Research support at Cardiff University Library

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Research support at Cardiff University Library

• Kate Bradbury
• Senior consultant research support

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The context

• Thus, while librarians almost unanimously
  believe they have key roles as both subject
  experts and as teachers of "information
  literacy", relatively few researchers - very few
  in the sciences - agree with them. Rather,
  researchers see themselves as the experts in
  meeting their own wants and needs.
• Michael Jubb Finding solutions on and off the
  shelf Times Higher Education Supplement 4
  January 2008

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RIN (2007) Researchers use of Academic Library
Services p69 http//www.rin.ac.uk/files/libraries-
report-2007.pdf
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Communication

• Researchers claimed that they rarely saw their
  subject librarian unless they went to the library
  to find them. Librarians said that they must
  always reach out to the research community and
  that communication is never the other way.
  Allowing for some hyperbole, it is clear that
  both parties find it difficult to effect
  satisfactory communications, and it is also clear
  from the focus groups and interviews that both
  parties want very much to do this. It is very
  much in the interests of both that they should do
  so.
• RIN (2007) Researchers use of Academic Library
  Services p68 http//www.rin.ac.uk/files/libraries-
  report-2007.pdf

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Training

• While researchers themselves are generally
  confident in their abilities in terms of
  discovery, librarians see them as tending to be
  conservative in the range of tools used and
  relatively unsophisticated in their search
  methods. Consequently, librarians think that many
  researchers are not exploiting services to the
  full. Unsurprisingly, librarians see it as a
  problem that they are not reaching all
  researchers with formal training, whereas most
  researchers dont think they need it.
• RIN (2006) Researchers and discovery services.
  Behaviour, perceptions and needs p9
  http//www.rin.ac.uk/files/Report20-20final.pdf

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In this context, what is the role for research
support?

• Continue to ensure that services are provided
  seamlessly with minimum effort for researchers to
  access information.
• Maximise all opportunities for communication with
  schools and individuals. Promotion of services
  that researchers may not be aware of.
• Expertise in developing areas such as Open
  Access, Institutional Repositories, support for
  the Research Excellence Framework.
• Help, advice and training for those who do
  request it.
• Respond to expressed needs of researchers in
  surveys and interviews.

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Research Support at Cardiff University Libraries

• Help and training for individuals and groups.
• Promotion of resources to researchers.
• Identifying researchers requirements surveys
  and interviews with CU researchers keeping up to
  date with published surveys.
• Participation in School Research Committees and
  groups.
• Central role of Subject Librarians.
• Support for the University with the RAE/REF.
• Support Unit for Research Evidence (SURE).
• Working with colleagues collection management
  and usage statistics information literacy IT.

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Staff structure

• Head of Service Development Alison Weightman
  (Information Literacy, Research Support, SURE)
• Senior consultant, Research Support Kate
  Bradbury
• Research Support Group includes subject
  librarians, IT research support staff. Started
  as a Library focussed group but moving towards an
  Information Services Group.

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Help and training for individuals and groups

• Focus on contacting new staff to offer 1-2-1
  training.
• Liaison with HR training offered through the
  University staff development programme (Keeping
  Your Research up to date Intelligent Web
  Searching for Researchers).
• IL sessions for new research postgraduates at the
  start of the year and contacting individuals who
  start later on.
• Liaison with the Graduate Centre and Graduate
  Schools.
• Surveys and interviews with current staff to
  determine needs.
• Ad hoc help and training where requested.

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Help for new staff

• Names of new members of staff are sent to Subject
  Librarians.
• 1-2-1 training is offered.
• Increasing takeup at present about one third.
• This is also an opportunity to promote library
  services, and nearly a quarter of the staff
  contacted said although they didnt need help
  right away, they would contact the subject
  librarian when they had a query.

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Promotion of resources to researchers

• Subject Librarians
• Newsletters
• Web pages
• Blog
• Need to do more

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Surveys and interviews

• Service Quality Surveys last done 2002
• Library Review Survey 2005 - staff/research
  postgraduate- research committees
• New survey this year
• Specific surveys on collection management, for
  example, Electronic Journals
• Interviews with researchers, school by school
  2002-

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Participation in school research committees and
groups

• Encouraging research and learning teaching
  committee membership for subject librarians and
  INSRVAssist academic school liaison.
• Improves communication and visibility.

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Central role of Subject librarians

• Supporting researchers is an essential role for
  the subject librarians, and this is the focus for
  Library support to researchers in schools.
• ULS Briefings are updates mainly for the subject
  librarians to keep them up to date with what is
  going on in INSRV, the University and nationally.
• Topics for ULS Briefings have included Scopus vs
  WoS LISA vs LISTA Google Scholar Resource
  updates Cardiff Eprints DOIs and citation
  counts RAE update Modern Working Environment
  project update RACDV.

