Faculty Research

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    University of Nevada, Reno: Tackling English Composition as a Team
    (2020) Bucy, Rosalind; De Jong, Elsa; Mesfin, Tati; Tokarz, Rayla E.
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    Hospital library closures and consolidations: a case series
    (2019) Harrow, Andrea; Marks, Lisa A.; Schneider, Debra; Lyubechansky, Alexander; Aaronson, Ellen; Kysh, Lynn; Harrington, Molly
    Health sciences libraries are being closed or are under threat of closure, but little is published that looks at context and causes or alternative library service delivery models such as affiliations or consolidations. There is also very little research about the effect of these changes on health care provider satisfaction, patient care, or hospital quality indicators. Preventing library closures is not always possible, but understanding some of the circumstances leading to the decision and implementation of a closure or consolidation could inform best practice management. Case Presentations: At a recent Medical Library Association joint chapter meeting, a panel of six librarians presented their cases of navigating a library closure or reorganization. Background information was given to highlight reasons that the decisions to reorganize or close were made. Following the case presentations, participants took part in discussion with audience members. Cases and discussion points were recorded for further research, publication, and advocacy. Conclusions: Several points from the cases are highlighted in the discussion section of the paper. An accurate reporting of US health sciences libraries and librarian staffing is needed. More needs to be written about new library service models and best practices for centralizing and maintaining library services. After a consolidation, remaining librarians will be expected to manage the effects of staff loss and site closures and so should be involved in planning and implementing these decisions. It remains to be determined how hospitals with librarians compare in patient care and other quality indicators against hospitals without librarians.
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    Examining the Impact of the National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy on the Citation Rates of Journal Articles
    (PLoS ONE, 2015) De Groote, Sandra L.; Shultz, Mary; Smalheiser, Neil R.
    Purpose To examine whether National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded articles that were archived in PubMed Central (PMC) after the release of the 2008 NIH Public Access Policy show greater scholarly impact than comparable articles not archived in PMC. Methods A list of journals across several subject areas was developed from which to collect article citation data. Citation information and cited reference counts of the articles published in 2006 and 2009 from 122 journals were obtained from the Scopus database. The articles were separated into categories of NIH funded, non-NIH funded and whether they were deposited in PubMed Central. An analysis of citation data across a five-year timespan was performed on this set of articles. Results A total of 45,716 articles were examined, including 7,960 with NIH-funding. An analysis of the number of times these articles were cited found that NIH-funded 2006 articles in PMC were not cited significantly more than NIH-funded non-PMC articles. However, 2009 NIH funded articles in PMC were cited 26% more than 2009 NIH funded articles not in PMC, 5 years after publication. This result is highly significant even after controlling for journal (as a proxy of article quality and topic). Conclusion Our analysis suggests that factors occurring between 2006 and 2009 produced a subsequent boost in scholarly impact of PubMed Central. The 2008 Public Access Policy is likely to be one such factor, but others may have contributed as well (e.g., growing size and visibility of PMC, increasing availability of full-text linkouts from PubMed, and indexing of PMC articles by Google Scholar).
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    Publication Patterns of US Academic Librarians and Libraries from 2003 to 2012
    (College and Research Libraries, 2017) Blecic, Deborah D.; Wiberley, Stephen E.; De Groote, Sandra L.; Cullars, John; Shultz, Mary; Chan, Vivian
    This study investigated contributions to the peer-reviewed library and information science (LIS) journal literature by U.S. academic librarian (USAL) authors over a ten-year period (2003-2012). The results were compared to those of two previous five-year studies that covered the time periods of 1993-1997 and 1998-2002 to examine longitudinal trends. For USAL authors as a group, publication productivity, the proportion of peer-reviewed articles contributed to the LIS literature, and sole-authorship declined. Among USALs who did publish, productivity patterns remained similar over twenty years, with a slight increase in the percentage of USAL authors who published three or more articles in five years. The top twenty high-publication libraries from 2003 to 2012 were from public research universities, unlike two earlier studies that found private university libraries among the top twenty.
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    Editorial Board Thoughts: Arts into Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics - STEAM Creative Abrasion, and the Opportunity in Libraries Today
    (Information Technology and Libraries, 2017) Colegrove, Patrick T.
    By actively seeking out opportunities to bring art into traditionally STEM-focused activity, and vice-versa, we are deliberately increasing the diversity of the environment. Makerspace services and activities, to the extent they are open and visibly accessible to all, are a natural for the spontaneous development of trans-disciplinary collaboration. Within the spaces of the library, opportunities to connect individuals around shared avocational interest might range from music and spontaneous performance areas to spaces salted with LEGO bricks and jigsaw puzzles; the potential connections between our resources and the members of our communities are as diverse as their interests. Indeed, when a practitioner from one discipline can interact and engage with others from across the STEAM spectrum, the world becomes a richer place �" and maybe, just maybe, we can fan the flames of curiosity along the way.