communication – Page 3 – the Undergraduate Science Librarian

A day in my life as an undergraduate science librarian

I decided to follow along with a librarian blog meme, the “library day in the life“. Since it is the summer, my day today is much different than a day during the semester. The most notable difference is the lack of meetings. Although the summer is a great time to make changes and get projects done, it can be very difficult to pull together all of the interested individuals.

7:55am – Arrive at work, Make tea. The day can officially start.

8-8:30am – Check email, calendar. Lots of folks are on vacation this week, which seems to account for my lack of meetings today. Accept some future meeting invitations, decline others. Realize that one librarian who had reference desk hours today won’t be here. Email colleagues to see if we can split her hours. Wishing Oracle calendar could actually interface with other things (esp. iPhone)

8:30am – Write up a blog post about our switch from SciFinder Client version to SciFinder Web. Checking to see if appropriate URLs have been added to our proxy server so folks can get to SciFinder off campus.

8:50am – Got distracted by Explored Barnes and Noble’s new eBook reader for iPhone. I already have the Kindle reader for iPhone, which I love. I’d like to encourage some competition in the eBook market, though, so I think my next few purchases will be from B&N.

9:00am – First reference shift of the day, substituting for an absent colleague. With very few students on campus, and even fewer in the library, this is very slow. One person asked for tape, but no reference questions.

10am – Another hour of reference for absent colleague. I will have three hours of reference today, one more than usual.

While at the reference desk this morning I manage to:

Catch up on a few blogs
Chat with our Sys admin to get some ezproxy settings changed for the switch to SciFinder web
Resolve a broken link in the blog post I just wrote
Smile and wave at a tour group as they point out the research help desk
Review a list of action items for a campus wide committee I’m on
Figure out why a link won’t work in our Resources by Subject lists
Explore possible ways of fixing that link, which is being problemmatic.
Finally fix the troublesome link
Smile and wave again at another tour group
Added google analytics to our new mobile webpages
Answered 1 reference question (How to find a copy of Civilization and its Discontents)

11:00am – Make tea, get a snack.

11:10am – Start cleaning desk. Constant distractions as I stop to look up interesting things from the pieces of paper I should be throwing away or filing. Some of the interesting things:

Math books from the MAA
IOP Librarian Forum on Facebook
Articles from sample copies of magazines I picked up at SLA 2009 in June
Finally figured out how to import our library blog to our library Facebook page. Did the same thing for my own blog on my own Facebook page. Also claimed the vanity URL for our library page.

12:15pm – Read an article about “making chat widgets work for online reference” from Online magazine (not freely available online). Passed it along to a colleague who is on the committee working to implement web chat here.

12:30pm – Lunch. Tried to read a Barnes and Noble eBook on my iPhone, but spent 15 minutes trying to “unlock” the book with my credit card number. Why can’t I just log in to my B&N account? Kindle reader wins this round.

1pm – Committee Meeting – “Creating a Collaborative Research Center”. I am on a campus committee here to look at ways to increase collaborative research (and the funding for that research).

2pm – Back on the reference desk, updating the Geology subject guide. Distracted by Explored the neat search options on Mindat.org. Finished adding some excellent resources. Emailed faculty to inform them of the changes and to ask for additional suggestions.

3pm – Finally answered a real reference question just as my reference shift was ending. Student was looking to see if we had any of the movies she had to watch for an assignment (most were checked out, but one was still available).

3:30pm – Head home. I’m leaving early on Monday and Tuesday of this week to spend some time with my family. This helps balance out all the times during the semester where I will stay late.

communication

What impact is the impact factor measuring?

I recently read a very interesting article in PLoS ONE examining various measures of the scientific importance of particular journals:

Bollen, J., Van de Sompel, H., Hagberg, A., & Chute, R. (2009). A Principal Component Analysis of 39 Scientific Impact Measures PLoS ONE, 4 (6) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0006022

The article isn’t breaking new ground in its criticism of the impact factor, calculated by Thomson Scientific. However, the statistical analysis comparing multiple measures of importance sheds new light on the relationship between the various measures.

The authors analyzed 39 different impact measures that fall into two main groups: those that look at citation counts and those that look at online usage data (page views and downloads). A few additional measures that take account of online social networks were also included.

Schematic representation of PCA analysis. JIF is the normal Journal Impact Factor from Thompson Scientific

In general, the usage measurements cluster more closely together than the citation measurements – they are measuring approximately the same thing.

