Presentation given at Dawson Day 2018 looking at the background of those working in scholarly communication and how academic librarians can ensure that they and their skills remain relevant in the future.

1. Avoiding Extinction
Re-Skilling the 21st Century Academic Librarian
Claire Sewell
Research Support Skills Coordinator
Office of Scholarly Communication
Cambridge University Library
ces43@cam.ac.uk
@ces43

2. • Have heard these words many times before, usually just before or after a technological change and we have weathered all these changes
• What makes this change different? It foes right to the heart of the profession – the people who make up the profession
• Academic libraries are having to adapt to circumstance again:
• Explosion in the amount of information available to anyone with an internet connection or smartphone (not debating the quality of the information available)
• Students are turning up to university with a perceived higher level of information skills – do they still seek out the library for help in the way that they used to?
• Library resources are increasingly moving online so users don’t always realise that they are using library resources at all
• Changing services means a decline in the number of traditional academic library roles being advertised – retiring staff are often not replaced
• At the same time the number of research support specialist roles is increasing which should be good news for library staff who fit the profile [Click] but who is actually filling these roles?
• Anecdotal evidence from those hiring for these roles suggest that they are hard to fill from within the library community
• Either librarians don’t apply or they are not appointable – despite these being roles in academic libraries
The academic library is changing…
oInformation explosion
oStudents with increased ‘information skills’
oGrowth of online library resources
oTraditional library roles not advertised
oResearch support specialist roles increasing
But… who is filling these roles?

4. • This is troubling. If this is where academic libraries are increasingly focused – helping researchers to create and
share new knowledge - then what does this change mean for the academic library?
• Do we risk the academic librarian as we know it going extinct?
• These worries were based on anecdotal evidence from networks, contacts and chats over coffee at conferences –
where is the actual evidence?
• In 2016 the OSC in Cambridge conducted a global survey of those working in scholarly communication to find out
about their educational background
• Gathered over 500 responses from a range of people who self-identified as currently working in scholarly
communication – obviously struck a chord with people
• For the purposes of the survey, scholarly communication was defined as on screen
• Don’t have time to cover all the results now but one thing we did ask is whether they felt their formal education
had prepared them for working in scholarly communication
• Responses mainly came from library staff but there were a mixture of librarians and researchers
• Results may go some way to explaining the lack of confidence felt by library staff in applying for and obtaining
these roles within scholarly communication
Where is the evidence?
oGlobal survey with > 500 responses
oLibrarians and researchers working in scholarly
communication
the process by which academics, scholars and researchers share
and publish their research findings with the wider academic
community and beyond. This includes, but is not limited to,
areas such as open access and open data, copyright,
institutional repositories and research data management

5. • Majority of those who held a PG LIS qualification felt that
it hadn’t prepared them for working in this area
• [Click] Comments supported this – there was a lack of
training available for this area and some felt that they
learnt more about scholarly communication from other
qualifications
• Caveat that many of these qualifications were
undertaken more than a decade ago and scholarly
communication is still a relatively new specialism =
illuminating result
Postgraduate
LIS
qualifications
Yes
39%
No
56%
Don’t know
5%
My qualification was
suitable for a librarian
working in a library with
only print material
I gained more understanding
about scholarly
communication processes
from pursuing a PhD
We had no
training on
research
support

6. Other
postgraduate
qualifications
Yes
74%
Don’t know
0%
No
26%
Time spent doing
academic research
provides a valuable insight
into the process
Helps understand the
needs and challenges for
the researchers I now
support
Often opens
doors to
conversations
with faculty
• By contrast those who came from a research background
such as a PhD felt that their education had prepared
them well for working in scholarly communication
• [Click] It helped them to gather insights into the research
process and they felt that they better understood the
challenges that other researchers now face

7. • We also asked respondents how
they were developing a range of
skills needed in scholarly
communication work – through
their formal education, on the job
training or self-directed learning
(such as additional reading,
MOOCs or job shadowing)
• Again too much detail to cover
now but to give you an overview
• Green section – represents those
who learnt the skills through
formal education = comparatively
low, especially on scholarly
communication specific skills
• If the ‘normal’ route into
librarianship is still through
formal education and the LIS
degree are we setting ourselves
up to fail? If these are the roles
we see advertised in academic
libraries and librarians are not
coming into the profession with
these skills are we setting
ourselves up for a problem?
How are librarians developing their
scholarly communication skills?
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
Formal education On the job training Self-directed learning

8. Is this our extinction level event?

9. • I don’t claim to have all the answers but I think that there are some things the wider library community can do
• If this is an issue that you’re experiencing then talk about it with others. This has been coming for a while and we are only really now starting to talk about it. We need to raise awareness that this is an issue
• Talk to training providers about what they are already offering – perhaps the content is there but needs to be phrased in a different way? Or perhaps it’s coming? The curriculum can’t be adapted overnight
• Those of us in the field can help to see which skills we need both now and in the future and use this to feed into other discussions – are we training people in the right things? What will need five, ten years from now? Can we even predict this?
• Important not to reinvent the wheel – there are a lot of pockets of training available already so maybe it’s just a case of tying these together?
What do we do about it?
oRaise awareness of the issue
oTalk to training providers
oLook at which skills are need now and in the
future
oNot reinvent the wheel!

10. • This is something our (nameless) group have been looking into for about a year
now
• We are made up of representatives from the organisations you see on screen
• What links us is our worry over this situation – we want trained librarians to be
able to continue to work in academic libraries in this changed environment
• We have been working on defining the problem and developing some solutions –
links at the end of the presentation which discuss what we have done so far
What do we do about it?

11. • This is not an exclusive conversation – everyone needs to get involved. So what can you do to help with this issue?
• [Click] Think about what this means in the local context – is this happening in your institution? How are you tackling this problem? Is there best practice that you could share with the community? How can you best support your local research community
– what does this mean for you at a local level?
• [Click] Scholarly communication is a very fast moving area and it can be hard to keep up. There is lots of information available out there so try and maintain awareness of the landscape and how it can impact you and your staff
• [Click] As employers, talk to library training providers about the skills you need staff to have in this area. They need to hear your feedback to help them inform their programmes and make sure they are turning out graduates who can take on these roles
if they wish to
• [Click] Perhaps the most important thing you can do is invest in your staff – both new and so-called ‘legacy’ staff. Ensure they are as future proofed as they can be. If they show interest in this area then encourage it and let them take up training
opportunities, even if it’s not directly related to their current role. You never know when it might come in handy!
• In short – the most essential thing that you can do in this area is to acknowledge it and prepare for it. [Click] Plan for conservation, not extinction
What can YOU do about it?
oThink about what this means for your institution
oMaintain awareness of the landscape
oTalk to library training providers
oInvest in your staff
Plan for conservation, not extinction?

12. Questions

13. Further reading
http://bit.ly/ScholComms_LILAC2018
Padlet page for community contributions
http://bit.ly/PlanningScholCommTrainingintheUK
http://bit.ly/PlansforScholCommProfessionalDevelopment
Reports from the training group
http://bit.ly/AreAcademicLibsGettingTraining
http://bit.ly/WhereDidTheyComeFrom
http://bit.ly/SkillsinScholComm
Reports from the research project

14. THANKS FOR LISTENING
Claire Sewell
Research Support Skills Coordinator
Office of Scholarly Communication
ces43@cam.ac.uk
This presentation is available under a Creative Commons CC-BY licence