How the Library can Best Serve the Academic Research Community at Wits

Yasien Sayed

School of Molecular and Cell Biology

What information sources do you use and how do you access them?

• Mostly electronic journals

• Printed journals used occasionally (if e-journals unavailable)

• Books rarely used

• e-Journals predominantly accessed through the Wits Library e-Journal Portal

• If e-copy of journal unavailable, the Wits e-Wits catalogue is searched to enquire if journal in hard copy within the libraries on campus

• If journal volume not listed on e-Wits catalogue (especially with older journals), a manual search through the BioPhy hardcopy catalogue of journals is performed followed by perusal of the shelf containing nearest journal volume of interest

• Alternatively, journals are accessed via internet at specialised websites (e.g., NCBI website at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/)

• In our Unit, most searches are done using internet

• Accessing the library information is via the Wits webpage then the library page

What are your top five journals?

• Journal of Biological Chemistry

• Biochemistry

• Journal of Molecular Biology

• Protein Science

• Proteins: Structure, Function and Genetics

• Current Opinions in Structural Biology

How do you keep abreast with new knowledge in your area?

• Using a search engine (e.g., Google)

• Use key words pertaining to techniques of interest or

• proteins of interest or

• proteins found in same structural or evolutionary family as protein of interest

• Sites containing highest hits are explored further and • If information is relevant and sound

• Source is sought using Wits e-Journal portal or e-Wits catalogue

• Searches also conducted through other avenues: Pubmed, NCBI and Highwire

What value do you attach to journal “impact factors”?

• Generally, the more “reputable” journals discuss a wider variety of topics targeting a wider readership (Nature, Science etc)

• Articles carry a greater impact factor compared to articles that have a higher degree of specialisation and hence a smaller target audience/readership

• Consequently, the journals have lower impact factors – not to be mistaken for “weaker” journals

• Specialised journal articles (lower impact factors) are useful for obtaining specifics wrt protocols, techniques and are very useful in observing how data were obtained and analysed

• Articles having greater impact factors generally contain novel concepts that are useful in changing focus or examining your research from another angle (new technique, method of analysis wrt new/improved algorithms)

• An important criterion for promotion documents/NRF rating

Where do you publish/disseminate your research results and what influences the decisions?

• Thus far, only in internationally peer-reviewed journals

• Considering all DoE accredited journals as well (i.e., SA journals)

• Febs. Letters, Biochem. J. , Biochemistry, Protein Science, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Journal of Molecular Biology, AIDS Reviews, Chemico-Biological Interactions

• Nature of the research– Is it novel

– Is it cutting-edge

– Theme (protein folding, biological thermodynamics, etc)

– Is it “me-too” science

• Impact factor

What importance do you attach to open access journals?

• “Little importance. The majority of pertinent journal articles that contain articles of merit and interest are located in well-established journals that require licenses to access them. These licenses are gratefully held by WITS university. In the past, a few articles have been obtained using select Google sites that provide the option of saving a pdf or HTML copy of the article without the need for access codes or credit card details”

• “I have no problem with them”

• “Well, they are really, really useful because often when I have needed an article and have no access through Wits they are a blessing”

• I have learnt to value them when access to a journal is restricted and I must have the article at this very instant

What are your views on publishing in a globally accessible Wits web site (i.e. institutional repository)?

• “The greater the accessibility of journals the greater the scope for higher quality research. Inaccessibility of key journals from a wide variety of publishing houses would narrow the focus of research thereby limiting it to previously mastered techniques. A Wits repository would allow one to share information with not only members in the same department and school, but members in other faculties too. This inter-faculty sharing of information may lead to inter-faculty collaborations and possibly increase the diversity and scope of postgraduate projects”

• “I'm not sure how much international recognition it would receive”

• “Not too sure what this is about (I) am guessing it has to do with having our library globally available and might be good to allow for published research to be globally accessible”

What value could librarians and the library add to your research work?

• “I think the library is generally very helpful. Obviously, the more journals that I can access through the library the better. However, if an article is not available, I have used the interlibrary loan facility and I've found it to be very useful” but

• “MMMMM… a tricky one…I don’t think I have bothered with asking a Librarian anything in about 4 years. I really am not too sure what they could do better or introduce. I guess I would have to say maybe be more helpful with journal article location; in other words, be able to assist in locating through which channel the article can be obtained as well as making researchers aware of new resources that become available”

What overall library research support to Molecular and Cell Biology would you expect?

• Ability to create a repository of key journal articles that are frequently referenced in Wits postgraduate dissertations and theses with respect to specialised techniques, particularly structures of proteins etc.

• “Access to more journal articles (of interest to our research unit)... and maybe getting new current books, that would be great!”

• “This is a hard one, I can’t say there is much in the way of support as I see now. What might be useful is some way/ channel that could be made that would allow us to keep the library aware of problems with journal access so that the library could identify areas where maybe they could increase access and decrease in other less used areas. This might not even have to be a person to person thing maybe monitor which journal are requested but cannot be obtained and which are hardly ever searched for”