As a result of this analysis, they were able to differentiate measures that looked at immediate (“rapid”) use vs. longer term use (“delayed”), and to distinguish measures that look at how popular a resource is vs. how prestigious a resource is.

All of this leads us to repeat the problem posited by the authors: we don’t have an accepted definition of what “impact” really is.

Publications, institutions, and tenure committees all have different needs and requirements. For example, the faculty at one large research institution may be more concerned about prestige, while another may need to market their programs and examine their popularity. I think this analysis shows that folks can and should be a bit more choosy when selecting the measure they use to judge their competitors, their research, and their colleagues.

communication, twitter, web2.0

Why do I Twitter?

Everyone is talking about Twitter right now. I thought I would talk about why I think using Twitter is useful to me as an undergraduate science librarian.

First, I can connect with colleagues. While I have some amazing colleagues at my library, there are no other science librarians. Using twitter I can engage in conversation with science librarians at far flung institutions to give and receive advice, assistance and support.

Second, it’s a great way to keep up with practicing scientists. Even if the faculty I work with aren’t on twitter, I can get a good sense of what professors and researchers are doing.

Third, it is great way to find out about recent news from folks who are much more connected than I am. I get pointed to great links and hear assessments of recent developments in the information world by people smarter than I am. Folks provide commentary on the Google Book settlement, or about the now-defunct changes to OCLC policies.

And of course, it’s fun! Sometimes you just want to tell the world what you had for breakfast.

communication, culture

No more print textbooks

No more print textbooks?

Originally uploaded by Amin Tabrizi

Because Arnold Schwarzenegger says so.

This isn’t exactly a new prediction, but two recent news stories seem to confirm the downfall of the print textbook. First, the NY Times reports on a high school that ditched their algebra textbook in favor of a curriculum designed by the teachers. Then, the big news from California that Gov. Schwarzenegger has declared print textbooks to be old fashioned, and educators should start looking on the web for material to meet their needs. (My favorite headline about Gov. Schwarzenegger’s comments: Arnold Schwarzenegger says hasta la vista to textbooks.)

While California is hoping that the state will save money by not purchasing books for K-12 students, I hope that this trend extends into higher education. Wouldn’t it be great if students didn’t have to shell out $200 for their organic chemistry or introductory biology textbook? Instead, they could rely on free material on the web that their professor picked out?

Update: There is a new article in the Chronicle of Higher Education about one university’s experience with eBook textbooks.

chemistry, communication, culture, vendors, workshop

Chemistry Librarians

chemistry

Originally uploaded by Brian Hathcock

Today I attended a small workshop held at the University of Toronto for chemistry librarians. It is an exciting group to be a member of (or at least a partial member, since I work with all the sciences). There were presentations from fellow librarians, a chemistry faculty member, and several vendors. It was a long day (rush hour traffic in Toronto is crazy!), but well worth it.

The vendor presentations were interesting, but reminded me that vendors really need to learn to edit their presentations. I know that your latest product is the best thing ever, but if you are allotted a half-hour time slot, please make sure that you only take a half-hour!

This was a great learning experience for me. I am not a chemist, and listening to my librarian colleagues discuss resources and the ways they assist faculty and students helps me understand how chemists work. I am slowly catching on, but I have a lot to learn.

As a relatively new librarian, it is vital for me to learn as much as I can about the literature of the disciplines I am responsible for, but it is also important to learn about the culture of those disciplines. This is something that takes time, and I am just at the beginning.

I was able to share with my colleagues some of the work we have been doing in information literacy instruction in chemistry, and get some wonderful feedback from librarians and chemistry faculty regarding the future of our program.

communication, workshop

Scholarly Communication 101

Today I attended one of the ACRL Scholarly Communication 101 workshops, held at the Uniersity at Buffalo. It was an excellent workshop and met my expectations perfectly.

I have presented information about new forms of scholarly communication in the past, including Nature Network and ScienceBlogs.com, but I was missing some basic information, and this workshop filled in the gaps nicely.

Some interesting factoids about scholarly publishing

STM publications make up 84% of the $19.1 billion industry
91% of the dollars spent on journals go to the for-profit publishers
Papers in the for-profit publications only account for 38% of citations

The business model of publishing scientific papers isn’t really working, and right now everyone is trying to figure out what to do about it. Publishers are clinging to traditional business practices (getting content from scholars for free, charging libraries a lot of money for access). Library budgets are shrinking, and we can’t afford to purchase access to everything.

One possible solution: open access models of publication.

