Supporting social science: Bernie Folan, UKSG

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Supporting effective communication and workflows in social science research:summary of a group discussion

UKSG Feedback session, March 2012Bernie Folan


What’s happened Conversations with librarians ... “greater need for librarians

and researchers to talk, with publishers listening”

Discussion chaired by SAGE, facilitated by the RIN, librarians and social science early career researchers (6-8 of each)

Article published in Serials July 2011 summarising key findings

Survey to test strength of response to challenges uncovered

Charleston Feedback Session November 11

UKSG Feedback Session March 2012

Next...


Problems in the discovery, use and creation of research material

Combat reliance on narrow discovery methods and misunderstanding of search tools by some experienced researchers who are supervising doctoral students.

Browsing outside discipline is essential, but it is now a predominantly search culture.

Library branding needs greater prominence on publisher platforms to highlight library value


Problems in the discovery, use and creation of research material (continued)

Improve adoption of search and browse skills training amongst all researchers and appoint institutional advocates.

Greater transparency needed on service inclusion and overlap between widely-used services and gateways (for both researchers and librarians).

Institutions with devolved budgeting need improved systems to purchase cross-disciplinary material as well as fund OA submissions.


What librarians and researchers need from each other to improve research workflows

• Greater attendance of librarians at departmental subject meetings and other fora to better understand researcher needs and concerns.

• A need to explain the mechanics of content purchasing and its challenges to researchers.

• Explanation to senior financial managers on agreed common themes (eg. finer detail of usage analysis) is required to avoid misunderstandings.


How can librarians and publishers work together to demonstrate value and impact of research material on their institutional strategic goals

Institutions require local data reporting, beyond usage stats, (e.g. author numbers, usage and citation of local research)

Institutions can be poor at knowing and valuing what they have, for example PhD numbers.

It is essential, though challenging, for authors to demonstrate the impact of their research beyond academia.

Need for a single robust academic ID and profile site. Initiatives in existence, but a need for one solution that can be tied into academic appraisal and help showcase institutional output.


Resources beyond scholarly articles and chapters for research and output

Researchers are using a wide variety of alternative research resources, from blogs and Twitter to Listserves.

Libraries could optimize use and generate more revenue from their special collections and archives and market them better beyond niche research circles.

To differing degrees, and dependent on discipline, researchers are contributing beyond journal articles and book chapters. Mostly they are observing a careful balance between openness and traditional publishing.


Institutional mechanisms for funding open access in the humanities and social science

Increased lobbying of Research Councils and other bodies required to make funding available and access to it transparent in Social Sciences

Improved education about OA funding is needed at senior levels to ensure facilities are in place.

Greater education around what OA means and how it works is needed by researchers at all levels – many are unsure and are confusing ‘open’ with ‘free’.

Greater efforts to persuade ‘big names’ to publish in newer OA outlets essential to move things along in favour of OA in the humanities and social sciences.


The library’s evolving role in providing teaching material alongside research content

Teaching materials should be available within the institutional network not at an outside link.

E-textbooks and e-books are still too expensive and DRM issues stand in the way of success.

A wide variance in the sophistication of reading list support tools and practices is in use. Reading list compilation provides many challenges. Good practice needs to be more widespread with systems put in place to combat bad practice.

Higher education IT departments are often in institutional silos. They could work together to find solutions to challenges with more creation and sharing of open source programming solutions.


“The 3 big issues for us are probably common ones: constraints on content we can purchase (budget

cuts and more cuts) promoting awareness of what we have (we still have a lot of great content despite

budget issues) and how to access it: providing training (too few

librarians for the magnitude of the task)”


● Research project, commissioned by SAGE, to investigate the value of academic libraries for academic departments.

● SAGE appointed LISU to undertake the research Dec 2011.● Building on existing research: How libraries can

- Better market their services

- Improve perceptions with key decision makers.● Preliminary results now online● Get involved – surveys coming soon!

http://libraryvalue.wordpress.com/


Working together: evolving value for academic libraries – 4 Phases

● Phase 1: desk research aiming to identify recent significant publications on the issue of value of academic libraries (January 2012)

● Phase 2: series of 8 case studies of HE libraries in the UK, US and Scandinavia (January – March 2012)

● Phase 3: triangulation of case study results with a series of informal surveys, distributed to librarians to ascertain extent to which issues and findings from the case study resonate with own experience (April-May 2012)

● Phase 4: evidence gathered synthesised into final report (June 2012)


Exploring future business models

• OA round table• Jointly hosted by

SAGE and BL• Chair: Simon

Inger• International

participation• Report: end 2012


Championing discoverability

● White paper, released January 2012

● The development of more sophisticated discovery and visibility strategies very much depends on heightened cross-sector collaborations


Bernie FolanSAGE, LondonEmail: [email protected]: @berniefolan

Article:http://goo.gl/eusOQ orhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1629/24183

Comment on blog: http://libraryvalue.wordpress.com/

Education

Supporting social science: Bernie Folan, UKSG