Impactful Partnerships: Navigating the Evolving Scholarly Communication Landscape with Faculty
A summary of the ULS/EBSS ALA 2017 Program
Written by Laura Gariepy, ULS Conference Program Planning Committee Member
ACRL’s ULS and EBSS divisions were pleased to offer “Impactful Partnerships: Navigating the Evolving Scholarly Communication Landscape with Faculty” at ALA Annual 2017. The program took place on Sunday, June 25, from 8:30 am – 10:00 am, with 99 attendees. In this panel moderated by Debbie Gaspar, Chair of the EBSS Conference Program Planning Committee, three speakers focused on cutting-edge trends for tracking scholarly output: metrics, altmetrics, bibliometrics, and digital identity. The session boasted several well-recognized names in the field as panelists: Nicky Agate, Head of Digital Initiatives, Modern Language Association; Rachel Borchardt, Science Librarian, American University; and Karen Gutzman, Impact and Evaluation Librarian, Northwestern University. Agate, Borchardt, and Gutzman discussed the pros and cons of using metrics for ranking as well as how these technological solutions optimize discoverability of scholarly publications.
Gutzman focused on faculty outreach initiatives she has undertaken about enhancing impact of research at the Northwestern University School of Medicine, including a lunch and learn series. Borchardt described workshop series focused on impact of scholarship at American University, including a one-day conference for high impact research. Finally, Agate spoke about MLA’s Humanities Commons CORE and the HuMetrics project. The audience was thoroughly engaged and asked numerous questions, and the speakers remained engaged in conversation with attendees after the conclusion of the program. Audience engagement with Twitter was strong, and tweets were preserved for the future in this Storify.
Many thanks to the members of the ULS and EBSS Conference Program Planning Committees who made this event happen, as well as the ACRL Research and Scholarly Environment Committee, our partner in name only. Most of all, thanks so much to our fabulous panelists!
