SPEC Kit 346: Scholarly Output Assessment Activities · 61
There are varying levels of service in scholarly output assessment in our library. The Medical Center has done a lot of
forward-thinking work on this front and has been doing so for years, whereas other units are just now getting involved.
This is a major area of interest and conversation in our library system and there seem to be many opportunities for
collaborating with other campus units, but such collaborations are complex politically, strategically, procedurally,
and technically.
This survey is difficult to complete since we are in the early planning stages of a program. We are interested to find out if
there are other institutions that have made this assessment a priority and have implemented a program.
Through our distributed model, we are building expertise across our library system and across disciplines. We are being
proactive and notice the growing interest. We value the deep expertise some library faculty have already attained.
We do not have a developed program in this area, yet. This survey has prompted several conversations and ideas for
further development in this area.
We do not provide or generate reports as a normal service to our faculty/researchers. We focus on teaching them how
to use the tools and on their weaknesses and strengths. Often help is needed to formulate complicated queries in
systems like Web of Science and Scopus.
We have strong partnerships with the Office of Research & Engagement and the Office of the Provost. They have
acquired systems and look to the library to support faculty and administrators in using the systems.
We need to be more pro-active in training and development of staff in this area. Our services need a more coordinated
approach; we are now too decentralized and fractured. As a result, campus units are hiring their own in-house expertise
to do this work, side-stepping the library.
We offer the most limited, non-advertised, occasional support by a reference librarian to the occasional faculty member.
We recognize the importance of services in this area and are currently advertising for a Scholarly Communications
Librarian to develop these services.
We’re just at the beginning, and still have a lot to learn and do.
We’ve pretty much covered it. We have an established scholarly communications program, but a new librarian in the
role who is bringing a new focus on scholarly assessment. Because of this, much of the material requested is under
development, and we do not have live pages to offer links for at this time.
We understand the importance of developing library services that assist researchers throughout the lifecycle of the
research process, including evaluation. We are committed to developing research assessment service here and have
already undertaken a number of steps in that direction. These include a series of talks and seminars on the importance
of bibliometric services to support research activity of university faculty, trials of industry-standard tools, and FY16
project to develop bibliometric service.
While currently we don’t offer a dedicated advertised service called “Scholarly Output Assessment,” services of that
kind are coming as we get started with our transition to campus-wide adoption of a faculty profile system (Symplectic
Elements). This tool will enable scholars to track many aspects of their scholarly impact and scholarly communication.
The strategic initiatives manager here at the library has done (and continues to do) training with campus faculty to
understand how to use the tools available in the faculty profile system. Other assessment questions that come in are
frequently directed to the scholarly communications librarian or subject liaisons.
While subject liaisons have always provided assistance with citation reports, scholarly output assessment is not an
established, dedicated service at our institution. However, academic units started to express the desire and need