or very relevant to their career goals. However, a recent search (2021) within ALA accredited programs in Library and Information Science (LIS) reveals that only 6 out 48 offer a course in scholarly communication, and no program offered a course on related areas. Given a growing demand for wide range of SC services it is imperative for LIS programs to prepare students for these emerging new roles and responsibilities. To that end, I developed a course on SC and other related concepts based on the North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG) core competencies for SC librarians and the SC common responsibilities identified in previous studies (Hackstadt, 2020). This study will explore the extent to which the course addresses the core competencies for SC roles and responsibilities. The study will employ a self-assessment survey designed to measure the difference in students’ knowledge pre and post course completion regarding the SC core competencies. The NASIG core competencies for SC librarians align with roles and responsibilities of SC librarians as described in previous studies. Therefore, the focus on NASIG core competencies makes the results from this study broadly useful for instructors of SC courses.

Scholarly Communication Librarian Tantangan Tupoksi Pustakawan di Era 4.0

Scholarly communication librarian (SCL) is the involvement of librarians to facilitate researchers to know the development of research conducted by other researchers. Scholarly communication is not a new thing in the library world, because scientific publishing has existed since the research was conducted. The purpose of this study was to find out SCL as a challenge for librarian duties in era 4.0 which includes three main tasks of librarians in legislation, library management, library services, and librarianship system development. The population in this study were members of the FPPTI Jawa Barat and a sample of 70 people based on the Slovin formula with an error rate of 10%. The study used a descriptive method with a quantitative approach and data collection techniques using a closed Likert scale questionnaire. Based on the results of the data analysis, it shows that the FPPTI Jawa Barat librarian gave a positive response with a very good category in the SCL. FPPTI Jawa Barat librarians in carrying out their role as SCL have been able to adapt quickly and make important contributions in conducting research. The results of the study illustrate that the FPPTI Jawa Barat librarian has carried out library management well, especially in planning and evaluation, providing various sources of information that are easily accessible to users, quick reference, and conducting scientific writing guidance, and being a facilitator. The involvement of librarians in conducting research shows that FPPTI Jawa Barat librarians are actively involved in research to improve library performance in realizing service excellence.

People, places, and things: Persistent identifiers in the scholarly communication landscape

Persistent identifiers are a key element in the scholarly communication landscape. However, many scholarly communication librarians may not be familiar with persistent identifiers and what to do with them. I should know—I used to be one of these librarians. When I worked as a scholarly communication librarian, I knew a few basic things about persistent identifiers. I knew what an ORCID iD was and I could explain to researchers why they should have one. I knew what a DOI was, but I did not know that there are different types of DOIs for different types of things, or that there’s more to a DOI than the identifier itself. But I didn’t know there were other persistent identifiers relevant to scholarly communication, like identifiers for affiliations or funders or grants. And I certainly didn’t know that persistent identifiers can be commercialized and paywalled, just like research outputs.

Ending Enclosure by Copying the Commons

In the beginning (of bibliometrics), citation counts of academic research were generated to be used in annual calculations to express a research journal’s impact. Now those same citation counts make up a social graph of scholarly communication that is used to measure the research strengths of authors, the hotness of their papers, the topic prominence of their disciplines, and assess the strength of the institutions where they are employed. More troubling, the publishers of this emerging social graph are in the process of enclosing scholarship by trying to exclude the infrastructure of libraries and other independent, non-profit organizations invested in research.
 This paper will outline efforts currently being employed by scholarly communication librarians using platforms built by organizations such as Our Research’s UnPaywall and Wikimedia’s Wikidata Project so that the commons of scholarship can remain open. Strategies will be shared so that researchers can adapt their workflows so that they might allow their work to be copied, shared, and be found by readers widely across the commons. Scholars will be asked to make good choices.

Librarians Skills and Competencies for Scholarly Communication and Repository Management in Nigeria

The rapid change in scholarly communication and knowledge management has transformed the repository services and imposed new skills and competencies for repository management. This study is posed to assess the skills and competencies of librarians for repository management and scholarly communication in academic institutions in Nigeria. The study adopted a survey research design to assess the skills and competencies of the librarians using NASIG “Core Competencies for Scholarly Communication Librarians 2017”. The sample size of the study comprises 120 librarians across 40 institutions. The findings of the study indicate among others that; 74 % of the librarians have a general understanding of repository platforms, 54.17% background knowledge of open access movement, and 58% experience in advocacy for open access. At the same time, 83.3% of the librarians can capture, store, and preserve the research output. While 62.3% understand research impact, only 35.8% understand emerging alternatives measures of the impact. Although, 73.1 % understand Data description and storage, only 20.8% understand text and data mining. The study concluded that awareness, skills, and competencies of the librarians is increasing and recommends among others; setting up a framework for the employment of repository and scholarly communication librarians and training on repository management and scholarly communication.

