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

Subject librarians are uniquely poised to facilitate conversations and assistance about scholarly communication topics to faculty and students -- helping make the connections between scholarly communication and discipline-specific research. The University of Central Florida (UCF) Libraries offers a unique intersection between scholarly communication and subject librarians by implementing a robust subject librarian model that includes activities related to scholarly communication and partnering with UCF’s Office of Scholarly Communication to provide support on a variety of topics to the campus community. In particular, this model has been particularly effective with STEM disciplines. The subject librarians in these respective disciplines have actively partnered with the Office of Scholarly Communication to provide a series of workshops targeted to STEM faculty on topics such as predatory publishing. These conversations have prompted invitations to speak at college and department meetings and to provide additional assistance and support on these scholarly communication topics. It has also led to a research project conducted by the science, engineering and computer science librarians and the Scholarly Communication Librarian on the open access publishing practices and trends of UCF STEM faculty to help better inform conversations and research support to these faculty. This article will explore the various ways in which this unique model aids UCF Libraries in providing scholarly communication support to faculty and students in an effective way and will share specific strategies and examples that readers can practically implement at their respective institutions.