“No Librarian is an Island”:
Making Connections for Open Advocacy
Lauren B. Collister
Scholarly Communications Librarian
University Library System
University of Pittsburgh
lbcollister@pitt.edu
Twitter @parnopaeus
This presentation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

A Problem

LOCAL AND INTERNAL APPROACH

Have a Party

Do Some Groundwork
• Lunch and Learn sessions for colleagues
– Bring snacks!
– Have a “toolbox tip” – a concrete take-away that
colleagues can use.
– Entire lineup: http://d-
scholarship.pitt.edu/19581/
• Build a track / interest group
– Those who came to the lunch & learns all the time
– Tasks related to their work.
– Example: liaison librarians & advocacy

Advocacy Party
• Ask liaisons (subject specialists) “What are your
faculty preoccupied with?”
– Answers: ResearchGate/Academia.edu (should we be
using these?), grant funding, impact
• Help connect to Open
– Question about ResearchGate? Let them know that
our Institutional Repository is less spammy and
connected to Google Scholar
– How to show impact? Make their work Open in IR or
OA journal, reach a wider audience, plus use
altmetrics to track.
– Grant funding? Many funders have an OA requirement
– time to start thinking about that now!

Librarians “Walk the Walk”
If we are going to suggest being Open to the
scholars and researchers that we work with, we
should be Open ourselves.
Action items: Sign an Open pledge, have your
work in the repository, use altmetrics on your
CV, start conversations about flipping journals to
OA. Keep up with this! Ask for “open stories”.

Be Present!

Connect with Role Models
http://pi.tt/openinaction

EXTERNAL APPROACH

Building Some Bridges

ECL Call
• Shoutout to the organizing group:
– Emma Molls
– Chealsye Bowley
– Haley Walton
– Lisa Kietzer
– & Joe McArthur for support & keeping us together

Community of Practice
• Inspired by OpenCon 2014 post-IMLS meeting
“dive bar gathering”.
• Disciplinary mailing list not helpful / kind of
intimidating for early career librarians
• “Safe space” for Early Career Librarians
working in Open

The Community
• Monthly calls (like OpenCon Community Calls)
– 1st call: April 2016
– 8 successful calls since then!
– Average of 27 participants from up to 5 different
countries.
• Topics and agendas set out in advance,
sometimes guest speakers
• Opportunity to share happy news, ask
questions, and learn from other ECLs
• Join us: http://bit.ly/ECLCall

Thank you!
lbcollister@pitt.edu
Twitter @parnopaeus