Developing scholarly communication competencies: How a post-master’s degree residency program can provide career preparation

Scholarly communication librarianship is a messy field. Its margins are ill-defined and ever- changing. There is a lack of curricular training in library schools and a lack of opportunities for early-career candidates. As a result, preparing librarians for a scholarly communication career presents a challenge. In this piece I discuss this messiness and describe my personal experiences in a residency position, showing how these kinds of positions support the professional development of scholarly communication librarians, with specific reference to the NASIG Core Competencies for scholarly communication librarians.

Authors Alliance Partner Program (A2P2) [Product Review

The Authors Alliance Partner Program (A2P2; https://www.authorsalliance.org/a2p2-home/) is a recent addition to the educational content of the Authors Alliance. This nonprofit advocacy organization aims, "to advance the interests of authors who want to serve the public good by sharing their creations broadly." Their new initiative provides prêt-à-porter instructional material with the express purpose of supporting the scaling of rights-related programming—a goal that distinguishes A2P2 from other well-established and deeply valuable copyright-focused resources. While copyright touches nearly all we do in libraries, outreach in this area often primarily falls to scholarly communication or copyright librarians. As Schmidt (2019) notes, “providing copyright information services in the library has become part of the standard operations of academic libraries in the U.S.” We must, consequently, train ourselves up and stay current on copyright issues, as well as instruct our peers and our communities on copyright- and author rights—related issues (Reeves 2015; Norris et al. 2019; Secker et al. 2019). We need to build resources on topics that are nuanced, evolving, and carry risk. These efforts take time, care, and confidence. For professionals who may well have varied and competing job responsibilities, time and confidence certainly may be at a premium (Charbonneau and Priehs 2014). While one could easily despair, there’s help to be had. Enter, A2P2.

Thinking politically about scholarly infrastructure: Commit the publishers to 2.5%

Maybe it’s unsurprising that I think about scholarly communication in terms similar to U.S. politics. I originally drafted this article for the Library Publishing Coalition blog before the 2020 election and revised it for C&RL News during the weirdly long interregnum period before the actual inauguration. The 2016 Republican National Committee was the backdrop to my becoming a scholarly communication librarian in February of that year. That’s also when I joined Twitter, to better follow politics and librarianship, and maybe that’s to blame.

Doing the work: Crafting and implementing liaison competencies

Recently at Joyner Library, the main library for West Campus at East Carolina University (ECU), three heads of service completed a project to revise the library’s liaison competencies. The head of collection development, the head of research and instructional services, and the scholarly communication librarian took the competencies from a task-oriented document and turned them into one that allows liaisons to choose what and how they want to learn. The new document is built around learning statements, is goal-oriented, and serves liaison librarians much better than the previous document. This article will cover the creation and use of the new liaison competencies document.

Using Outreach Weeks to Examine Labor, Assessment and Value in Open Advocacy

INTRODUCTION Like the scholarly communication system it aims to transform, open advocacy work is broad in scope and reflects many influences, practices, and players. Despite having a rewarding mission, scholarly communication librarians frequently juggle multiple roles, may experience isolation and career stagnation, and produce outputs that are not readily understood. METHODS These challenges inspired the creation of the Open Action Kit, a suite of tools to help practitioners plan, execute, and assess open advocacy weeks, particularly Open Access Week. This resource sought to make explicit parallels between the activities and scope of open advocacy work and leadership skills that could aid in career progression. RESULTS The project’s aims and structure matured to focus on a broader, critical appraisal of the nature of scholarly communication work. Its encouragement of dialogue between its members and audience more thoroughly recognized and addressed the tensions between open advocacy work and professional success. DISCUSSION Open advocates expressed many frustrations with their work: they often felt isolated or burnt out, hindered by structures or expectations from their organization. While relational work is fundamental to the cultural change inherent in scholarly communication work, the overly simplistic, quantitative measures typical of library assessment do not accurately capture its nuance or complexity. CONCLUSION Centering the relational components of open advocacy work is necessary for it to be successful, sustainable, and appropriately valued. While the Open Action Kit has not been updated since 2017, it serves as a useful model for translating and centering relational work through distributed leadership, advocacy, and skill development.

