New Role of Academic Libraries Supporting Researchers

The new role of academic libraries in the changed
circumstances: Effective and comprehensive
support for researchers
Miro Pušnik
Central Technological Library at the University of Ljubljana
miro.pusnik@ctk.uni-lj.si
Zadar, PubMet, September 2014
Centralna tehniška knjižnica UUnniivveerrzzee vv LLjjuubblljjaannii

Changed circumstances for academic libraries
Academic libraries are changing in response to changes in
the learning and research environment .
Technological changes (ICT development, media changes : from print to e, remote
access to library services etc.)
Social changes (increasing number of published information and information
resources, different needs and behavior of library users, different channels for
publishing information, open access to scientific publications etc.)
Business model changes („big deals“ and consortia access to scientific literature,
different licensing regimes)
Scholarly scientific communication changes (new policies of funders according
to transparency of research work, double dipping“ and APC model, differences and
alternative peer review systems, alternative metrics etc.)
New tasks (licensing, managing institutional repositories, RDM, evaluation of
research work etc.)

Background
CTK as:
- Academic library covering engineering.
- University library of the University of Ljubljana in the
field of
engineering, natural sciences.
- Consortia management , organization of e-access to
foreign
scientific literature.
- Central specialized information center for engineering as
a part
of the SRA research infrastructure.

Background 1
41 employees, librarians and professionals from the field of
engineering and natural sciences.
Annual budget approximately 3,5 mio. EUR.

Landscape of public research infrastructure in Slovenia
- Institutional funding
- Research equipment
- Scientific periodicals
- Scientific monographs
- Scientific conferences
- Foreign scientific literature
- Central specialized information centers
- Universities
- Research institutes

Research organizations in Slovenia
4 universities.
15 national research institutes.
Ca . 100 private (non-profit) research institutes.
Ca. 300 research organization in commercial sector.
> 14.000 registered researchers.

Role of the CTK in facilitating the public research
infrastructure in Slovenia
Managing consortia for the e-access to international scientific
literature .
Providing access to information resources and tools to
support evaluation processes.
Central specialized information center for engineering.
Open publishing information support.
Participation in research projects to improve existing
research evaluation systems.

Managing consortia
7 consortia for access to international scientific journals
(Science Direct, Wiley Online Library, SpringerLink, ACS,
IEEE, JSTOR, IOS Press) + Scopus.
Ca. 50 institutions as consortia members (over 100.000
potential users including students).
We :
- Apply for the co-funding of the SRA to ensure budget;
- Organize negotiations;
- Perform formal procedures of acquisition (tenders etc.).

Managing consortia 1
Year Budget Members Usage Price per article
2006 2.030.706 9 465.522 4,36
2007 2.259.941 10 558.406 4,05
2008 2.619.742 13 625.444 4,19
2009 2.781.941 12 829.576 3,35
2010 3.734.256 22 1.140.633 3,27
2011 3.598.721 71 1.330.321 2,70
2012 3.790.267 56 1.302.580 2,91
2013 3.599.554 36 1.370.553 2,63

Managing consortia 2

Providing access to information resources and tools
to
support evaluation processes
In collaboration with the SRA we:
- Are informed about SRA‘s needs;
- Suggest products and organize trials;
- Ensure the budget (tenders etc.);
- Organize negotiation with providers;
- Perform formal procedures of acquisition (tenders etc.).
Reviewer Finder – tool for searching peers based on
semantic analyses of applications comparing with SciVerse
Scopus.
SciVerse Scopus citation database with APIs to export data
in COBISS.

Central specialized information center for engineering
The central specialized research centers (CSICs) were
established for all scientific disciplines on the basis of a
public tender in 2003. Main tasks are:
- To process, store and communicate specialized information
to all users in their respective scientific fields
- To monitor and supervise the compliance of bibliographic
units classification with the valid typology of
documents/works for bibliography handling in the COBISS
system
- Organization of the arbitration in the case of disputed
typologies which have been assigned to some of
documents/works

Workflow of research publication
Bibliographic record to COBISS
Typology, Journal title
APIs
CSICs verification
COBISS ID - EID COBISS ID – WOS UT

Typology of documents /works for bibliography
management in COBISS
http://home.izum.si/COBISS/bibliografije/Tipologija_eng.pdf

Open Centralna publishing tehniška knjižnica UUnniivveerrzzee and vv LLjjuubblljjaannii
open access information
services
Interoperable task force constituted in 2013.
Tasks:
- Training and promotion
- Dissemination of information about OA
- Individual information advising and support during publishing
processing
- Active participation in OA policy-making on different levels
Further tasks:
- Active cooperation with publishers to achieve the best possible
conditions (embargo, Gold, Hybrid) according to upcoming
national policy
- „Orphan“ repository
- Organization and operation of the ASC (Article Submission
Charger), if needed according to the upcoming national policy
- Research data management

Participation in research projects to improve existing
research evaluation systems
Experts from the CTK participated in three research projects
in the last few years.
Projects were funded through Target Research Programs
(TRP) mechanism by the SRA.
TRP is a problem-oriented and targeted research program
towards improving Slovenia's competitive capacity,
Relevant membership of the research group:
- Researchers from the field
- Researchers from other fields
- CTK experts
- SRA experts

Why academic library experts?
Knowledge of theoretical bases.
Practical experience on using implemented systems to
evaluate research work.
Knowledge of bibliographic systems and rules.
Understanding of users needs on daily basis.
Knowledge of using information databases and tools.

