Neuroscience
I've been working with the folks at Scopus to promote their fabulous database at my campus. They invited us to participate in their Student Ambassador Program, and it's been a rousing success! I'm going to be speaking about this at ALA next weekend, and here's the gist of what I plan to say:
Some of my colleagues were enthusiastic right away, but some of were concerned that the program would promote one database to the exclusion of similar resources. We were able to reach an internal compromise that seems to work well on all fronts. Rather than teach only Scopus, our program focuses on the topic of citation searching more broadly. Scopus generously agreed to hire 2 graduate students to teach both Scopus and Web of Science (as well as other aspects of the library, like Interlibrary Loan & SFX). The Student Ambassadors explain to their colleagues what citation searching is and how to use both Scopus & Web of Science.
Our two terrific graduate students taught over 100 people in 8 spring sessions, and we are continuing the program this summer. Our 6 sessions in June have reached over 50 students and we plan to offer more classes in July & August (see our online flyer for details).
Scopus is supporting a variety of promotional methods, including traditional print flyers (added to Scopus & Web of Science posters and distributed in departments all over campus) and Facebook flyers. I even created a group in Facebook for citation searching, and tho I'm not persuaded that this has generated any additional business, it can't hurt. The most effective marketing by far has been sending a message to the graduate student list at the university, which costs nothing.
This is a great example of a promotional partnership between vendors & libraries. It's win-win for my university & Scopus: their product sees increased usage, our ambassadors get good work experience, and our graduate students learn useful information from their peers.
More thinking outside the box, please!
- Online Reading List Creation Tool? Not!
I'm teaching reference at Simmons again in the spring, and I am pulling together my reading list. (see the Fall 2007 reading list). That list looked nice and meets most of the criteria I have for a reading list:Citations are formatted properly in...
- Library Tip O' The Month: Office Hours
I will be holding two office hours outside of the library this semester. On Tuesdays from noon-1, I will be in the Communication Sciences building, in room 105a.On Wednesdays from 3-4, I will be in the Psychology building, in room 190c.You can come to...
- Extra-curricular Librarian
I recently spoke at the Spring 2008 meeting of PVAAL, the Pioneer Valley Association of Academic Librarians. My topic was "The Adjunct Life and other LIS Extra-curricular Activities," and at the talk, I reflected on my five years teaching library students...
- Cog Sci Publications @ Hampshire
Just discovered a cool way to use Scopus author affiliation + RSS feed to create a dynamic list of new publications. Check out what folks in the School of Cognitive Science at Hampshire have written lately: Note that this is only publications that...
- Citation Tracking
Roy Tennant's excellent library literature abstracting service Current Cites points to an interesting short article about citation tracking: Bakkalbasi, Nisa, Kathleen Bauer, and Janis Glover, et. al. "Three Options for Citation Tracking: Google...
Neuroscience
Another Vendor & Library Partnership
I've been working with the folks at Scopus to promote their fabulous database at my campus. They invited us to participate in their Student Ambassador Program, and it's been a rousing success! I'm going to be speaking about this at ALA next weekend, and here's the gist of what I plan to say:
Some of my colleagues were enthusiastic right away, but some of were concerned that the program would promote one database to the exclusion of similar resources. We were able to reach an internal compromise that seems to work well on all fronts. Rather than teach only Scopus, our program focuses on the topic of citation searching more broadly. Scopus generously agreed to hire 2 graduate students to teach both Scopus and Web of Science (as well as other aspects of the library, like Interlibrary Loan & SFX). The Student Ambassadors explain to their colleagues what citation searching is and how to use both Scopus & Web of Science.
Our two terrific graduate students taught over 100 people in 8 spring sessions, and we are continuing the program this summer. Our 6 sessions in June have reached over 50 students and we plan to offer more classes in July & August (see our online flyer for details).
Scopus is supporting a variety of promotional methods, including traditional print flyers (added to Scopus & Web of Science posters and distributed in departments all over campus) and Facebook flyers. I even created a group in Facebook for citation searching, and tho I'm not persuaded that this has generated any additional business, it can't hurt. The most effective marketing by far has been sending a message to the graduate student list at the university, which costs nothing.
This is a great example of a promotional partnership between vendors & libraries. It's win-win for my university & Scopus: their product sees increased usage, our ambassadors get good work experience, and our graduate students learn useful information from their peers.
More thinking outside the box, please!
- Online Reading List Creation Tool? Not!
I'm teaching reference at Simmons again in the spring, and I am pulling together my reading list. (see the Fall 2007 reading list). That list looked nice and meets most of the criteria I have for a reading list:Citations are formatted properly in...
- Library Tip O' The Month: Office Hours
I will be holding two office hours outside of the library this semester. On Tuesdays from noon-1, I will be in the Communication Sciences building, in room 105a.On Wednesdays from 3-4, I will be in the Psychology building, in room 190c.You can come to...
- Extra-curricular Librarian
I recently spoke at the Spring 2008 meeting of PVAAL, the Pioneer Valley Association of Academic Librarians. My topic was "The Adjunct Life and other LIS Extra-curricular Activities," and at the talk, I reflected on my five years teaching library students...
- Cog Sci Publications @ Hampshire
Just discovered a cool way to use Scopus author affiliation + RSS feed to create a dynamic list of new publications. Check out what folks in the School of Cognitive Science at Hampshire have written lately: Note that this is only publications that...
- Citation Tracking
Roy Tennant's excellent library literature abstracting service Current Cites points to an interesting short article about citation tracking: Bakkalbasi, Nisa, Kathleen Bauer, and Janis Glover, et. al. "Three Options for Citation Tracking: Google...