Abstract
Universities traditionally identified as teaching institutions are increasingly encouraging faculty to engage in grant-funded research, scholarship, and creative activities, often in an effort to highlight institutional impact and influence. Academic libraries, with growing investments in scholarly communication services, are in a unique position to support these efforts. Although campus administrators may not see libraries as natural partners for these new strategic initiatives given their historical perceptions of libraries, there are significant collaboration and growth opportunities in aligning with library scholarly communication programs.
Reporting on an awarded Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) National Forum grant to assess scholarly communication programs at M1 public institutions, this chapter presents results from librarian focus groups, interviews with campus grant administrators, and conversations at the virtual Scholarly Communication Assessment Forum in May 2020, where both librarians and campus stakeholders were in attendance. Across these focus groups, interviews, and conversations, there were notable discrepancies between scholarly communication offerings and the grant administrators’ awareness of these services.
Analysis includes response mapping between librarians and campus grant administrators at seven Carnegie-classified Master’s Comprehensive public institutions. These institutions face various challenges, including multiple, competing, and simultaneous strategic priorities, elucidated from interviews conducted with campus stakeholders and scholarly communication librarians. The intersection of external stakeholder work and the libraries’ ability to support research support services is investigated. Results demonstrate the gaps in outreach between liaison and scholarly communication librarians, and their respective campus partners. Responses from campus stakeholders also reveal a growing need to provide comprehensive research impact services, something that few of the institutions were offering. Practical suggestions for closing the awareness gap and moving libraries from roles of research support to research partner are recommended.