the pinakes: Among scientists, however, just over half rated the gateway and... →
Among scientists, however, just over half rated the gateway and archival role as very important, and even smaller shares rated other roles as very important. Over a quarter of scientists agreed strongly “because faculty have easy access to academic content online, the role librarians play at this institution is becoming much less important” (compared to about 20 percent overall).”
Ithaka Survey: Humanities Faculty Love the Library; Scientists Less Enthusiastic | Meredith Schwartz, Library Journal
“But some researchers are now raising the alarm about what they see as the proliferation of online journals that will print seemingly anything for a fee. They warn that nonexperts doing online research will have trouble distinguishing credible research from junk. “Most people don’t know the journal universe,” Dr. Goodman said. “They will not know from a journal’s title if it is for real or not.”
For Scientists, an Exploding World of Pseudo-Academia | Gina Kolata, New York Times
These two quotes, posted consecutively by the Infoneer Pulse, raise my hackles: on one hand, science faculty are increasingly dismissive of librarians due to the fact they can get content so easily online*, while simultaneously, scientists are becoming increasingly flummoxed and confused by the preponderance of predatory online journals. You know who’s good at sniffing out predatory journals? Librarians. Maybe the science faculty cited in the first quote ought to check with their librarians in order to avoid becoming entangled with fake journals, as described in the second.
Personally, I feel very fortunate that I’ve been able to forge strong working relationships with my science faculty, but I benefit from working at a small university where I get to know them all by name.
*This seems to neglect that they can often get that content so easily online because of their library’s budget and the time of the librarians who fine-tune the link resolvers.
