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ПРОБЛЕМЫ ОРГАНИЗАЦИИ И СОДЕРЖАНИЯ ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ В БИБЛИОТЕЧНО-ИНФОРМАЦИОННОЙ СФЕРЕ • PROBLEMS OF ORGANIZATION AND CONTENT OF LIS EDUCATION
УДК 001.8:027.021(497.4)
Primoz Juznic
Librarians as information experts and their support of research policy
Academic and research libraries/librarians were always important partners to the scientific research community. Developments of scholarly communication, information resources availability in electronic form, networks and national research policies are challenging librarians to find new ways to engage with research communities. The change in their information behaviour and information use is the fact that library and information service for these users is different and changing much faster then in other area of librarianship. That is why the set of skills which must be added to LIS curriculum are also bibliometrics. The paper discusses the case of Slovenia, one of the smallest European countries, where complete database of scientific bibliographies was introduced to stir the transparency of science policy and research results. Librarians as information experts have received new area of work which needs a new skills and expertise. This was mirrored in the curriculum of the Department of Library and Information Science and Book studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana.
Keywords: research libraries, librarians, LIS education, new skills, bibliometrics, LIS
Примож Южнич
Библиотекари как эксперты в формировании исследовательской политики
Академические и научные библиотеки (и библиотекари) всегда являлись важными партнерами научно-исследовательского сообщества. Развитие научных коммуникаций, электронных информационных ресурсов, сетей и национальных исследовательских стратегий требуют сегодня от библиотекарей поиска новых способов взаимодействия с научным сообществом. Изменения информационного поведения и использования информации ученых являются причиной того, что их библиотечно-информационное обслуживание отличается и меняется гораздо быстрее, чем в других областях библиотечно-информационной деятельности. Именно поэтому в учебную программу библиотечно-информационного образования должна быть добавлена библиометрия. В статье рассматривается пример Словении, одной из самых маленьких стран Европы, где была разработана полная база данных научной библиографии, целью которой является достижение прозрачности политики в области науки и результатов научных исследований. Библиотекари, как эксперты в области информации, получили новую область деятельности, которая нуждается в новых навыках и знаниях. Это нашло свое отражение в учебной программе кафедры библиотечно-информационной науки и исследований книги факультета искусств Университета Любляны.
Ключевые слова: научные библиотеки, библиотекари, библиотечно-информационная наука, библиотечноинформационное образование, библиометрия
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Introduction
A fundamental consensus found among different stakeholders regarding science policy is that public support for science is justified by its potential usefulness for society. Science is expected to contribute to welfare in terms of both economic prosperity and quality of life, and to act as a driving force of modern society. Science can be highlighted as a driver of economic, technological and social development, or a process of discovering new and unveiling hidden. Scientific research can be defined also as an activity through which we educate top experts and professionals, who are capable of the most demanding jobs and tasks in society. From viewing academic and other research on fundamental processes as producing knowledge, which could and would contribute to the achievement of economic and social goals in a largely linear fashion, policy makers have come to see the connections between scientific research and public purposes as being more complex and interactive. This leads to an increase in systematic evaluations of research results, systems and institutions, in relation to allocation of research funds.
Academic and research libraries/librarians were always important partners to the scientific research community. Developments of scholarly communication, information resources availability in electronic form, networks and national research policies are challenging librarians to find new ways to engage with scientific research communities. The change in their information behaviour and information use is the fact that library and information service for these users is different and changing much faster then in other area of librarianship. It is quite certain that such transformations have to an important extent been brought about by the developments in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT). The increasingly expanding utilities of e-resources represent a challenge for research libraries. The libraries must adopt new technologies which they need to provide for users.
These lead us to another possible definition of scientific activities, i. e. as information activities. A scientist uses «information», which he/she has obtained through his/her research work, together with the information received from the work (usually published) of other scientists and researchers as evidence to justify and support the findings. Therefore, science can now be understood as information activities (collection, processing and dissemination of information). Basically, science has always been such an activity, but it has not been until today's modern era that the critical mass is large enough to make this feature of science sufficiently visible and noticeable.
The basic characteristic of this information process, which is often described as the process of scientific information and communication, is the form. This is normally held and runs through the publication of scientific results, which enables the verifiability and repeatability of research and thus the reliability and accuracy of the results obtained. Both of which contributes to the development of science, and, consequently, to the technological, economic and social development, and supplements the contribution towards a certain general scientific knowledge.
