Connecting with Faculty on Issues that Matter: How Vulnerable are Conference Proceedings? Tracy Gabridge MIT Engineering and Science Libraries ASEE 2007

Today Set the Stage About MIT Outreach and Marketing at the MIT Engineering and Science Libraries The conference proceedings project The study The connections A sneak peek at some results

MIT FacultyGraduate Students Undergraduate Students Total MIT9986,1004,10011,198 School of Engineering 3572,7901,7254,872 School of Science 2701, ,250 MIT Engineering and Science Libraries 4 libraries 17 librarians

Outreach & Marketing Traditionally - The independent subject specialist Now – Coordinated effort What information do we need to know about our community? Marketing/promotion/awareness activities Skill development/role evolution Action planning

Outreach & Marketing Traditionally - The independent subject specialist Now – Coordinated effort What information do we need to know about our community? Marketing/promotion/awareness activities Skill development/role evolution Action planning

Conference Proceedings Project Motivation IEEE decision to stop print conference proceedings packages ASEE presentation 2 years ago Conversations with faculty We believe that some percentage of conference proceedings are in danger of becoming inaccessible over the long term We want the MIT community to have access to the materials that are important to research over the long term.

Avoid this: “We have lots of information technology. We just don’t have any information.” – Sydney Harris

The Project Goals To understand what conferences our faculty find important To understand the strengths, gaps and risks of our collections in conference proceedings according to our faculty’s interests. To enable us to learn more deeply about our subject specialties and collections To take appropriate and high-value actions based on the results

The Project For a set of faculty find: Conferences at which they’ve presented in the past five years Conferences which they’ve cited in the past year (in either conference or journal articles) Other conferences in which they are interested (attending, following, etc.) Gets at conferences that aren’t indexed.

Tactics One hour a week, scheduled meeting Bring your laptop Search the indexes of your choice Compile citations in Refworks Create lists of conferences for each faculty member Contact each faculty member to check the list Hire a student worker to do some of the compilation work Investigate the conferences to see if we have them, how to get them, assess vulnerability

Where are we? Search for conferences Search for citations Create list of conferences by faculty Contact facultyLook up conferences Analyze resultsTake action Aero/Astro Chem Eng Civ and Env Eng Comp Sci Elec Eng (1 st half) Elec Eng (2 nd half) Mat Sci and Eng Mech Eng Nuclear Eng Current phaseCompleted phase

Faculty quotes about the project Thanks for the project: You’re doing a great thing. Thank you!!! This is a really useful thing that you're trying to do. It's so frustrating that my field publishes primarily in conferences, and then it's hard to get hold of some of the proceedings Great skills: I am amazed at your search powers. This list is longer than I could have imagined. You have done a great job tracking conferences that I contribute to. Your records are much better than mine.

More quotes: Commentary about the value of conferences: Anything worth publishing is worth publishing in a good journal I personally think that most conference proceedings volumes should be done away with (an exception are the ACS Symposium series which are peer reviewed to some extent). I would rather prepare my work for publication in bona fide journals than conference proceedings. Desire for advice and advocacy: Let me know your opinion and we would like to have your [input about the conference]. Indeed, the citation standards are all over the map and it is not easy to find many of these items. Advocating clear consistent usage would be great.

Still more quotes: Detailed information about conferences: It is a boondoggle in Monaco ICEM, International Conference on Electric Machines is a problem: it has no permanent secretariat and doesn't align itself with any particular organization. I share your concern about it but don't know what to do about it. European Conference on Optical Communication (ECOC) is also an important field-leading conference that is particularly difficult to get proceedings for. I attend this meeting every year, and it is the premier meeting in the field. Proceedings of this meeting should be collected by the library. Incidentally, that series is either now dead or in very serious risk of becoming dead. With my concurrence and perhaps even in part due to my recommendation, I might add.

Making Connections with a Collections Project Faculty are happy we are working on something important to them. Show our relevance in an increasingly digital age Show that we know something about them and care about their publishing practices We can have an impact on an issue of importance to them

Next Steps For Electrical Engineering – Address collection shortfalls – and notify faculty as we acquire new materials, or ask advice! Finish remaining faculty Prepare a presentation for them For other engineering disciplines Finish data collection and analyze See you next year with all the data!

Results for Electrical Engineering (1 st half) Total faculty contacted so far: 35 Total faculty responses: 25 Total unique conferences: 295

Results for Electrical Engineering… Not in danger: 72% Available in print and widely held Online only conferences in a 3 rd party digital archive In danger of long term inaccessibility: 10% Available only online without 3 rd party archiving Proceedings not available for purchase, but distributed to participants. CDROM only, or not widely held in print No proceedings published: 10% Still investigating: 8%

Questions?