Developing New Services in Science Libraries
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
2:00 PM-3:00 PM
Speaker: Alvin Hutchinson, Smithsonian Libraries
Developing new services is key to the survival of science libraries in the future. Because much of the scientific literature is available directly to scientists online rather than going through the librarian as a broker, it will be additional services provided by librarians that define the library’s utility. Alvin Hutchinson will describe the life cycle of new service development and highlight several new services that are taking place in research libraries today.
Many thanks to Liz Nugent for sharing her notes, below:
Self-service in libraries most pronounced in science libraries, but the Internet provides opportunity for librarians to develop new services.
Publication Services:
- Smithsonian used free bibliographic services (Pub med, Google Scholar, BioOne, etc.) to produce staff publication lists i- house vs. using more expensive outside vendors.
- Signing up for e-alerts via Google Scholar is a great tool.
- A staff publication list is good for the office of public affairs and development office. This is sent to the museum’s management with copy to the scientist with a link to the article. If the information is put in central database, it can be reused for many different purposes, including posting to website.
Repository Services:
- The open access movement in the 1990s resulted in many repository services. Often these services were built, but not used.
- The staff bibliography can (partially) populate the repository.
- Copyright and embargo issues can be tracked (easier for federal employees).
- Most repositories allow user to “darken” the entry.
- Get repository content indexed by Google Scholar, adhering to metadata compliance. Authors are keen to integrate publications into the science publishing ecosystem.
- Identifiers! It’s important to have DOI, Cross Ref, and ORCID identifiers in repositories and in the organization’s press so different machine systems can talk to each other.
Additional Publishing Support:
- Librarians can be advocates regarding predatory journals.
- Scientific Data and Metadata – Data management plan now required by government-funded work. Smithsonian has work group that provides guidance to staff. Journal of EScience Librarianship.
Alt Metrics to track social media. Smithsonian has contracted to track activity by Smithsonian authors.