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Scientists publish their results mostly as papers in scholarly journals. The papers pass through the evaluation procedures (peer review) and are checked before publication, as the top scientific journals publish only a small part of the received articles. The second part of the evaluation and quality control of scientific research consists in the use of these publications by other scientists, which is reflected in their citations.
These responds are important to maintain professional and organizational legitimacy of librarians supporting scientific research. Maintaining legitimacy includes finding alternative ways of using existing competencies, and at the same time developing new ones. The main agents of changes are the users, scientific researchers. Librarians as information experts are responding with service innovations in different new areas such as bibliometrics and research data management1. Another new area of librarians working in academic and research libraries are institutional repositories, extension to classical library collections and their important contribution to the open access (OA) movement.
The use of bibliometric in LIS - A case study
Slovenia with only two millions of inhabitants is among the smallest countries in Europe. It is located in the Central Europe. The position and size makes it very dependent on international collaboration and also requires being highly competitive in all activities. Scientific research is one of these activities.
The case study presented here, deals with transparency in research activities and scientific knowledge, its effects and response by the researchers. Slovenia has a centralised and unified system of researchers' bibliographies, which form part of the Cooperative Online Bibliographic System and Services (COBISS). COBISS started as a Library Union catalogue system. The development of the COBISS system and services started as early as 1987 in a form of shared cataloguing system adopted by the then Association of the Yugoslav National Libraries. Basically, COBISS represents an organisational model of joining libraries into a uniform library information system with shared cataloguing. The role of the information and bibliographic utility, as well as that of the organisational solutions and software development was taken over by the Institute of Information Science (IZUM), Maribor.
Researcher bibliographies became part of the system in 1994 in Slovenia, and became obligatory in 1997. Librarians were given the responsibility of inputting the data. They responded to this in various ways. Some librarians feared both the additional work and the required training, especially with bibliographies previously prepared for other systems with incompatible record formats. Others were delighted because researchers started to appreciate their work more, and by instituting online applications and a standardised display, the number of requirements for time-consuming non-standard-ised bibliographies decreased2.
The main reasons why librarians in research/academic libraries become responsible for organising those activities relate to their professional competencies concerned with
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publication databases, documents and metadata, and experience with bibliographic tools in general. The system was set up so that all bibliographical inputs were supervised by six central specialised research centres (CSICs) which were established for all scientific disciplines on the basis of a 2003 public tender, and organised mainly in libraries. They are organized according to six scientific fields (natural sciences, biotechnical sciences, and medical sciences), engineering, social sciences and humanities). The system of categorising publications was prepared by researchers and expert bodies and coordinated with public institutions. The criteria for evaluating publications are available and every individual is easily able to calculate the significance of publications according to pre-set criteria.
The other important part of the research system in Slovenia is the SICRIS (Slovenian Current Research Information System) introduced in 1982. It contains substantial information about research and the most important research results (scientific and socioeconomic significance). The SICRIS system provides information about projects financed by public money. It is therefore an integral system which significantly supplements COBISS with more information. The SICRIS is crucial as a source of information for the general public and the scientific community, and provides the opportunity to check all parameters in one place (e. g. finance of the project, bibliographic output of the project and a substantial description of the most important results).
There are three main reasons for the choice of the national database as a platform for the publication data and bibliometric indicators:
1. Completeness: all publications are included and they are not exclusively defined by a commercial data source, which makes it independent.
2. Possible multiple use of the data from CVs, to links to full text, etc.
3. Transparency: every institution can see and check all other institutions' data. The institutions own their data and the database is also online and open to society at large
How did researchers in Slovenia react to the introduction of this new system where their research input and output became completely transparent? It must be stressed that research projects and other grant-seeking proposals were and are still evaluated basically by a peer review system3. Bibliometric data from COBISS are used to help reviewers and panels. Experts as peer reviewers usually have to score the proposals so that the funding organisation can rank them. The results of the rankings are lists of approved grant recipients. These lists and the scores are also published. It is important to develop research information systems that cover more than just publication data (e. g. number of full-time equivalents for research, mission, and objectives; age distribution data of the research personnel; data on facilities; supporting personnel; data on funding, etc.). Such an extension to non-bibliometric data would allow a deeper insight into important aspects of research performance4.
