Reinventing the Library How Repositories Are Causing Librarians to Rethink Their Professional Roles

Walters, Tyler O.

doi:10.1353/pla.2007.0023

Cited by 44 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…However, library support for research has moved up the agenda and is demanding more attention with the development of institutional repositories and the emergence of escience (or e-research) and virtual research environments alongside their equivalents in the learning and teaching arena (Brandt, 2007;Candela et al, 2009;Gold, 2007;Hey and Hey, 2006;Walters, 2007;Webb et al, 2007). The most challenging aspect here is the call for libraries to take on a substantial role in the management of both the outputs (e.g.…”

Section: Differentiation Of Specialised Technical Rolesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Educating the academic librarian as a blended professional: a review and case study

Corrall

2010

Library Management

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PurposeThis paper aims to explore the phenomenon of the hybrid information specialist in the academic library setting. It does this in relation to curriculum development for preparatory and continuing professional education for librarianship and makes particular reference to the contemporary iSchools movement.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reviews trends and developments in academic information services and the information science academy in the context of continuing technological advances and educational change. It presents a case study of curriculum development and portfolio renewal, using the specialist roles of digital library manager and information literacy educator to show how the principles of interactive planning can be applied in articulating an academic strategy to meet the changing demands of educational institutions, professional bodies and employers.FindingsThere are significant parallels between professional education and professional practice in the shifting boundaries, expanded portfolios and challenged identities evident in the current information marketplace. A combination of continuous incremental development with periodic fundamental review enables professional educators to meet the changing mandates of different stakeholder groups. When combined with a strong professional focus, the breadth and depth of multidisciplinary expertise found in a research‐led iSchool facilitates the design of specialised pathways and programmes for practitioners moving into blended roles.Practical implicationsPractitioners intent on careers in academic libraries should consider the opportunities and demands of hybrid blended roles when choosing educational programmes and pathways.Originality/valueThe paper provides a conceptual framework to illustrate the nature of emergent professional roles and current challenges facing professional educators. Ackoff's interactive planning theory is used to illuminate the problem of academic planning in complex pluralist contexts.

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Section: Differentiation Of Specialised Technical Rolesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Educating the academic librarian as a blended professional: a review and case study

Corrall

2010

Library Management

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“…Looking beyond Walters (2007) and Salo (2008), the issue of staffing for IRs has continued to be a consistent theme in the literature. Connell and Cetwinski (2010) surveyed the organizational structure, responsibilities, and staffing of IRs based on a survey of ARL libraries in order to understand the impact on technical services.…”

Section: Institutional Repositoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Walters (2007) describes the restructuring needed to adopt new roles with respect to IR staffing, while Salo (2008) analyzes the infrastructure, staffing and management of IRs. Salo concludes that allocating more resources, obtaining the backing of administration, and demonstrating the IR's inherent value to the organization is critical to the success of IRs.…”

Section: Institutional Repositoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scholarly Communication at Canadian Research Libraries: Conversations with Librarians

Burpee

Fernandez

2014

Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication

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INTRODUCTION The landscape of librarianship in relation to the practice of scholarly communication is evolving. The objectives of this study were to investigate: the scope of scholarly communication activities within Canadian research libraries; the organizational structures in place to support them; and the roles of librarians who participate in them. Key challenges to its advancement and how librarians envision its future were also investigated. METHODS Twenty-nine academic librarians from Canadian Association of Research Libraries member institutions participated in semi-structured, open-ended interviews. Interviews were analyzed for recurring themes. RESULTS Participants outlined initiatives, services, and structures to support scholarly communication at their institutions. Solo scholarly communication librarians, specialized teams, and committees were identified as primary structures. Liaison librarians play an essential supporting role regardless of structure. Individually, librarians are seen to have an impact as leaders and advocates in promoting scholarly communication. The concept of “librarian as researcher” is also important. Participants shared a desire for better communication and collaboration in this area. Many participants saw the need for standardized assessment and evaluation methods. Participants enumerated their greatest challenges and provided suggestions for addressing them in the future. CONCLUSION This study demonstrates that organizational structure can enhance scholarly communication activities in libraries. Leadership both at the personal and collective level is necessary to provide an impetus for scholarly communication activities. Librarians should be knowledgeable about the issues and be ready to deliver the “pitch.” Strengthening collaboration and communication among Canadian librarians is essential for moving the scholarly communication agenda forward.

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“…Existing research studies (Allard, Mack, & Feltner-Reicher, 2005;Walters, 2007;Wickham, 2010) that describe the roles of repository managers indicate that they "manage the repository service by identifying goals and future strategies for improvement in the repository service based on new developments, usage statistics and feedback from users" (Wickham, 2010, p. 5). Furthermore, Allard et al (2005) discovered that repository managers do not always have specialized technical skills, which indicates that perhaps they cannot take a direct advantage of the available information that CORE offers through the use of the API and the data dumps.…”

Section: The Need For a Repositories Dashboardmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing Infrastructure to Support Closer Collaboration of Aggregators with Open Repositories

et al. 2016

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The amount of open access content stored in repositories has increased dramatically, which has created new technical and organisational challenges for bringing this content together. The COnnecting REpositories (CORE) project has been dealing with these challenges by aggregating and enriching content from hundreds of open access repositories, increasing the Nancy Pontika et al. Liber Quarterly Volume 25 Issue 4 2016173 discoverability and reusability of millions of open access manuscripts. As repository managers and library directors often wish to know the details of the content harvested from their repositories and keep a certain level of control over it, CORE is now facing the challenge of how to enable content providers to manage their content in the aggregation and control the harvesting process. In order to improve the quality and transparency of the aggregation process and create a two-way collaboration between the CORE project and the content providers, we propose the CORE Dashboard.

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Reinventing the Library How Repositories Are Causing Librarians to Rethink Their Professional Roles

Cited by 44 publications

References 6 publications

Educating the academic librarian as a blended professional: a review and case study

Educating the academic librarian as a blended professional: a review and case study

Scholarly Communication at Canadian Research Libraries: Conversations with Librarians

Developing Infrastructure to Support Closer Collaboration of Aggregators with Open Repositories

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