In early September, the MSK Library experienced a flood. Due to a pipe bursting on a floor above, the water eventually found its way to our collection of journal back issues. These print journal issues are used not only by staff, but form part of the larger collection used for external document delivery requests from libraries all across North America and beyond. The journal titles that were damaged the most included Nature and The Lancet – two titles that are heavily used and for which we don’t hold subscriptions to the complete archives in electronic format.

While this experience was one none of us would want to see repeated, I can’t help but reflect on how quickly the library team pulled together to minimize the damage.  There were some that rushed to remove the books and journals, others that ran to gather all of our waste receptacles so that the water would fall in these containers rather than on the carpet, and still others who remained up front to continue to handle users’ requests and direct facility personnel to the affected area. Continue reading →

 I am delighted to present to our readers and library users our Library Progress Report highlighting our activities for 2014 and 2015. This report is a celebration of our accomplishments and marks our progress over the past two years. Within these pages, we share information about our operations, staff publications, library services, and usage metrics that showcase the value of our collection and services.

I think that you’ll especially enjoy reading about our collaborative projects with users. Most of all, I hope this report will spark interest in MSK staff to take a few moments to explore a new resource, service, or include us on a future team initiative.

If you want to learn more about the MSK Library or the services we provide, don’t hesitate to contact me.

Donna Gibson
Director of Library Services

The volume of published research output continues to grow at a rapid rate often making it difficult for the researcher to keep up with the literature in his or her field. Adding to this is the need to also demonstrate research impact and value.  In the world of Scholarly Communication, the Internet has added yet another layer of complexity by increasing the number of ways one can now measure research impact.

Traditionally, research assessment has been predominantly determined by the Journal Impact Factor and article citation count. This method not only takes time before citations start to accumulate, it also provides a very limited picture of the article’s impact. Alternative metrics have surfaced, offering more immediate results.  These results can come from social media or online attention metrics (e.g. mentions via Twitter, Facebook and Google+), number of downloads, shares or posts, mass media (coverage of research output from news outlets), and commentaries from scientific blogs.

Early this year, I met with a representative from Kudos and was intrigued with their service.  Their “Step by Step tutorial for using Kudos” (4:00 min) presents an overview and summary of benefits.
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