This is important to bear in mind when trying to understand the researchers' reactions and possible adaptations to a more transparent information system. Transpar-
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ency promotes accountability and provides information for public and citizens about any state activity and us the basis for modern democracy5. Information systems maintained to provide information for transparency are national assets. This particular set of influences of the transparency system is connected with research performance. As one's scientific reputation is mainly based on excellent publications, easy access to a standardised and reliable list of publications enhances the interest of researchers in boosting their reputation by publishing their work in international journals.
To check this reaction we used the data from the Web of Science database. Thomson Scientifics' Web of Science, which in fact despite their limitations, in practice remains an important source for publication measures since they can provide a wide international coverage of publications and enable international comparisons. The analysis of publications indexed in the ISI Thomson database reveals that the number of high-ranked scientific outputs increased after 1998. We can see that the number of ISI publications in 2007 is approximately 60 % higher than it would have been according to the trend in the period 1993-2007. In the case of Slovenia, a substantial rise in publications is and by checking other possible factors we found out that introduction of the transparency system was the crucial on6.
Librarians/information experts and evaluation of scientific results
All areas of social services need a system of evaluation, quality control and performance. In scientific research, there is more of this, because this control is systematic, constant, and above all, independent and transparent. This is done despite the fact that scientific research is not a routine activity, and therefore the results cannot easily be measured and evaluated. Very clear rules of scientific excellence, which are international and ubiquitous, allow this. This of course would not be possible without global integration of science that allows virtually unlimited international integration and cooperation.
In recent decades, bibliometrics has been created as one of the basic research methods in information science (often referred as library and information science). In many ways it is losing its connection to the social science base and becoming more technical, empirical and objective. It forgets that science is a social phenomenon, and also that social phenomenon.
Is the basic elements of its research - citations are also a social phenomenon. New possibilities have been attributed to research libraries and librarians connected to bib-liometric data, methods and analysis. Librarians as information experts must make sure of taking an active part in the development of new strategies and in bibliometric practices fostering innovation. This often requires new skills and knowledge for librarians, which gives also a challenge to LIS educational institutions to develop bibliometrics as the part of their curriculum and connect it to more classical skills and knowledge.
Seeing bibliometrics as just another research method is part of the past. The evaluation of research and its results is becoming increasingly important and bibliometrics
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should be given a more prominent position in LIS education as in LIS practice so that librarians as information experts can better help their users. Bibliometric skills are considered part of the core competencies of librarians and should be regarded as opportunities for libraries to develop and provide new value-added information services such as bibliometric information services. Academic and research libraries should have librarians specialised in bibliometrics mainly to respond to the needs of research evaluation. Bibliometrics has been no for more the decade considered as a way to provide new and innovative information services7, and not simply as providers of access to research outputs, but also as sources of bibliometric information and interpretation. Our case study shows that the results can be extremely positive regarding transparency, not only for research work, but also for the work in academic and research libraries, adding to their status in their institutions. An extension of the portfolio of library products by including bibliometric analysis represents a valuable addition reflected in lively interest on the part of library users.
Moreover, bibliometrics represents a win-win situation for all involved, as results show. Taking up bibliometric analyses as an institutional practice may have a potential effect on the role of the library and its relation to the wider organisational context of the university8. With their longstanding expertise in collecting, categorizing, and analyzing data, not to mention their familiarity with scholarly databases and indexes tracking cited references, librarians are well qualified to meet the emerging demand for bibliometrics services9. Bibliometrics is an ideal field for librarians to develop and provide innovative services for both researchers and policy makers. In so doing, librarians make sure of taking an active part in the development of new strategies and in bibliometric practices fostering innovation. By initiating and conducting researches, libraries come to the next point in their development, which results in new competence requirements for library and information experts10. Library and information professionals should seize this opportunity to have an influence on government policy making, because of their specific skills and expertise11. The increasing importance of bibliometric research evaluation indicators both locally and nationally is felt to be a factor which will influence both the position of libraries in organizational settings and the practical work for librarians, not least in relation to the digital institutional repositories, where bibliographic records must be developed and maintained12.
That is exactly why the use of evaluative metrics and the bibliometrics should be included as core competencies in the curricula of LIS programmes and professional expertise. Bibliometrics should not be taught as a marginal part of research methods courses, and citation databases as one of the many bibliographic databases in information-searching courses. An excellent example is the Royal School of Library and Information Science in Copenhagen, Denmark where as early as 1996 the Centre for Informetric Studies was set up. The subjects include the quantitative study of documentary material
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(bibliometrics) and quantitative study of factors affecting the development of science and technology (scientometrics)13.
