Collaborations of Librarians &
Scientists to Support
Agriculture Research
Martin Kesselman
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
USA
martyk@rci.rutgers.edu
Evolving Digital Landscape
 Scientists, Farmers, Librarians
 Embedded Librarianship
 Global Partnership Opportunities
Digital Landscape -- Scientists
 Begin and end research online
 Global interdisciplinary e.g. global
warming, biotechnology, food/hunger
 Greater reliance on data / multimedia
 Unaware of value provided by library
Collaborations of Academic Scientists
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87%
80%
50%
70%
33%
30%
10%
collaborate within the institution
collaborate outside the institution
collaborate globally
in multidisciplinary collaborations
collaborate with corporate
collaborate with non-scientists
with librarian/info professional
Kesselman, Collaboration of Scientists Survey 2008
Survey: Scientist Use of Experts
 IT Specialists
 Government professionals
41%
40%
 Librarians
 Corporate professionals
25%
20%
Kesselman, Collaboration of Scientists Survey 2008
Scientists’ Use of Librarians
Kesselman, Collaboration of Scientists Survey 2008
Some Comments from Scientists
 Computer resources have made the use of information
professionals less of a need for us.
 The survey .. prompted me to consider how I might ask a
librarian to help.
 I would use (librarians) .. if they could fix me up with
tools to find exactly what I want.
 The few times I have tried to use the experience and skills
of librarians .. their help have been poor or none.
Kesselman, Collaboration of Scientists Survey 2008
More Comments from Scientists
 The online digital library at my institution is excellent. The
librarians are not needed much because they have done
such a good job of implementing the digital interface.
Occasionally something goes wrong and we need to
consult with them. … Our librarians are like a fine engine
in an expensive car - you seldom notice they are there
because the performance is so good and you are enjoying
the ride. To beat the metaphor into the ground, maybe
they need to add the digital equivalent of a big horn to
remind us from time to time.
Kesselman, Collaboration of Scientists Survey 2008
Digital Landscape: Farmers
Barriers: remote / rural / language
More reliance on Internet, mobile phones
Timely access to weather, disease, etc.
Improved access to markets
Better access to techniques / best practices
for sustainability (e-agriculture)
 Role of e-government
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Librarians in the Digital Landscape
Digital Landscape -- Librarians
 More digitization / repositories
 Multi-institutional collaboration – e.g.
for collections / tech services
 More building-focused
 Less likely to take risks
 Value is misunderstood / unknown by
scientists
Value of Librarians
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Ability to bridge vocabularies / perspectives
Collect and preserve authoritative content
Increase access to digital research
Skills transferrable to data / multimedia
Information literacy roles
Culture of service
Challenges for Librarians
 Moving outside the library: embedded
librarians
 Less ownership / branding – moving to
multi-institutional entities
 Greater collaboration needed – local,
national, global related to e-science
 Virtual collaboratories of scientists
Embedded Librarians
 Focus is on partnership not service
 Offices in academic and research
departments, on research teams, grants
 Librarians as publishers
 Adding value to research results / data
 Librarians in virtual spaces / engaging
users via web 2.0
Global Collaborations of Libraries
for Science Research
Collaborations of Libraries:
AgNIC, SIDALC
 Multi-institutional global partnerships of
agriculture libraries
 Bring together agriculture information and
discoverability, and unique resources
 Cooperative agreements / projects
 Subject repositories
Parntership Opportunities
 Less $$ = opportunity to pool resources
 Centralized services such as curation of
agriculture and related data
 Education / webinars
 Developing standards
 Global virtual reference
 Web 2.0 / micro social networks
Collaborate to Innovate
 How to increase participation? funds?
 Who are strategic partners?
 Adapting digital library to user
workflows / ethnographic studies
 Webscale – so much info, so little time
 Collective intelligence e.g. developing
tools for collaborative science
A Call for Change
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The
The
The
The
The
American code is DREAM
German code is ORDER
Google code is GROWTH
Library code is SUSTAINABILITY
IFLA code is THINK ABOUT IT
 What is the code for SIDALC?
Stephen Warwa, IFLA, Milan 210
Resources
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Kept Up Academic Librarian http://keptup.typepad.com
Library Success Wiki http://www.libsuccess.org
SLA. Innovation Lab http://www.sla.org/innovate
Horizon Report http://www.nmc.org
Innovation Tools http://www.innovationtools.com
Designing Better Libraries http://dbl.lishost.org
Embedded http://embeddedlibrarian.wordpress.com
MUCHAS GRACIAS!!