Supporting digital identities at academic libraries

Abstract

In the academic world there is intensifying interest in the creation and maintenance of online professional identities. Academic librarians must work through how to match that interest with services and use of library resources and expertise. Interest in this form of identity rests not just with individual researchers wanting to establish and track their own scholarly output for funding, promotion and publication but with administrators seeking reliable data to measure research impact of a department, faculty or university as a whole.

Key areas of expertise render librarians as natural supports for this critical aspect of scholarly communications. We are able to provide support for the effective use and maintenance of tools intended to allow researchers to create unique professional identities. This includes awareness of existing and emerging tools and services; the purpose, unique features, and limitations of each; and how they potentially fit into a broader picture of scholarly communications. In pursuit of this goal, we have engaged in educational programming for liaison librarians as well as webinars and drop-in sessions for researchers.

This session will include a summary of these activities and include explanation of the benefits of ORCiDs, ways to add data to ORCiD profiles, challenges of data from various sources such as Google Scholar and Scopus, and clarifying the relationship between these and other tools, such as social media platforms, repositories, and CRIS systems.