Scientometric indicators: peer-review, bibliometric
methods and conflict of interests
Research about the role of scientometric indicators in peer-review
selection of research project proposals.
An ex-post facto evaluation of three calls for research project
proposals in Slovenia (2003, 2005 and 2008) with three
different peer-review systems was made:
- 2003 with a peer-review system designed in such a way that conflict of
interest was not avoided efficiently,
- 2005 with a sound international peer-review system with minimized
conflict of interest influence , but a limited number of reviewers
- 2008 with a combination of bibliometric measures and a sound
international peer review with minimized conflict of interest influence.
Peer-review systems were compared using the same set of
bibliometric indicators for all calls for proposals which was
calculated on the basis of SICRIS data.

Scientometric indicators: peer-review, bibliometric
methods and conflict of interests 1
Important outcomes:
- Firstly, the more sound and objective the used peer-review
system is, the more convergent it is with the results given by
scientometric indicators. In the last two decision-making systems
(2005 and 2008) where conflict of interest was effectively avoided,
we have a high percentage (65%) of projects that would have been
selected in the call irrespective of the method (solely peer review or
bibliometrics)
- In contrast, in the 2003 call there is a significantly smaller
percentage (49%) of projects that would have been selected in the
call irrespective of the method (solely peer review or bibliometrics)
- On the other hand, scientometric indicators can hardly replace
peer review as the ultimate decision-making and support system
More: Južnič, et al. Scientometric indicators: peer-review, bibliometric methods and
conflict of interests . Scientometrics, 85 (2010) 429-441

Assessment of research fields in Scopus and Web of
Science in the view of national research evaluation in
Slovenia
Aims of research:
- Assess publishing activity and citations received for
researchers, registered in SICRIS between 1996 - 2011,
indexed in both in SCOPUS and WOS, where linking
between SCOPUS, WoS and COBISS were made with
systematic authority control managed by COBISS (COBISS
ID – EID, COBISS ID – WOS UT)
- Compare and assess the inclusion of documents
- Detect possible differences among the major research
fields (scientific disciplines)
- Detect specific characteristics within the major research
fields

Assessment of research fields in Scopus and Web of
Science in the view of national research evaluation in
Slovenia 1
Difference ~15,4 %
Difference ~15,7%

Assessment of research fields in Scopus and Web of Science
in the view of national research evaluation in Slovenia 2
The differences are most obvious in the fields of social
sciences, humanities, and engineering & technology,
with Scopus returning noticeably more results than
Wos in the number of total documents and citations.
Bartol et al. Assessment of research fields in Scopus and Web of Science in the
view of national research evaluation in Slovenia. Scientometrics, 98(2013)2, pp
1491-1504

An experience of the inclusion a new methodology in
selecting the reviewers for grant applications
Peer review evaluation is a very important part of the decision
making process in each annual Call for research projects
proposals by the SRA.
Main tool for searching and the selection of reviewers was
Elsevier‘s Reviewer Finder:
- Semantic search
- List of potential reviewers with bibliometric indicators
- Possible conflicts of interest
Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) - a general measurement of
agreement to represent agreements between two or more raters in a
process of evaluation.
Responsiveness of the invited reviewers.

An experience of the inclusion a new methodology in
selecting the reviewers for grant applications 1
Positive correlation coefficients were discovered in 46 out of 59
disciplines, which is an almost 15% better result than in the
previous call of proposal, where Reviewer finder was not used as
extensively.
Responsiveness: Portugal, Finland and Greece over 40%, Italy
39%. The poorest response was from some Scandinavian
countries (Sweden and Denmark) and France and Switzerland.
One possible assumption was, that the researchers with higher h-index
would more likely refuse the participation in peer evaluation,
however our results revealed that in the majority of fields the h-index
of a researcher was not a determining factor in the decision
to enter a peer review process.

Zadar, PubMet, september 2014
The purpose of our researches
Not only theoretical discussions, but also practical and applicable
recommendations to the SRA.
Based on our research, SRA implemented SCOPUS as additional
citation database to measure publication and citation activities of
Slovene researchers.
Reviewer Finder with internal algorithm for searching reviewers
was implemented as a standard procedure to search and to invite
international reviewers. It has been used twice so far in two
different SRAs calls for proposals.
SRA basic intention: All procedures should be transparent.

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