Uncategorized

My problem with the Chemical Abstracts Service

I don’t have a problem with their product, just their support.

Chemical Abstracts Service is the force behind SciFinder, the best database for chemical information available. It is an outstanding resource for chemists, with some of the best indexing available.

CAS recently conducted a survey, asking the “key contacts” from each library to rate the quality of the training materials they provide and their support for training chemists on SciFinder.  While they have some high quality training materials, their support for teaching undergraduates how to use SciFinder is awful.

Because they limit user access to their product (we pay for 3 simultaneous users), we have to request special “training” logins for our information literacy sessions in the chemistry department.  While this is a pain, this isn’t a big problem.  The problem is that they limit the number of training seats they will grant us, and communication poorly about how many training seats might be accessible.

We have a well developed information literacy program at my library, and the limitations on training seats mean that we have to ration the instruction we give on this incredible database.  If students aren’t exposed to this database in a hands-on session, they will turn to more easily available resources (such as Google) to find their information.

I think it would make good business sense for CAS to be more open with the number of training seats they grant.  Here’s why:  if chemistry students are thoroughly convinced at the undergraduate level that SciFinder is their best source for information, they will want access to it in graduate school and in the workplace, putting pressure on more institutions and corporations to purchase access.

My recommendation:  don’t limit the number of training log-ins available to an institution and your product will see more use outside of the classroom.

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.

culture, undergraduate

The “undergraduate” part of a science librarian

I keep up with my professional colleagues through blogs, listservs, twitter and social networking sites. Many of the science librarians I connect with have the advantage (or disadvantage) of being the library liaison to just one or two academic departments. As the sole science librarian at a largely undergraduate institution, I am the liaison to many academic departments:

  • Biology
  • Chemistry
  • Physics and Astronomy
  • Geological Sciences
  • Mathematics
  • Computer Science

I can’t be an expert in everthing, and the past few years have been a learning experience. I have a masters degree in Geology, so I am the most comfortable with the subject matter in that department, but I have been doing most of my library instruction sessions in the Biology and Chemistry departments.

In addition to learning about organic chemistry and vertebrate zoology, I am slowly learning about the culture of the various sciences.

For example, the emaphsis on primary, peer reviewed literature is stronger in Biology than in Geology (where technical reports make up a large part of the literature). Physicists are more receptive to Open Access models of publication (as seen in the dominance of the arXiv.org preprint server) than their counterparts in Chemistry (which has strong disciplinary ties to the chemical and pharmaceutical industries). And I just read a very interesting article discussing the tendancy of Computer Scientists to publish via conference presentations more than peer reviewed publications.

Learning about the publication cultures of the various scientific disciplines has been one of the most interesting parts of this job, and I feel as though I have only skimmed the surface.

Uncategorized

Working with faculty to manage resources

Librarians and classroom faculty spend their time thinking about different things. Classroom faculty concentrate on teaching their students the subject matter, while librarians tend to focus on the resources students need to learn those subjects.

I just started two important dialogs with faculty about our library resources:

  • The Chemistry department and I need to make a decision about whether to move the web version of SciFinder, or stick with the client version for now.
  • Subject guides for Astronomy and Physics have been neglected for years and were missing several vital resources. As I update these guides, I am asking for assistance from the Physics and Astronomy department to make sure that the resources included in the guides are the resources their students are using.

I’m waiting to find out how engaged the faculty will be in these discussions. My initial overture was an email explaining what was going on. I will probably follow this up with in-person discussions. I have found that a quick trip over the an academic department can save a lot of time typing up emails, and leads to a better overall relationship. As the semester draws to a close, classroom faculty get very busy with final exams and projects and it is often easier for them to express their opinions in a quick face-to-face conversation.

Uncategorized

Looking for Astronomy Resources

In my quest to update the science subject guides at my library, I have started in alphabetical order with Astronomy. The astronomy subject guide is one of the least used guides at my institution, and it does not have many resources listed.

In my quest to update this resource, I am employing several strategies.

  1. Adding appropriate resources from our list of paid databases
  2. Adding resources I am already familiar with that may be useful in astronomy
  3. Examining other subject guides created by specialty librarians at larger universities on the subject
  4. Working with the astronomy faculty to add resources that they point their students to

Since I am not an astronomer, part of this process involves learning about the literature research methods of astronomers, and the needs of these particular undergraduates at my institution.

A few of the resources I will be adding to the guide include:

projects, twitter, webdesign

Back to work

I have been on maternity leave for the past 2 1/2 months, and I am starting to get back into the swing of things.

Some of the projects currently on my list:

  • Revise our science and mathematics subject guides. They were neglected before I came on board as science librarian and are in need of a big overhaul
  • Weed the science reference collection (with my reference librarian colleagues)
  • Put together a presentation about information literacy in Chemistry for a small workshop
  • Analyze our print collection in the sciences, in case we have any money to buy more books next year
  • Working with biology faculty to develop some information literacy strategies for the first year biology lab
  • Miscellaneous web design projects, including a possible transfer of the library website to the Drupal CMS
  • Ongoing assessment of our information literacy program

So, what do I tackle first upon my return? The easy things: possible style sheet changes for our website to change the look of our links. Sometimes the best way to get started again is to do a few easy things before hitting the larger projects.

Oh, and I spent some time finding more science librarians to follow on Twitter, and editing my LinkedIn profile. That counts as work, right?