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Support Unit for Research Evidence (SURE)

• Nationally recognised unit established to support
  and produce research to assist evidence-based
  practice and policy.
• Specialised skills in literature searching,
  critical appraisal, and summarising evidence.
• Teaching of these skills within the University.
• Work for outside bodies and, increasingly, in
  partnership with researchers at the University.

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SURE Current Research Projects

• Intensive Care Monitor (Cardiff Vale NHS Trust)
• Identification of determinants of health
  indicators for cancer, child health and older
  peoples health (Welsh Assembly Government)
• Information Support for NICE Guidance (National
  Institute for Health Clinical Excellence)

• Health Evidence Bulletins Wales (National Public
  Health Service)
• Oral Health Specialist Library (NHS National
  Library for Health)
• Systematic reviews of physical aspects of child
  protection (Department of Child Health Research)
• Information support for systematic reviews by
  other University research groups

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Support for the university with the RAE/REF

• RAE verification of outputs, DOIs, creating
  pdfs, collection of physical outputs. Liaised
  closely with colleagues in INSRV, Planning,
  schools.
• REF initial work to assess the impact on Cardiff
  of using bibliometrics and to assess the quality
  of the data.

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• Initially at least we expect to use the Thomson
  Scientific Web of Science (WoS) as the primary
  source of citation data We have commissioned
  further work on how we might extend the scope
  beyond WoS data, and remain open to the
  possibility of varying solutions to meet the
  particular needs of discipline groups.
• HEFCE, Research Excellence Framework
  Consultation. http//www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/20
  07/07_34/

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What kinds of data will higher education
institutions (HEIs) need to verify for the
bibliometrics process?

• At this stage we envisage that HEIs will need to
  verify data about their staff and their
  publications to be included in the process. We do
  not envisage that HEIs will be asked to verify
  citations to their publications citation data
  will be processed centrally in order to link
  citations to publications accurately
• While WoS data are generally of good quality, we
  have not yet established that they are
  sufficiently free from error or uncertainty to be
  used at the level of disaggregation that we
  require in order to produce robust indicators,
  without further cleaning and verification.
• HEFCE REF FAQs http//www.hefce.ac.uk/research/as
  sessment/faq/

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Research Excellence FrameworkAims of the
Cardiff Study

• To see how far currently available bibliographic
  databases will enable us to assess our
  publications impact.
• To compare the coverage of various databases Web
  of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, Publish or
  Perish, other subject specific databases.
• To look at the impact measures currently
  available from bibliographic databases and from
  Evidence Ltd.
• To highlight concerns about the current data
  quality.

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Total number of journal articles published from
Cardiff University and UWCM combined over the
period 2001-2007 selected databases.
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Total number of journal articles published from
Cardiff University and UWCM in Scopus and Web of
Knowledge over the period 2001-2007 by broad
subject area category
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Databases inaccuracies in data entry and in
assigning authorship and institution

• Previous incarnations University College
  Cardiff, University of Wales Cardiff, University
  of Wales College of Cardiff, University of Wales
  College of Medicine, University Hospital Wales.
• Alternative spellings Cardiff Univ, Univ
  Cardiff, UWCM, UHW, Univ Wales Coll Cardiff,
  University of Wales (Cardiff), Univ Wales Coll
  Med
• School or research centre address only
  University Dental Hospital School Cardiff
  Dental School, Cardiff Business School, Cardiff
  School of Biosciences, Welsh School of Pharmacy,
  Department of Chemistry, University of Wales
  Centre for Advanced Studies School of
  Psychology, email address is cardiff.ac.uk or
  cf.ac.uk
• Mis-assigned institutions UWIC, Glamorgan.
• No indication that Cardiff University is
  involved not mentioned in the author address, so
  unclear as to how picked up in the first place.
• Hard to know whether to assign to Cardiff
  University or not local hospitals (for example,
  Velindre), local research centres and companies
  (GE Healthcare)

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Issues and concerns with the data

• Three major points
• Coverage of Web of Science selected journals,
  no inclusion of book data, selected subjects,
  major gaps in data.
• Inaccuracies in data entry and in assigning
  authorship and institution extent of data
  cleaning needed.
• Volume of the data being analysed.

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Working with colleagues collection management
information literacy IT university

• Supporting research postgraduates involves
  working with Cathie Jackson and the information
  literacy group.
• Developing collections to support research is the
  remit of Anne Bell and the Collection Development
  Working Group.
• INSRV for Researchers web pages and promotion of
  INSRV services for researchers involves
  colleagues from IT.
• Supporting the RAE and the REF means working with
  colleagues from IT, Planning, the VCs office,
  PVC for Research and RACDV.

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Comments and questions?