Presentation delivered by Elizabeth Gadd [Loughborough University] at Supporting Researchers at Your University event, at Kings Manor, University of York, organised by the Academic and Research Libraries Group Yorkshire and Humberside branch, 18th November 2015

1. Transferrable thrills?
Taking the Librarian out of the Library
Elizabeth Gadd, Loughborough University

2. Overview
• Context
• Before – life in the Library
• Developing a specialism
• The journey – needing a change
• After – life in the Research Office
• General lessons & thoughts

3. Before: Life in the Library
• Managed Academic Services Team (job share)
• Research Support Coordinator
• Structure of Academic Services Team

4. Library wide responsibility for research support

5. The birth of bibliometrics at Loughborough
• Web pages & training
• Publication strategy session for
academic staff
• Publication & visibility strategy
for PGRs
• Enquiry and stats provision
service for academics
• Feeding in to discussions around
relevant metrics for PDR

6. Developing a specialism
• See a gap and fill it
• 1996 – interest in copyright
clearance
• No UK-wide forum to discuss
• Set up Lis-Copyseek
• 2010 - interest in bibliometrics
• No UK wide forum to discuss
• Set up Lis-Bibliometrics
• 4th Bibliometrics in Universities
event coming up in December

7. Understanding the bigger picture
• Professional responsibilities
• Bid for research funding
• Bid for bursaries or travel
awards
• Training courses –
Certificates & Diplomas
• Internal secondments
• Job shadowing

8. Ranking troubles
• Poor citation performance
• Been knocking on doors about this for
some time
• Consultancy work
• Reported the results to high level staff
• Coincided with poor REF results
• Recognised that there was a need for
someone to take this forward in the
institution
• Publication Policy job created in
Research Office…
•

9. After: Life on the other side
Similarities Differences
Same research support topics:
Publication strategy and
visibility
Bibliometrics
Open access
RDM
Social media
Still sit on the Library Research
Support Group
Still provide training
Different perspective on those
topics:
Monitoring
Reporting
Compliance
Policy development
Consultation response
Smaller team
Less line mgt responsibility
More time to think strategically
Greater access and visibiity

10. A day in the life…
• Provision of citation data for Research Quality
Enhancement Committee
• Responding the requests for advice about Journal Lists by
Associate Deans for Research
• Writing a case for institutional take-up of Altmetric for
Institutions
• Delivering training on publication strategy
• Developing policy messages around what, when and how
people might make their research visible
• Lobbying for a Change Project in this area

11. The beauty of being new to a field
• Have a different perspective
• Able to ask stupid questions
• Learn a lot
• Have time to think strategically
• Have energy for the challenge!

12. The beauty of having been a librarian
• Understanding of the scholarly
communication process
• Researchers, publishers, services and tools
• A service focus
• Seen the other side of joint agendas
• A recognition that it’s not all about
research

13. The beauty of having been a researcher
• Understand the
research process
• Bidding for funding,
• Doing the research
• Writing it up
• Getting published
• Having a publication
profile

14. Research projects –big…
Project RoMEO
Rights&RewardsProject

15. …and small

16. The Matthew Effect…
• ARMA Metrics SIG
Champion
• SciVal User Group
Steering Committee
member
• Expert Reference Group
for a Jisc project on
Research Data Metrics for
Usage

17. General lessons
• Take your place at the table – you have a right to be there
• Opportunities are rarely offered – they are seized
• Go for roles where you have the potential to succeed, rather
than where you are already fully/over-qualified
• Face down “Imposter syndrome”
• Geographical / time constraints needn’t hold you back
• You can have (bits of) it all…
• What do you actually want?

18. Why you?
• Where do you want to be in
5 years time?
• What opportunities can you
seize to make it a reality?
• Why you?

19. Contact details
Elizabeth Gadd MSc, MCLIP, FHEA
Research Policy Manager (Publications)
Research Office
Loughborough University
Loughborough, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU
T: 01509 228594
S: lizziegadd
E: e.a.gadd@lboro.ac.uk
Google Scholar Citation Profile
Linked In