Service to the Profession

Abstract

For academic librarians with faculty status, service to the profession often forms part of the requirements for promotion and tenure. Considering the concept of professional service raises questions as to what specific activities qualify; what is their weight, both within the service requirement and also as compared with other requirements, such as research and publication; and how are service activities best documented. Examination of ARL Standards and selected promotion and tenure documents revealed inconsistencies between institutions and great flexibility in interpretation by most.     

Leveraging Librarian Liaison Expertise in a New Consultancy Role

This paper presents a case study of an advisory role that librarians successfully developed with faculty editors to increase the visibility and readership of an open access scholarly publication. The study represents an example of how expertise among liaison librarians and other library service professionals can be leveraged in new consultancy roles in support of evolving library service models. It also depicts local application of a hybrid model for librarianship that combines the functional specialist and subject librarian liaison roles in implementing advisory activities and recommendations. The liaison librarians successfully used their knowledge of scholarly communications and applied innovative bibliometric analysis to help enhance the discoverability and user experience of an online journal publication. The librarians made specific recommendations for optimizing journal website content organization, search functionality, metadata standards and marketing opportunities that were subsequently implemented by the editors and platform managers. The faculty editor places a high value on these recommendations, and the librarian advisory role continues to develop. Our study also outlines many of the essential considerations that scholar-editors and librarian advisors can use to help implement open access scholarly publishing projects successfully.     

AND A FEW MORE

Much of the recent library literature related to scholarly communication and predatory publishers has focused on faculty concerns regarding publishing in questionable journals for tenure or promotion purposes. However, little attention has been paid to predatory publishers in the context of student research and library instruction. The presence of predatory journals in library databases may put students at risk of including questionable content in their academic output. While the results of this study reveal that the number of predatory publishers and their associated journals are fairly small in the three article database packages and one directory that were examined, predatory journal content was more prevalent in one particular resource and in certain subject areas.     

Continuing Education for ARL Librarians in Multi-Faceted Public Service Positions

Continuing education for the reference librarian, bibliographer and/or faculty member in an ARL library derives from every facet of the job. Certain functions, such as that of bibliographer, require formal orientation to the political climate of the teaching faculty. Other activities such as reference, online searching, and bibliographic instruction may involve prior experience but become more fully developed through the job itself. The role of faculty member necessitates publishing for promotion and tenure, which may include assistance from colleagues in critiquing papers intended for publication. Beyond diverse and demanding job requirements, however, the librarian needs intellectual and aesthetic development. A model used in the medical profession could serve librarianship well.     

Research, publication, and service patterns of Florida academic librarians

In an effort to establish benchmarks for comparison to national trends, a web-based survey explored the research, publication, and service activities of Florida academic librarians. Participants ranked the importance of professional activities to the tenure/promotion process. Findings suggest that perceived tenure and promotion demands do influence research productivity.     

The use of departmental journal lists in promotion and tenure decisions at American research universities

The purpose of this multi-institution study was to develop an understanding of where and how ranking lists are being used for the purpose of informing promotion and tenure decisions. Individuals were selected for this survey who, were at the time, serving in administrative positions at 115 R1 Carnegie research institutions. The survey questionnaire consisted of demographic, closed-response, and rating-scale questions designed to understand the respondents' experiences and attitudes concerning their academic department's promotion and tenure process. Results of this survey will inform librarians on practices associated with promotion and tenure involving open access publishing and the use of standardized journal lists.     

Academic Freedom Issues for Academic Librarians

Abstract

Professors Danner and Bintliff argue that understanding academic freedom and faculty tenure is important for academic librarians, both to gain better perspective on the concerns of faculty researchers and teachers, and to highlight matters of common concern to librarians and faculty. The authors discuss the basic tenets of academic freedom and tenure, then compare academic freedom with the intellectual freedom concerns of librarians. The article concludes by introducing several current issues of importance to librarians, faculty, and everyone concerned with academic freedom on university campuses.     

