transferrable thrills: taking the librarian out of the library

Transferrable thrills? Taking the Librarian out of the Library

Elizabeth Gadd, Loughborough University

Overview

• Context• Before – life in the Library• Developing a specialism• The journey – needing a change• After – life in the Research Office• General lessons & thoughts

Before: Life in the Library

• Managed Academic Services Team (job share)• Research Support Coordinator• Structure of Academic Services Team

Library wide responsibility for research support

The birth of bibliometrics at Loughborough

• Web pages & training• Publication strategy session for

academic staff• Publication & visibility strategy

for PGRs• Enquiry and stats provision

service for academics• Feeding in to discussions around

relevant metrics for PDR

Developing a specialism

• See a gap and fill it• 1996 – interest in copyright

clearance• No UK-wide forum to discuss• Set up Lis-Copyseek

• 2010 - interest in bibliometrics• No UK wide forum to discuss• Set up Lis-Bibliometrics• 4th Bibliometrics in Universities

event coming up in December

Understanding the bigger picture

• Professional responsibilities• Bid for research funding• Bid for bursaries or travel

awards• Training courses –

Certificates & Diplomas• Internal secondments• Job shadowing

Ranking troubles

• Poor citation performance• Been knocking on doors about this for

some time• Consultancy work• Reported the results to high level staff• Coincided with poor REF results• Recognised that there was a need for

someone to take this forward in the institution

• Publication Policy job created in Research Office…

•  

After: Life on the other side

Similarities Differences

Same research support topics:

Publication strategy and visibilityBibliometricsOpen accessRDMSocial media

Still sit on the Library Research Support Group

Still provide training

Different perspective on those topics:

MonitoringReportingCompliancePolicy developmentConsultation response

Smaller teamLess line mgt responsibility More time to think strategically Greater access and visibiity

A day in the life…

• Provision of citation data for Research Quality Enhancement Committee

• Responding the requests for advice about Journal Lists by Associate Deans for Research

• Writing a case for institutional take-up of Altmetric for Institutions

• Delivering training on publication strategy• Developing policy messages around what, when and how

people might make their research visible• Lobbying for a Change Project in this area

The beauty of being new to a field

• Have a different perspective • Able to ask stupid questions• Learn a lot • Have time to think strategically• Have energy for the challenge!

The beauty of having been a librarian

• Understanding of the scholarly communication process• Researchers, publishers, services and tools

• A service focus • Seen the other side of joint agendas• A recognition that it’s not all about

research

The beauty of having been a researcher

• Understand the research process• Bidding for funding, • Doing the research • Writing it up• Getting published

• Having a publication profile

Research projects –big…

Project RoMEO

Righ

ts &

Rew

ards

Pr

ojec

t

…and small

The Matthew Effect…

• ARMA Metrics SIG Champion

• SciVal User Group Steering Committee member

• Expert Reference Group for a Jisc project on Research Data Metrics for Usage

General lessons

• Take your place at the table – you have a right to be there• Opportunities are rarely offered – they are seized• Go for roles where you have the potential to succeed, rather

than where you are already fully/over-qualified• Face down “Imposter syndrome”• Geographical / time constraints needn’t hold you back• You can have (bits of) it all…• What do you actually want?

Why you?

• Where do you want to be in 5 years time?

• What opportunities can you seize to make it a reality?

• Why you?

Contact details

Elizabeth Gadd MSc, MCLIP, FHEAResearch Policy Manager (Publications)Research OfficeLoughborough UniversityLoughborough, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU T: 01509 228594S: lizziegaddE: e.a.gadd@lboro.ac.uk Google Scholar Citation ProfileLinked In