Falling Down the Rabbit Hole: Exploring the Unique Partnership between Subject Librarians and Scholarly Communication

Subject librarians are uniquely poised to facilitate conversations and assistanceabout scholarly communication topics to faculty and students -- helping make theconnections between scholarly communication and discipline-specific research. TheUniversity of Central Florida (UCF) Libraries offers a unique intersection betweenscholarly communication and subject librarians by implementing a robust subjectlibrarian model that includes activities related to scholarly communication andpartnering with UCF’s Office of Scholarly Communication to provide support on a varietyof topics to the campus community. In particular, this model has been particularlyeffective with STEM disciplines. The subject librarians in these respective disciplineshave actively partnered with the Office of Scholarly Communication to provide a seriesof workshops targeted to STEM faculty on topics such as predatory publishing. Theseconversations have prompted invitations to speak at college and department meetings andto provide additional assistance and support on these scholarly communication topics. Ithas also led to a research project conducted by the science, engineering and computerscience librarians and the Scholarly Communication Librarian on the open accesspublishing practices and trends of UCF STEM faculty to help better inform conversationsand research support to these faculty. This article will explore the various ways inwhich this unique model aids UCF Libraries in providing scholarly communication supportto faculty and students in an effective way and will share specific strategies andexamples that readers can practically implement at their respectiveinstitutions.