The book collections of British university libraries an American reaction

This study summarizes a survey conducted to discover the extent to which professional librarians in Nigerian university libraries have achieved academic/faculty status. The survey revealed that: (1) almost all professional librarians (16 or 80%) in Nigerian universities have full faculty status, coupled with mandatory research and publication for promotion, in 17 (85%) of the libraries; (2) publications in subject-fields and in library/information science carry equal ratings; and (3) academic librarians in Nigeria are entitled to the same rights, privileges and responsibilities as their teaching counterparts. This paper urges the Nigerian Library Association and the Committee of University Librarians to set standards for the attainment of faculty/academic status for professional librarians in Nigerian universities and colleges.     

Capturing Citation Activity in Three Health Sciences Departments: A Comparison Study of Scopus and Web of Science

Scopus and Web of Science are the two major citation databases that collect and disseminate bibliometric statistics about research articles, journals, institutions, and individual authors. Liaison librarians are now regularly called upon to utilize these databases to assist faculty in finding citation activity on their published works for tenure and promotion, grant applications, and more. But questions about the accuracy, scope, and coverage of these tools deserve closer scrutiny. Discrepancies in citation capture led to a systematic study on how Scopus and Web of Science compared in a real-life situation encountered by liaisons: comparing three different disciplines at a medical school and nursing program. How many articles would each database retrieve for each faculty member using the author-searching tools provided? How many cited references for each faculty member would each tool generate? Results demonstrated troubling differences in publication and citation activity capture between Scopus and Web of Science. Implications for librarians are discussed.     

The True Benefit of Faculty Status for Academic Reference Librarians

Faculty status means having the same privileges of rank, promotion, tenure, compensation, leaves, and research funds as other faculty. Arguments against faculty status include that focusing on status detracts from librarians' mission of providing access to information; that the rigorous requirements of faculty status are not something that librarians are prepared or qualified to pursue; and that good librarians would be just as good without faculty status. These arguments can also be used in favor of faculty status, especially as it relates to increasing the quantity and quality of library and information science literature and contributions by academic librarians.     

Journal rankings by citation analysis in health sciences librarianship

The purpose of this study was to identify objectively a hierarchical ranking of journals for health sciences librarians with faculty status. Such a guideline can indicate a journal's value for promotion and tenure consideration. Lists of recent research articles (1982-1986) in health sciences librarianship, and articles written by health sciences librarians, were compiled by searching Social SCISEARCH and MEDLINE. The journals publishing those articles are presented. Results show BMLA as the most prominent journal in the field. Therefore, citations from articles in BMLA from 1982 to 1986 were chosen as a sample for citation analysis. Citation analysis was employed to identify the most frequently cited journals. Some characteristics of the citations in BMLA are also discussed. The ranking of journals based on citation frequency, as a result, was identified.     

The Future of Information Literacy in the Library: An Example of Librarian/Publisher Collaboration

ABSTRACT

As information sources have expanded, there have been parallel changes in the way students and researchers find and use that information. The role of the library has shifted to embedding information literacy skills into the curriculum as a primary function. This presentation explored how librarians are becoming more involved with information literacy curriculum and how publishers can assist them, particularly regarding access to information and the scholarly publishing process. Since 2015, Rebecca Donlan at Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) and Stacy Stanislaw at Taylor & Francis Group have been collaborating on an information literacy program for FGCU students and faculty that focuses specifically on navigating the scholarly publishing landscape. Donlan and Stanislaw provided an overview of the project, its formation, implementation, and progress to date.     

Increased Publication in Predatory Journals by Developing Countries' Institutions: What It Entails? And What Can Be Done?

Recently, there has been an alarming increase in the number of “academic” papers published in vanity journals and publishers. Such journals, dubbed predatory because their main objective is making money out of authors, compromise or completely abandon the peer review system. An increase in publishing with such journals, which is common in developing counties, will affect the quality of science, excellence, development, and individual researchers' and institutions' professional reputation. In this article, the author discusses strategies for individual researchers and institutions for identifying and discouraging publishing in predatory journals. Moreover, suggestions on how to deal with faculty who have published and already bestowed positions on the grounds of papers published in predatory journals are also given. Strategies and suggestions discussed in this article can provide insights to librarians and publication officers on how to curb the problem of predatory publications.     

