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tag: Research Support Services

Past Event
April 8, 2019

Holistic Approaches to Research Data Management: Scholars as Collectors

Danielle Cooper and Oya Y. Rieger at the CNI Spring Meeting

In April, Danielle Cooper and Oya Y. Rieger will present on “Holistic Approaches to Research Data Management: Scholars as Collectors” at the CNI Spring Meeting in St. Louis, Missouri. The conference runs from April 8-9. For more information and to register, please visit the CNI website.  Presentation abstract In conjunction with their research and teaching activities, scholars create and assemble complex personal collections of information. These collections vary widely depending on the…
Blog Post
January 16, 2019

Supporting Civil and Environmental Engineering Research

Recommendations by and for Academic Librarians

In Ithaka S+R’s newest Research Support Services project – highlighted in our capstone report released today – we partnered with teams at 11 academic libraries in the United States and Canada to study the research practices and support needs of civil and environmental engineering scholars. (They join teams at 77 other universities who have participated in similar Ithaka S+R-led projects, including Asian studies and public…
Blog Post
January 16, 2019

Engineering for Impact: Practices of Civil and Environmental Engineering Scholars

The latest installment in Ithaka S+R’s series of Research Support Services projects investigates the research practices and support needs of civil and environmental engineering scholars. Today we are excited to publish the project’s capstone report. The field of civil and environmental engineering tackles pressing issues relating to our built and natural environments – from climate change to urban drinking water, bridge and highway upkeep to natural disaster planning. The need for research solutions to these problems…
Research Report
January 16, 2019

Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Civil and Environmental Engineering Scholars

In 2017 and 2018 Ithaka S+R examined the changing research methods and practices of civil and environmental engineering scholars in the United States with the goal of identifying services to better support them. The goal of this report is to provide actionable findings for the organizations, institutions, and professionals who support the research processes of civil and environmental engineering scholars.
Blog Post
November 28, 2018

New Issue Brief on Scholars as Collectors

Today we publish an Ithaka S+R issue brief that is aimed at reframing how academic research support is conceptualized to better address scholars’ needs. Research support services in university settings are currently focused on aiding scholars as they work on specific research tasks or content, which is largely diffuse and often insufficiently funded. We contend that research support services would be more effective if designed to holistically reflect how scholars work. Looking to scholarly practices in a…
Issue Brief
November 28, 2018

Scholars ARE Collectors: A Proposal for Re-thinking Research Support

After fifteen years of digging into the research practices of scholars at Ithaka S+R, it is clear that scholars are collectors. We have found that they are creating and amassing increasingly complex personal collections of information over the course of their careers. These collections vary widely depending on the discipline and take many forms.
Blog Post
October 23, 2018

Reflections on the Joint Conference of Librarians of Color

From September 26-30 the Joint Conference of Librarians of Color (JCLC) held their third national conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The conference is sponsored by five associations of ethnic librarians and is a crucial venue for supporting librarians of color, and by extension, fostering diversity in the profession. A group of librarians on the Indigenous Studies project, in which 12…
Blog Post
August 15, 2018

Announcing a New Project on Language and Literature

This fall Ithaka S+R is launching the tenth project in our ongoing Research Support Services program. This project will focus on the research practices of faculty in the fields of language and literature, broadly defined, and will seek to identify areas where these scholars need further support. Research in language and literature is typically delineated through sub-fields grouped by genre, theory and/or method of analysis (e.g., poetry, history of…
Blog Post
June 21, 2018

The Limits of Area Studies: Studying Scholars of Asia

From 2015-2017, Ithaka S+R partnered with 29 researchers at 11 academic libraries in the U.S. to study the research activities and support needs of scholars in Asian Studies. Today we are excited to release the project’s capstone report, Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Asian Studies Scholars, which provides actionable findings for organizations, institutions, and professionals who support these research activities.  Our report is complemented by the local findings (see below) that have…
Blog Post
June 21, 2018

Leveraging the Asian Studies Project Locally

Lafayette College’s Perspective

In the spring of 2017, Lafayette College joined eleven other institutions to participate in Ithaka S+R’s qualitative study of Asian Studies scholars (Ithaka S+R’s capstone report, which includes links to the reports authored by the participating institutions, can be found here). As part of the project, Michaela Kelly and I conducted one-on-one semi-structured interviews with our faculty members on their research focus and methods, information access and discovery, dissemination practices, and the state…
Research Report
June 21, 2018

Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Asian Studies Scholars

Executive Summary Ithaka S+R’s Research Support Services Program investigates how the research support needs of scholars vary by discipline and includes reports on history, chemistry, art history, religious studies, agriculture, and public health. In 2017-2018, Ithaka S+R examined the changing research methods and practices of Asian studies scholars conducting research through U.S. institutions. This project was undertaken collaboratively with research teams at 11 academic libraries with the goal of identifying services to better support Asian studies scholars. This report…
Blog Post
March 1, 2018

Capturing Gray Literature: Lessons from Public Health

Digital technologies have made it easier for scholars to find and access information online—in fact, as the 2015 Ithaka S+R US Faculty Survey showed, nearly all scholars in the U.S. begin their searches for information using electronic resources these days. But these innovations largely focus on peer-reviewed publications and fail to capture other forms of information to an adequate extent, despite that more than 60 percent of scholars in the survey say that freely available online materials are an…
Blog Post
December 14, 2017

Workflows and the Highly Collaborative Public Health Scholar

Today Ithaka S+R is publishing the report Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Public Health Scholars, which provides actionable findings for organizations, institutions, and professionals who support the research activities in this dynamic field.  Our research was undertaken collaboratively with research teams at seven academic libraries in the U.S., six of which have also made their local findings publically available as companion publications. This work is part of an ongoing effort at Ithaka S+R through our Research Support…
Blog Post
November 27, 2017

A New Project on Indigenous Studies Scholars

I would like to begin by acknowledging the Lenape, the traditional caretakers of the land on which Ithaka S+R is located. Today, Manhattan (from the Lenape word Manahatta) is still the home to many Indigenous peoples from across Turtle Island and beyond. I am grateful for the opportunity to work for Ithaka S+R on this land.[1] Here at Ithaka S+R, we have developed a certain kind of expertise in scholars’ information activities, both through our triennial U.S.
Blog Post
October 16, 2017

Supporting Civil and Environmental Engineering Scholars

This Fall Ithaka S+R is launching a new project to explore the research support needs of Civil and Environmental Engineering scholars. Civil and Environmental Engineering focuses on the built and natural environment, including the design and maintenance of infrastructure and buildings and stewardship of natural resources. Our project seeks to develop a holistic understanding of these scholars’ information needs by attending to the full life cycle of their information activities, including information discovery, management and dissemination. Of particular interest are…
Issue Brief
July 26, 2017

Rethinking Liaison Programs for the Humanities

For generations, most research libraries have had employees with deep subject expertise. Once known as bibliographers, these scholars and librarians originally focused their efforts on selection for collection building. Today, there is real anxiety about the role of subject expertise and academic liaisons in research libraries. We argue that evidence about scholars’ practices and needs should be a key input into reorganizing library subject expertise.[1] Librarian subject expertise and liaison roles At many research libraries, the role of…
Blog Post
July 11, 2017

Agricultural Research, Data Management, Funder Mandates: Where Do We Go From Here?

The latest Ithaka S+R report on agriculture scholars summarizes the diverse research being undertaken in across the agricultural sciences and suggests some ways forward for the agricultural information community. One key theme in the report focuses on the work undertaken by researchers in the agricultural sciences around data management. The breadth of the field is reflected in the variety of methods and data generated by scholars, ranging from genetics to economics to field-based biology. Across these domains, a common…
Blog Post
June 7, 2017

How Can We Better Support Agriculture Scholars?

Today Ithaka S+R releases its in-depth report on the research activities of agriculture scholars as part of its ongoing program to explore the research activities of scholars by discipline. For Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Agriculture Scholars, we explore the breadth of agriculture research activities in U.S. higher education towards fostering information services that will support those endeavors. As the report highlights, agriculture is a particularly compelling field because of its broad scope and wider societal relevance,…
Research Report
June 7, 2017

Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Agriculture Scholars

For America’s land-grant universities, agriculture is a field of bedrock historical importance and vital current relevance. While it is sometimes perceived by the general public as a field to help small farmers modernize, today it also includes advanced genetic research, economic and policy issues around  food security, and deep engagement with climate change. As a rich interdisciplinary field at the heart of so many research universities, the practices and needs of agriculture are of interest to many. For that reason,…
Blog Post
May 30, 2017

Re-Framing Advanced Subject Degrees for Library Work

Late last week my librarian twitter-sphere erupted into a new round of what is a regular topic of debate about the place for advanced subject degrees in the profession (for example, see here and here). Proponents argue that advanced subject degrees can directly inform library work by providing in-depth knowledge into a subject area being served. Proponents also argue for the indirect benefit of gaining experiential knowledge into the processes of academia. Opponents highlight that these perceived values…