In Slovenia we have only one institution that provide study programme in Library and information science, Department of Library and Information Science and Book studies.
Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. The course in Bibliometrics is an obligatory course also from 1996. The purpose of the course is to develop the necessary skills to undertake research topics in bibliometrics and use its' methods. These are taught as research methods based on the use of advanced information technology. The students learn that they are used also for monitoring and analysis of information resources and for the management of knowledge in social and organisational contexts. Bibliometrics is defined as the quantitative evaluation of publication and citation data, is used in research performance evaluation in universities and other research institutions, by policymakers, research directors and administrators, information specialists and librarians, and researchers themselves. Beside research evaluation, bibliometric methods and models can be applied in a large number of contexts, for example science studies tracing trends and development, research evaluation, knowledge management, Information retrieval, and optimizing library and information resources.
Emphasis is given to bibliometric methods. Bibliometric methods, especially citation analysis are designed to study the production, the flow, the organization and the use of information in research settings. Bibliometric methods are:
- Different techniques for gathering data and other evidence.
- The various ways of proceeding in analysing data and gathering information.
It is important to understand the use of readily available software, modularly integrated to facilitate full automation of the data gathering and analysis processes, as well as to obtain bibliometric indicators. So the most important databases WoS, Scopus and Google Scholar. Students also have to learn about bibliometric indicators:
- Impact Factor (IF),
- h-index,
- SNIP and SJR,
- Eigen factor.
Limitations in bibliometric analysis and data is also taught in details and compared with more established qualitative method of scientific research evaluation peer reviews/expert opinion. Peer review is regarded as the qualitative assessment of research performance and counterpart, bibliometric indicators. It appears that these methods can coexist, but not always in an easy and synchronized fashion. Is older than its quantitative counterpart - bibliometrics. It is also important to connect bibliometrics with classical library skills like processing of library materials, cataloguing. The goal is to prepare LIS graduates in their future role of information experts supporting scientific research activities.
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Endnotes
1 Corrall S., Kennan M. A., Afzal W. Bibliometrics and research data management services: emerging trends in library support for research // Library trends. 2013. Vol. 61, № 3. P. 636-674.
2 Seljak T., Bosnjak A. Researchers' bibliographies in COBISS // Information Services and Use. 2006. Vol. 26, № 4. P. 303-308.
3 Scientometric indicators: bibliometric methods and conflict of interests: peer-review / P. Juznic, S. Peclin, M. Zaucer, T. Mandelj, M. Pusnik, F. Demsar // Scientometrics. 2010. Vol. 85, № 2. P. 429-441.
4 Raan van A. F. J. Fatal attraction: conceptual and methodological problems in the ranking of universities by bibliometric methods // Scientometrics. 2005. Vol. 62, № 1. P. 133-143.
5 Демшар Ф. Прозрачность, или как уберечь деньги налогоплательщиков? URL: http: // globecsi. ru (дата обращения: 13.02.2015).
6 Demsar F., Juznic P. Transparency of research policy and the role of librarians // J. of librarianship and information sci. 2014. Vol. 46, № 2. P. 139-140.
7 Ball R., Tunger D. Bibliometric analysis: a new business area for information professionals in libraries? // Scientometrics. 2006. Vol. 66, № 3. P. 561-577.
8 Astrom F., Hansson J. How implementation of bibliometric practice affects the role of academic libraries // J. of librarianship and information sci. 2013. Vol. 45, № 4. P. 316-322.
9 Bladek M. Bibilometrics services and the academic library: meeting the emerging needs of the campus community // College & undergraduate libraries. 2014. Vol. 21, № 3/4. P. 330-344.
10 Галявиева М. С. Информетрия как учебная дисциплина: становление и развитие // Вестн. КемГУКИ. 2013. № 22-1. С. 19-28.
11 Oppenheim C. Out with the old and in with the new: the RAE, bibliometrics and the new REF // J. of librarianship and information sci. 2008. Vol. 40, № 3. P. 147-49.
12 Hansson, J. Johannesson K. Librarians' views of academic library support for scholarly publishing: an every-day perspective // The j. of academic librarianship. 2013. Vol. 39, № 3. P. 232240.
13 Pors N. O. The education of information professionals in Denmark // Bibliothek. 2000. Vol. 24, № 1. P. 12-18.
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