Library users 'unaware of support available News
A huge majority of library users are unaware of the full extent of librarian support and would like the library more 'deeply embedded in their workflows'. That is one conclusion of a survey by
Lean Library, a Technology from SAGE company, released this week. The organisation's Librarian Futures
white paper synthesises survey results with unique data from Lean Library usage alongside data from a range of librarian and library stakeholder interviews, and contributions from partners scite, Springshare, OpenAthens and OCLC. It builds on previous research into the future of the library, positioning the librarian at the centre of the analysis. Examining current trends in librarian- patron interactions and understanding, the report poses 'innovation provocations', or potential solutions to embed the library in the patron’s workflow, and recommendations for librarians to evaluate and debate. Commenting on the report, Matthew
Hayes, managing director of Lean Library, said: 'As a company founded by librarians, keeping the librarian at the heart of what we do is incredibly important to us. This report has been part of a broader listening exercise to understand how to embed librarians in the modern patron workflow. The findings are fundamentally optimistic,
showing high levels of patron enthusiasm for their librarians and an appetite for closer interactions in their modern workflows – fertile ground for librarians to make the innovations needed for the next generation of the library.” Andrew Barker, director of library
services and learning development at Lancaster University, added: 'Librarian Futures resonates with our new vision here at Lancaster, ‘The Library Towards 2025,’ which is about ensuring we not only remain relevant but also become more central to teaching, research and engagement. 'As this report shows, libraries do so much more than often our stakeholders realise. 'We need to increase awareness of
our value, and ensure we are not seen as simply a repository of silent students and print books, but actually at the forefront
Research confirms value in ‘going for gold’
A white paper from Springer Nature builds on the growing body of evidence that shows that gold open access (OA) is best for authors and researchers.
Springer Nature’s 2018
white paper, Assessing the open access effect for hybrid journals, highlighted ‘the OA effect’ and showed that OA articles in hybrid journals achieve greater impact, usage and reach than comparative non-OA articles. Going for gold: exploring
the reach and impact of Gold open access articles in hybrid journals offers important additional analysis. In looking at the specific non-OA subset of subscription articles where an earlier version (such as a Green OA accepted manuscript) exists
in an OA repository, it shows that there is no significant corresponding ‘green OA effect’; the availability of a ‘green’ version is not sufficient to match the benefits of gold OA given that the version of record (VOR) of the article it is attached to remains behind a paywall.
The main findings are: • Gold OA articles achieve greater impact compared to subscription articles with earlier versions available e.g. via green OA routes. On average, the latter type only achieves 1.07 times higher citations than non-OA articles, compared with 1.64 times higher achieved by gold OA;
• Gold OA articles achieve far greater attention and
26 Research Information December 2021/January 2022
awareness with nearly five times higher Altmetric Attention Scores compared to non-OA articles, while subscription articles with earlier versions available e.g. via green OA routes only have two times higher Altmetric scores than non- OA articles in hybrid journals;
• Gold OA articles continue to be used more with results showing that they are downloaded over six times more than non-OA articles
• Variations by discipline are seen but gold OA exceeds the reach and impact of both non-OA articles and subscription articles with earlier versions available.
Steven Inchcoombe, chief publishing and solutions officer at Springer Nature,
said: 'We see full (gold) OA as the best, most complete and most sustainable route to achieving the goal of having all primary research immediately available. It is why, over the past 20 years, we have put transitioning to full OA for all of the primary research we publish at the heart of our business. 'All our research undertaken
to date point to a very clear conclusion: having the final VOR article immediately available from the moment of publication to be discovered, shared, used and reused, not only provides greater benefit for authors with demonstrable higher reach, attention and impact, it is overwhelmingly the version researchers want to use.'
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of our users’ university experience, both digital and physical.
Key findings from the report include: • A knowledge gap exists between patrons and the full extent of librarian support available, and between librarians and the emerging needs of their patrons. The paper examines how this gap may be contributing to perceptions of the importance of the librarian to the patron experience.
• 79 per cent of faculty and 74 per cent of students now begin their discovery process outside the library, on websites such as Google Scholar, but appreciation and use of library services remain high, suggesting further appetite for librarians to meet patrons in their workflow.
• Librarians are highly appreciated by their patrons, significantly more so than librarians anticipated. 84 per cent of faculty patrons appreciate librarians’ ‘a lot’ or ‘a great deal’.
• 82 per cent of librarians and 88 per cent of patrons would want librarian and library services embedded throughout their workflow, available to call on when needed. Patrons may have preferred routes outside the library in recent years, but this does not diminish their demand for librarian support.
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