Check Us Out: Librarians as
Departmental PR Agents
Donna Wrublewski
Michelle Leonard
University of Florida
Marston Science Library
Schema of the Process of problem solving by Marcel Douwe Dekker. Based on Sol, HG (1984). "The Emerging Role of Simulation Based Inquiry Systems for Decision
Support". In: Beyond Productivity: Information systems development for organizational effectiveness. Th.M.A. Bemelmans (ed.). 1984.
Tall Chris, http://www.flickr.com/photos/tallchris/14288135/
Jerry Silfwer, http://www.flickr.com/photos/doktorspinn/3092271251/
Why Us?
• Budget constraints in departments
• We know people and how to find things
• We live off of literature searching and
information gathering!
– Department publication lists
– Tools for rapid data-gathering and analysis
– Using Institutional resources (such as Institutional
Repositories) and understanding publication
policies to promote departments
The Right Kind of Info
• Chemistry Department Publication Lists
– Faculty member redid site design
– Wanted to keep things “up-to-date”
– Workflow: SciFinder KMP Alerts, RefWorks
– Add info: DOI links, links to full text, highlight
Open Access publications
• Effect?
– Faculty member happy =)
– Stats: redesign at the same time, de-convolute
– Demo
“You need what by when?”
• While I was at last Fall’s ACS (Monday Aug. 23rd)….
Thank you very much for offering your assistance in data collection for the upcoming Engineering Chair's
retreat. I'm looking for data to compare Chemical Engineering programs in the following schools: (list of
6 schools)
Comparisons: # of peer-reviewed journal articles in last five years, # citations to papers that were
published in last five years, Average journal impact factor of all papers published in last five years
I'm also looking for any measures to compare the following items:
"leadership in field" - (e.g., # Fellows of AICHE, APS, or ACS; # of NAE/NAS memberships)
"impact on industry (workforce, tech transfer)" -- (e.g. number of patents in last five years)
I need to include this data in a presentation
scheduled for Aug
31, so anything you can provide or point me to by the weekend would be most
helpful.
A Team Effort
• Michelle Leonard, Denise Bennett, cell phones and emails
• Rapidly identify appropriate sources for data, division of labor
• Articles & citations, patents, good old fashioned datamining
from websites (ACS, etc…)
Fast procedure in
case we started
getting similar
requests from
other departments
What’s appropriate
information for a
study like this?
Full case study to be published in forthcoming issue of Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship
How Your University Library
Can Help You
• Open Access Journals
– Explaining the benefit of OA publishing
– UF provides funding assistance for OA-accepted
journals
• Understanding Self-Archiving
– Publisher policies
– Institutional Repository can benefit publication
visibility (demo)
– Resistance: don’t understand policies, IR submittal
may be more work
– Pushback: No one wants an outdated website – that
doesn’t appeal to new students/faculty
Librarians As…
• Librarian as organizer: propose solutions
• Librarian as marketer: know what tools are
available for promotion
• Librarian as PR: make your departments look
good! Social media representation, etc.
We are the ones who tie Everything Together…
We Are Everywhere!!!
Classes, ListServs, Labs, Group Meetings, Department Meetings,
LibGuides, Orientations, Training Sessions, SOCIAL MEDIA…