So, today we\u2019ll be exploring how libraries worldwide attempt to engage with their academic staff, and how they try to support them in their research. We\u2019ll also have a look at ways in which librarians might go about conducting their own research, in assessing how effective services are, and which new services might be required. A slightly tenuous connection, you say? Well, it\u2019s all broadly about research, in a loose sense, and I couldn\u2019t find anywhere else to shoehorn in the information on surveys, so deal with it. You\u2019re getting plenty of blog post bang for your Erasmus buck here, so I\u2019d appreciate fewer smart comments, thank you very much.
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Getting academics on board from the start can be a challenge, and some ways of catching them early were shared. At Sabanci Universitesi Information Center <\/strong>they invite new academics into the library for a targeted orientation<\/strong>. Ko<\/strong>\u00e7 University <\/strong>provides detailed leaflets on library services for all new academics, with Vasia requesting contact details for all new faculty members, and chasing them up by email if they aren\u2019t able to meet face-to-face, in order to ensure that they know how to get the most out of their library.<\/p>\n A number of institutions tried to connect with faculty by inviting them into the library space for talks and other events<\/strong>. Jing Xu <\/strong>of Zhejiang University Libraries<\/a> (they have about a million libraries, and they\u2019re all enormous. Jing was very nice, but we all felt a bit insignificant\u2026) mentioned hosting lectures in library buildings. Lingnan University Library <\/strong>hosts \u201cresearch celebration\u201d events, at which academic staff are encouraged to talk about their new publications, and the Swedish research institute in Istanbul <\/strong>actually hosts the launch events for their researchers\u2019 new books.<\/p>\n In terms of directly assisting academics with their research<\/strong>, Ko\u00e7 provides citation tracking lists on request, and Mine\u2019s team at Sabanci actually provide individualised, weekly email alerts to their academics, with attached spreadsheets detailing the tables of contents for new issues of journals (whether currently subscribed to or not). Sounds massively labour-intensive, but apparently it\u2019s a much-appreciated service.<\/p>\n \u00c7i\u011fdem Y\u0131ld\u0131r\u0131m<\/strong> of Ko\u00e7 gave a presentation on Open Access <\/strong>(OA), and the challenges of promoting it to academics. We didn\u2019t get the impression that publication through OA is a mandated requirement in Turkey, as it is in many cases in the UK, but there still seems to be a concerted effort to adopt OA models as much as possible. OA2020<\/a>, a \u201cglobal alliance committed to accelerating the transition to open access\u201d, was frequently mentioned, and Ko\u00e7 is apparently a member of a number of OA archives and organisations \u2013 OpenAIRE<\/a>, re3data.org<\/a>,\u00a0 OpenDOAR<\/a> and Zenodo<\/a>. \u00c7i\u011fdem has been involved in the creation of an OA advocacy group at Ko\u00e7, and in surveying academics and postgrads to understand their perceptions of OA and the Ko\u00e7 repository. She also touched on the difficulty of promoting smaller home institutional repositories to academics over (or at least in addition to) larger repositories like ResearchGate<\/a>, and suggested emphasising sustainability, copyright responsibility, and a more personal touch.<\/p>\n Ko\u00e7 University has begun experimenting with initiatives to help their academics publish OA<\/strong>. They have agreed to fund the article processing charges (APCs) for academics who publish through OA publisher Cogitatio<\/a>, for example \u2013 Cogitatio currently only publish four journals, but it\u2019s seen as a positive start. Ko\u00e7 also ran a competition amongst academic staff, with APC payment as the top prize.<\/p>\n Finally, some more ideas for gathering data<\/strong> from library users. Kamil Yer\u015filta\u015f <\/strong>of Ko\u00e7 suggested a number of reasons why libraries should regularly conduct user surveys \u2013 they help winnow out unused services, as well as improve popular ones, and they should also be viewed as a useful marketing tool. Sponsorship from faculties helps them provide enticing incentives for participation \u2013 but chocolate is also always appreciated! Kamil talked about online tools such as Kahoot<\/a>! and Qualtrics<\/a>, but also emphasised that paper surveys still have their place \u2013 they\u2019re often harder for potential participants to ignore! He suggested a branching structure for questions, meaning participants don\u2019t have to waste time on questions not relevant to them.<\/p>\n And lastly, we heard from Phoebe of Lingnan how they investigated their users\u2019 information literacy needs. In this, as in many other projects (see first and second posts), the universities of Hong Kong worked together. Their qualitative study of IL needs involved interviewing 12 students (each studying a different subject) at each Hong Kong institution. This was complemented by information gathered through the online Research Readiness Self-Assessment Tool, completed by 200 undergraduates at each university. The fruit of all this research was, of course, InfoLit for U, the IL MOOC we have looked at already. Could I have mentioned this before, in the IL blog post? Perhaps. But did <\/em>I? No. So that\u2019s ok then.<\/p>\n One more post! And hopefully it\u2019ll be a fun one. Well, relatively. Gird your loins (www.artofmanliness.com\/articles\/how-to-gird-up-your-loins-an-illustrated-guide<\/a>), for next time we shall explore the seedy underbelly of librarianship, and venture into the murky world\u2026of metadata<\/strong>. A bit. There actually wasn\u2019t that much on metadata, sadly. Well, I was sad. It\u2019ll mostly be about special collections<\/strong>, which I suppose are pretty cool. And anything else I forgot to include in previous posts. But I\u2019m sure it\u2019ll somehow be fun anyway.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n P.S.<\/p>\n You might actually want to save the loin-girding until closer to the time. I wouldn\u2019t want anyone injuring themselves due to prematurely girded loins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Philip Keates So, today we\u2019ll be exploring how libraries worldwide attempt to engage with their academic staff, and how they try to support them in their research. We\u2019ll also have a look at ways in which librarians might go about conducting their own research, in assessing how effective services are, and which new services … Continue reading Turkish Delights (Rahat Lokum) Flavour Five: Academic engagement and research support (Mint, apparently)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":245,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[150885],"tags":[151047,151031,4286,151035,4161,42,123543],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9fi5f-6v","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/245"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":406,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403\/revisions\/406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}