Serials Metric Studies Performed at the Academic Library to Improve Scholarly Communication of the Library Users (Experience and Opinion of the Scientific Library of the Belarusian National Technical University)

Abstract

Abstract The objective of the paper was to consider the current experience of metric evaluations of serial publications carried out by employees of academic libraries and to develop recommendations for conducting such evaluations. To achieve this objective, relevant publications were reviewed and the relevant experience of the Scientific Library of the Belarusian National Technical University was summarized. Two trends of such evaluations were analyzed, viz. both evaluation for the purpose of improving library collections or information services for library users and evaluation for the purpose of making managerial decisions, assessing the scientific performance of the university, research organization or their units. As for the first trend, the viewpoint that this area of research has lost its relevance has been refuted. Using for evaluation such indicators as disciplinary impact factor and disciplinary susceptibility factor (which is used for the selection of those non-specialized serial publications that cite specialized journals—not are cited by them; herewith the citing activity of an average article from the citing non-specialized serial is calculated) is considered. As for the second trend, the paper demonstrates the important role of metric evaluation of serial publications in which employees of universities and research organizations have published as well as of those serials that are published by academic organizations under analysis in the assessment of universities and research organizations themselves. The approaches to such evaluation, its examples and the experience of the Scientific Library of the Belarusian National Technical University in evaluating Belarusian journals indexed by the Emerging Sources Citation Index™ are considered. The issue of improving the scholarly communication of employees of the university or research organization using the results of metric studies of serial publications is considered as well. Recommendations are given on the use of a number of citation indicators for serial publications evaluations by academic library employees including evaluation for comparative analysis of serials that are indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded™ and by the Emerging Sources Citation Index™.