The Future of Academic Publishing: Application of the Long-Tail Theory

Print academic journals are dead. As we watch large metropolitan newspapers fail (as are many small town newspapers), the same economic forces are driving online scholarly publishing. This phenomenon is more than print journals going online. The options available with new low-cost online publishing software and the rise in the ability to use ratings from user generated content suggest more near-term changes are likely. Many of the outcomes are unsettled: the economics of online publishing; the standards for peer review, rank, and tenure; and the very nature of scholarly publishing itself. What is certain, however, is that the economics of online academic publishing—modeled via Anderson’s Long Tail Theory—will make it possible to provide greater access, more collaboration, and, ultimately, improved research and researchers. Universities acting as publishing centers with their e-reserves will be expected to change their faculty evaluations, providing greater academic rewards for those who act as editors, reviewers, and proofreaders within this new born-online and only-online world.     

Mickey Mouse and Milton: book publishing in the humanities

We report the results of a survey of tenure and promotion criteria in university departments of literature and language in the US. It is clear that the publication of a scholarly monograph remains a conditio sine qua non for the awarding of tenure. We analyze the language of institutional guidelines and standards: these range from the highly concrete to the intentionally vague.     

Facing Personal Evaluation:

When librarians and library professionals have faculty status, they will face a rigorous evaluation for tenure or permanent appointment. Responding to a climate of higher professional standards and expectations for their faculty, the University Libraries of the State University of New York at Albany have instituted a mentoring program to support a professional development and allay anxiety among untenured faculty. The Program Coordinator's task is to discover the real needs of both mentees and mentors and to provide a varied program of events and opportunities in which those needs can be met. Individual mentoring relationships and group discussions both play a role in achieving this goal.     

Learning how to teach unfamiliar subjects: developing training on writing for publication and presentation of research for health libraries

Academic librarians with teaching responsibility have traditionally delivered training in discovering and organising information. However, in recent years, there has been an increased emphasis on supporting researchers through all stages of the research lifecycle. While librarians are ideally placed to provide training in writing for publication and presentation of research, very few in the United Kingdom appear to be doing so. However, there are clear benefits to teaching these subjects. Based on feedback from faculty on user needs, the University of Cambridge Medical Library’s training programme was expanded to include training and support in the publication and presentation of research outputs. This article recounts the process by which the new courses were developed, and the techniques used by the library’s teaching staff to gain understanding of conventions and requirements of forms of written communication with which they were unfamiliar. It also evaluates the impact of the new courses, discusses next steps and provides advice for other librarians wishing to develop similar courses. D.I.     

How I Got My Head in the Cloud … But Forgot to Bring an Umbrella

The Association of College and Research Libraries developed information literacy standards and associated performance indicators for undergraduate psychology students. A survey of tenure-track faculty members and full-time lecturers in the Psychology Department at Eastern Michigan University was conducted to discover how those professors viewed the importance of these indicators, and how those professors perceived their role, as well as the role of librarians, in supporting instruction that develops those skills. The psychology faculty acknowledged the curricular value of the information literacy performance indicators and perceived librarians as having a supportive role relative to their own more primary role in developing the skills.     

Patterns of Authorship in Library Journals by Academic Librarians

Will current pressure for faculty members to publish in order to achieve promotion and tenure affect authorship patterns in the library literature? A survey of articles in twelve library journals between 1973 and 1982 showed a steady increase in the percentage written by academic librarians. The range here was from 28 to 42 percent. The yearly distribution in each of the journals was documented for academic librarian authors and for the size of the library they represented. The productivity of these authors ranged from one to fourteen articles each. Seventy-eight percent of the librarians published only one article in this sample. The sample size of 357 libraries was divided into five classes ranging from smallest, with holdings of less than 100,000 volumes, to largest, with holdings of one million and more volumes. As might be expected, more authors came from the larger libraries and indications are that academic authors will continue to increase their share of authorship in general library journals.