A new “Scholarship that cites my work” section of my annual review
I usually start drafting my annual performance review report in the spring, in anticipation of finishing it before the start of the next fiscal year (June 1 start). Now that I have attained Librarian status, which is the highest promotion level at my institution, I can begin to reflect not just on what was accomplished during the year, but what impact my scholarship has had on the profession. An easy way to think about that is to look at the numbers of citations to publications over the years. My Google Scholar profile shows the articles and books I’ve written/co-authored and the number of times they’ve been ci...
Source: Organization Monkey - June 25, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Marie Kennedy Tags: twitter writing Source Type: blogs
Remembering Walter Walker
I am reminded of a brief interaction I had with Walt Walker at a library event last fall, during which I told him about the work I was doing to acquire monographs by or about women scientists, to add to the LMU collection. I wanted to do this, especially in my role as liaison to the departments of Chemistry and Physics, so that our students saw themselves reflected in our collection. He responded casually, saying something like, “Oh, I’ve been adding additional subject headings to those bibliographic records of that kind of material for years, so that the books are found when a patron searches the catalog.” From that...
Source: Organization Monkey - June 14, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Marie Kennedy Tags: library Source Type: blogs
Usage statistics season
Our university’s fiscal year just ended on May 31 so it is time to complete all of our end-of-season tasks. A big task that I’m responsible for is gathering usage statistics for our electronic resources, to contribute to some annual library reports. Every year I check to see if e-resources that didn’t offer COUNTER usage statistics before, do now. I came across the Chronicle of Higher Education and wondered if they offered COUNTER.
Hah, NOPE.
~~ The Horror ~~ (Source: Organization Monkey)
Source: Organization Monkey - June 11, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Marie Kennedy Tags: e-resource mgmt titter usage statistics Source Type: blogs
#WomenInScience
At LMU, I am the library liaison to the departments of Physics and Chemistry & Biochemistry. Last year I worked through a review of Physics and Chemistry monograph titles for possible withdrawal from the library collection, as part of our Sustainable Collection Growth project. For that review, I used a spreadsheet provided by the Collection Development and Evaluation Librarian to determine which titles could be removed from the collection, due to the age of the material, number of uses from our patrons, or how many other libraries had the same material in their collection.
As I reviewed the spreadsheet for the Sustaina...
Source: Organization Monkey - May 27, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Marie Kennedy Tags: library twitter Source Type: blogs
E-resource life
We were goofing around on the site that generates meme captions from an artificial neural network, https://imgflip.com/ai-meme, and this one came up. It’s too perfect. Being an e-resources librarian right now is a busy time, supporting the patrons that would usually use print materials now having to use the electronic content we buy/subscribe to. The weaknesses of the third-party systems we use for electronic content are being surfaced. I’m working longer, weirder hours, translating patron problem-reports into succinct reports for troubleshooting by the vendors. By the end of each workday I am definitely ready ...
Source: Organization Monkey - May 11, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Marie Kennedy Tags: library Source Type: blogs
A brief summary of our recent work: An Exploratory Study of Accomplished Librarian-Researchers
In this study we find that that there are many paths to becoming an accomplished librarian-researcher and numerous factors are conducive to achieving this distinction. A positive research environment includes high institutional expectations; a variety of institutional supports for research; and extrinsic rewards, such as salary increases, tenure, promotion, and opportunities for advancement. We further conclude that a librarian’s research network may be an important factor in becoming an accomplished librarian-researcher. This finding is supported by both the research network analysis and responses to open-ended question...
Source: Organization Monkey - April 14, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Marie Kennedy Tags: library writing Source Type: blogs
Writing and its calming effect
Since we’ve been working from home due to the COVID-19 crisis I have been having difficulty focusing on things that require long periods of attention. I’ve been good at working through tasks in short, fast bursts, responding in emergency mode. On my calendar today, looming, was an hour dedicated to writing a short part of a book chapter. I was really dreading it, being challenged to sit, pause, consider, and craft. The calendar reminder popped up on my computer, so I opened up the document and just started. And the time flew. In that short hour I was reminded how much I love long form writing, the joy at findin...
Source: Organization Monkey - April 1, 2020 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Marie Kennedy Tags: writing Source Type: blogs
A sweet memory
My grade school and related church building were recently renovated for a new purpose, as a resources and crisis center. Yesterday when I heard the news it reminded me of when we were kids and annually celebrated the feast day of the Catholic saint our school was named for, Our Lady of Guadalupe. All the kids at the school would bring a single flower, with its stem wrapped in a wet paper towel and foil to keep the flower fresh. Then we’d have a celebration and each kid would put their flower at the base of a statue of the saint. It was a very sweet memory that came out of nowhere and put a smile on my face.
And then ...
Source: Organization Monkey - June 7, 2019 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Marie Kennedy Tags: monkeys/bananas Source Type: blogs
The new normal: running buddy
I’ve lived in the same house now for more than 10 years and have used the same jogging path for that time. It’s a perfect 4-mile loop from my house to the end of the marina, with awesome views along the way. I see all kinds of sea birds (pelicans are my faves) and boats, and get good breezes. Running has been a good way for me to get out of my head, breathe and de-stress, and appreciate the moment.
A few years ago I started getting cat-called pretty regularly on my runs, very much breaking up my peaceful time. I started telling D about it every time it happened because it seemed like a lot to me. Yes, it was a ...
Source: Organization Monkey - May 26, 2019 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Marie Kennedy Tags: monkeys/bananas Source Type: blogs
Review of our book, Marketing Your Library ’s Electronic Resources
Here’s a snip of a review published in the Sept/Oct 2018 issue of Technicalities:
“This book also could be beneficial to libraries interested in doing overall marketing of their services and/or collections. The processes and plans discussed in this book could be customized to market almost anything.”
I was so pleased to see this brought to attention in the review. The outline we use in the book to market e-resources is a general marketing approach, so it absolutely can be applied more broadly to marketing other aspects of the library. (Source: Organization Monkey)
Source: Organization Monkey - September 11, 2018 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Marie Kennedy Tags: book review Source Type: blogs
Our Jonathan Gold tribute
Dave and I were sad to learn of the passing of Jonathan Gold, an icon in LA, known for his considerate, empathetic reviews of restaurants in the city. Inspired by his attempt to eat at every restaurant on the road he once lived on, Pico Blvd. (audio story at https://www.thisamericanlife.org/110/mapping/act-five), we decided to do something similar in our own neighborhood. Dave came up with this plan.
Instead of traveling down one road to eat we decided to use our house as a starting point and identified nine routes radiating out from there. Planning for thirty meals as our tribute time frame, we applied a random number gen...
Source: Organization Monkey - September 3, 2018 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Marie Kennedy Tags: monkeys/bananas Source Type: blogs
Our Jonathan Gold tribute
Dave and I were sad to learn of the passing of Jonathan Gold, an icon in LA, known for his considerate, empathetic reviews of restaurants in the city. Inspired by his attempt to eat at every restaurant on the road he once lived on, Pico Blvd. (audio story at https://www.thisamericanlife.org/110/mapping/act-five), we decided to do something similar in our own neighborhood. Dave came up with this plan.
Instead of traveling down one road to eat we decided to use our house as a starting point and identified nine routes radiating out from there. Planning for thirty meals as our tribute time frame, we applied a random number gen...
Source: Organization Monkey - September 3, 2018 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Marie Kennedy Tags: monkeys/bananas Source Type: blogs