Leadership, Development, and Expertise: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Scholarly Communication Librarian Position Announcements

INTRODUCTION In 2012, the Association of Research Libraries reported that 95% of libraries identified their libraries as leaders of scholarly communication efforts on campus. While academic librarians have long been responsible for SC issues, institutions have explicitly tasked positions with these responsibilities increasingly over time. This qualitative analysis of position announcements focuses on the ways libraries expect these librarians to engage with SC issues and responsibilities, rather than describing the prevalence of SC-related functions. Specifically, this study asks the following questions: (1) How do administrators communicate leadership expectations of SC librarian roles through job advertisements? (2) In what ways could these leadership expectations be challenging or problematic for SC librarians in non-administrator positions? METHODS This study is a qualitative content analysis of scholarly communication librarian position announcements posted to ALA JobList between January 1, 2016, and July 31, 2019. The advertisements are predominantly from North American academic libraries. Qualitative content analysis is systematic but allows for flexibility of interpretation in describing themes and categories. The coding scheme developed over multiple readings of the data and the author identified categories through the process of subsumption. RESULTS & DISCUSSION Prevalent themes in position announcements include leadership, expertise, and development. Leadership responsibilities appear as management duties or, often in non-administrator positions, as an expectation to take initiative or be an exemplar. SC librarians are expected to be experts, often as the library’s campus liaison or as educators in a variety of SC issues. They may also be tasked with developing institutional repositories or SC programs, though it is not always clear in the advertisement what support is available. These themes are discussed in terms of the SC librarian as a boundary spanning role. Boundary spanners are positions within an organization that communicate with the outside environment. They may also serve as filters for information coming into the organization or facilitate communication between departments or units in an organization. CONCLUSION In SC librarian job advertisements, positional authority is often absent from positions that have a responsibility to lead or develop SC efforts, programs, or initiatives. Non-experts may bestow some level of authority to experts. However, leadership and development tasks may prove difficult for a SC librarian who lacks the ability to make decisions or organizational changes. Suggestions for institutions and potential further research are discussed. External Data or Supplements:Hackstadt, A. (2020). Data from: Leadership, Development, and Expertise: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Scholarly Communication Librarian Position Announcements. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/YIXNPG, Harvard Dataverse.

Investigating academic library responses to predatory publishing in the United States, Canada and Spanish-speaking Latin America

PurposeThis is a comparative investigation of how university libraries in the United States, Canada and Spanish-speaking Latin America are responding to predatory publishing.Design/methodology/approachThe Times Higher Education World University Rankings was used to identify the top ten universities from each of the US and Canada, as well as the top 20 Spanish-language universities in Latin America. Each university library's website was scrutinized to discover whether the libraries employed scholarly communication librarians, whether they offered scholarly communication workshops, or whether they shared information about scholarly communication on their websites. This information was further examined to determine if it discussed predatory publishing specifically.FindingsMost libraries in the US/Canada sample employ scholarly communication librarians and nearly half offer workshops on predatory publishing. No library in the Latin America sample employed a scholarly communication specialist and just one offered a workshop addressing predatory publishing. The websites of the libraries in the US and Canada addressed predatory publishing both indirectly and directly, with US libraries favoring the former approach and Canadian libraries tending towards the latter. Predatory publishing was rarely addressed directly by the libraries in the Latin America sample; however, all discussed self-archiving and/or Open Access.Research limitations/implicationsBrazilian universities were excluded owing to the researchers' language limitations. Data were collected between September 15 and 30, 2019, so it represents a snapshot of information available at that time. The study was limited to an analysis of library websites using a fixed set of keywords, and it did not investigate whether other campus units were involved or whether other methods of informing researchers about predatory publishing were being used.Originality/valueThe study reveals some best practices leading to recommendations to help academic libraries combat predatory publishing and improve scholarly publishing literacy among researchers.

Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons

This article describes an active-learning exercise intended to help teach copyright, fair use, and Creative Commons licenses. In the exercise students use a worksheet to draw original pictures, create derivative pictures on tracing paper, select Creative Commons licenses, and explore commercial usage, fair use, and copyright infringement. Librarian-instructors may find the completed worksheets to be useful aids to supplement copyright lectures; student perspectives will be integral because they are generating the examples used in discussion. Although a scholarly communication librarian developed this exercise to help introduce some basic copyright information to an undergraduate studio art and design class, the exercise can be performed in a general educational setting.

What do you mean? Research in the Age of Machines

What Do You Mean?” was an undeniable bop of its era in which Justin Bieber explores the ambiguities of romantic communication. (I pinky promise this will soon make sense for scholarly communication librarians interested in artificial intelligence [AI].) When the single hit airwaves in 2015, there was a meta-debate over what Bieber meant to add to public discourse with lyrics like “What do you mean? Oh, oh, when you nod your head yes, but you wanna say no.” It is unlikely Bieber had consent culture in mind, but the failure of his songwriting team to take into account that some audiences might interpret it that way was ironic, considering the song is all about interpreting signals.