Through a survey of more than 200 US academic science librarians, we investigated the perceived value of subject specialization; looked for trends toward or away from science subject specialization; and analyzed predictions about the future of science liaison librarianship. Results showed that science librarians perceive subject specialization positively and predict it will continue to be necessary in the future. They also perceive that liaison relationships will remain crucial.
Source: https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.82.4.584
While functional roles appear to be growing, they were not seen as replacing traditional subject responsibilities. Results suggest a shift toward a more generalist approach; however, additional research is needed before stating this conclusively.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com. Gary is also the co-founder of infoDJ an innovation research consultancy supporting corporate product and business model teams with just-in-time fact and insight finding.
The article linked below was published today (February 3, 2023). Title Sustainability 3.0 in Libraries: A Challenge for Management Author Alice Keller University Library Basel, University of Basel, Switzerland Source ...
From a National Academies Announcement: The Nobel Prize Summit Truth, Trust and Hope will bring together Nobel Prize laureates and other world-renowned experts and leaders for a global dialogue on how to stop ...
From a MIT Press Announcement: In keeping with its mission and longstanding commitment to increase access to scholarship, the MIT Press is pleased to announce shift+OPEN. This new initiative is designed ...
From a Library of Congress Blog Post: The Open Access Books Collection on loc.gov includes approximately 6,000 contemporary open access e-books covering a wide range of subjects, including history, music, poetry, technology, and works ...
The panel discussion video recording embedded below from the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) was recorded on February 1, 2023. Description This is a discussion on censorship-resistance, web archiving and ensuring ...
From RLUK (Research Libraries UK): The Virtual Reading Rooms (VRRs) Toolkit is a resource for all collection-holding institutions, including libraries, archives, and museums, which are interested in setting up a VRR consultation ...
Microsoft Bing to Rely on GPT-4, ChatGPT Mobile App Planned, Rumours Say (via The Decoder) & Microsoft Teams gets an AI upgrade with OpenAI’s GPT 3.5 (via The Decoder) Resources ...
From the Library of Congress (Full Text of Announcement): A new web archive collection from the Library of Congress documents the civil unrest sparked by the police murder of George ...
From an arXiv Blog Post: The recent release of AI technology that generates new text has raised serious questions among the research community. For one, “Can ChatGPT be named an ...
From a Joint Statement (via De Gruyter): ResearchGate, the professional network for researchers, and De Gruyter, an independent academic publisher, have today announced a content syndication partnership that will see ...
ARL: Celebrating Black History Month 2023 EveryLibrary Releases 2022 Annual Report ||| Full Text Report Germany: DFG Launches Cooperation with the OAPEN Foundation IFLA: Applications for Public Library of the ...
From an Ithaka S+R Blog Post by the Report’s Author, Makala Skinner: On Tuesday, January 31, we published the A*CENSUS II Archives Administrators Survey findings. The Archives Administrator Survey Report is ...
