On the 12 September, I attended the second Bibliometrics in Libraries workshop hosted by the University of Sussex, this was a one day event sponsored by Elsevier for those who support researchers with bibliometrics.

The Speakers were:

Peter Darroch, SciVal Consultant, Elsevier – Looking past the usual metrics to help researchers demonstrate excellence to support Grant applications Peter started off the day looking at bibliometrics from a researcher’s angle, suggesting this was a controversial area and that metrics needed to be used in more positive ways. He went on to say that academics need to engage more in bibliometrics but use different metrics for different levels of research and engage with SciVal to decide what metrics to use http://info.scival.com/

Enrico Motta, Professor of Knowledge Technologies, Open University – An introduction to Rexplore http://technologies.kmi.open.ac.uk/rexplore/ was again looking at bibliometrics from a user perspective and talked about understanding research dynamics, Rexplore can be used to see relationships across research.

Allan Frey, Thomson Reuters – Citation evaluation beyond journals http://wokinfo.com/products_tools/multidisciplinary/bookcitationindex/ discussed the Book Citation Index which up until now has been largely ignored and is very important. Currently 10, 000 books being added annually from 2005 onwards.

Jean Liu, Altmetrics – Article-level and alternative metrics: tracking other indicators of impact online http://www.altmetric.com/ Jean gave a really interesting talk on looking at new ways of measuring different kinds of impacts and looking at how alternative metrics can be used to complement traditional metrics.

Stephen Pearson, Research Information Analyst, University of Manchester Library – What does a bibliometrician do all day? Stephen is the University’s dedicated bibliometrician providing local support for faculties, handling enquiries on citation impacts and providing training. Academics will be given access to SciVal Strata to assist with bibliometrics although it likely this will be used by support staff.

Ian Rowlands, Research Services Manager and Bibliometrician, University of Leicester – The h-index. Friend or Foe? Ian is also a dedicated bibliometrician and like Stephen provides training for staff on bibliometrics. Leicester displays the h –index of researchers/academics on their CRIS, IRIS but is currently considering removing it as depending on the source, i.e. Scopus, Web of Science; the index can vary resulting in academics losing faith in its accuracy

Clari Gosling, Bibliometrician, The Open University – Tips for improving citations gave a general overview on tips for improving citations. Some of these tips included search engine optimisation, publishing in open access journals as this increases citations and using social media, which has been shown to increase citations.

The slides from the workshop are available at: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/library/research/seminarsandevents/bibliometricsinlibraries