I am a big advocate of open access, and this workshop explored some of the advantages of the model.

One example that struck home with me was the story of a faculty member approaching the library and asking that his publications be archived in their institutional repository. The library had to tell him that unfortunately, this wasn’t possible: the faculty member hadn’t retained the right to his publications. Typical author agreements normally assign copyright to the publisher. The publisher occasionally grants certain rights back to the author, but not always.

Open access publication would allow a researcher to do what he or she wants with the results of their research.

The educational mission of universities encourages us to encourage open access publication. Open access allows more readers to learn from the research conducted by scholars.

Libraries and librarians should do everything they can to encourage their faculty to publish in open access journals, or at least retain the copyright to their work. Some libraries are assisting authors in paying author fees in open access publications. Other libraries are publishing open access journals. Some libraries are supporting consortia that encourage open access publication. At the least, librarians can help inform their faculty about opportunities for open access publication, and educate them about the benefits to themselves, their colleagues, and their students.

chemistry, communication

Searching for Spectra

Spectrum

Originally uploaded by MikeParker

A recent conversation with a chemistry faculty member has led me on a search for chemical spectra data resources.

I started with a pretty blank slate. I knew that SciFinder, from Chemical Abstracts services contained a large amount of spectra, but this faculty member was looking for more.

So where do I start? Where does anyone start a search for information? With Google, or course!

A basic search for spectral information revealed the SpecInfo for the Internet database from Wiley. This would meet the needs of my faculty member. Great! The only problem: the pricetag. As a small college, we can’t afford such a specialized database. Back to the drawing board.

Luckily for me, there are a lot of chemistry librarians at large research universities who have collected online subject guides related to spectral data. Two that I found useful are from the University of Texas and George Washington University.

These subject guides point to free resources from NIST, as well as available print resources. Hopefully this will work for the faculty member!

communication, projects

Collection Development for Beginners

That would be me – a collection development beginner.

This year I have taken on some collection development responsibilities in astronomy & physics, biology, chemistry, computer science, geology and math. It’s a little daunting.

As a public undergraduate institution, we can’t buy everything, so it is important to choose wisely.

The prospect of building a good collection in areas I am not familiar with is a little scary. Luckily for me, the faculty make most of the selections at my institution, giving me a bit of flexibility and time to learn.

I am currently developing some strategies to help me with this new responsibility.

I am talking to faculty. What kinds of projects are they asking students to do? What kinds of materials do they find acceptable for assignments? What kind of undergraduate research are they doing?
I am working with our collection development librarian to analyze what we already have in our collection. Apparently, we have about 100 books on FORTRAN, most from the early to mid 1980’s. We only have about 10 on PHP.
I am seeking the advice of experts. I am seeking out book reviews in science and technology journals, and looking for high quality books that meet the needs of our curriculum. This works best when publishers provide an RSS feed of articles that allows me to filter out the book reviews. Using Yahoo! Pipes, I can create a single RSS feed for book reviews from scientific journals. This is very much a work in progress.

I am hopeful that these strategies will allow me to build a collection that will be useful to our students and faculty, with up-to-date authoritative books on subjects our users care about.

We’ll see.

communication, twitter, web2.0

Annual Reporting and the Importance of Librarian as Communicator

It’s annual report season at my institution, which forces me to think about what I’ve actually accomplished this year. It provides a great opportunity for me to re-examine the wonderful things that I’ve learned at the various conferences and workshops I have attended this year.

One of the most common themes I’ve encountered this year is the idea of the importance of the librarian as communicator:

Communicating with students about appropriate resources
Communicating with faculty about changing library policies and new resources
Communicating with administrations and governments about the role of the library at your institution
Facilitating communication with the public about science and scholarship

What strategies do we employ (or should we employ) to help us meet our various communication needs?

Traditional tools such as newsletters and posters aren’t as sexy as web 2.0 applications, but they remove the barrier to entry and reach a population that isn’t always wired.

Social media can help connect libraries to their users, but time and effort must be expended to reach the audience you are seeking. Social media can also become insular: librarians following other librarians on twitter, Facebook pages for a library whose only “friends” are other librarians. My library has a Flickr account and a Facebook page, but both are badly in need of updates. Do we jump in on twitter, too? With a limited staff can we replicate the success of a colleague using twitter at a larger university?

Those tools can help you connect to and interact with users in a way that is impossible with the mass-mailed newsletter, but only when used appropriately. This is something I am constantly working on.