Photo courtesy of Flickr.
After four wonderful months, my time with cIRcle is coming to an end. Let’s take a look back at what I’ve done this term by seeing what I actually get up to in a day!
First thing’s first: I arrive at the office and say hello to the cIRcle crew. Then, I fill up my water bottle (this will not be the only time). After I’m settled, I check Outlook and flag emails with things I should get around to today, such as submissions, project updates, and replies from faculty. Once I’m up to date, I get started on submissions!
Submissions
These are works, such as student projects and research papers, submitted to cIRcle by UBC faculty, students, and community members. Once something is submitted to cIRcle, I get to enter in all the metadata for it (e.g. title, author, etc.) so that it is searchable at UBC and beyond. This is one of my favourite tasks because I get to see what faculty and students are working on.
By the time I’m done with submissions, I usually get pretty chilly (we’re in the lower level of the library!), so I’ll put my sweater on and refill my water bottle. Then, I get to work on my ongoing projects. Below are a few that I’ve been working on.
Electronic Theses and Dissertations Guide
This summer, I worked on a Wiki guide to help facilitate the discovery and use of graduate theses and dissertations in cIRcle.
My newness to cIRcle helped me tackle this project; I was able to write it from the perspective of a new user to cIRcle, since I was one! Each day, I would tackle a new section (e.g. searching, licensing, metadata) by pretending I was a student or faculty member trying to search or use an item in cIRcle. I’d write out all the questions I would have about how these things worked (What can I do with a Creative Commons license? How do I find theses from my program?) and then attempt to answer them in the guide. Once I completed a section, I would stare at the bagel that I packed for lunch and try not to eat it (this would be around 11:15 am). Then on to emails!
Electronic Theses and Dissertations Supervisor Recruitment
The purpose of this project is to recruit research papers from UBC graduate supervisors who have supervised theses and dissertations in cIRcle’s collection. This entails reviewing the Google Scholar profiles of UBC faculty who have cropped up in the “Supervisor” field of recent theses and dissertations until I find a research article that isn’t free or easy to access. I then use Sherpa Romeo and click through the publisher’s website to determine if they permit a copy to be deposited in an institutional repository. Policy permitting, I email the faculty member to request a copy and perform the same submissions process for the article to upload it to cIRcle. Since this is an ongoing project, I usually liked to dedicate a chunk of time at the end of each day to it. If I finished my target of five article requests per week, I would move on to other projects such as blog posts.
Blog Posts
But first I fill up my water bottle again. And submit to the bagel calling my name. During my time at cIRcle, I’ve helped write three blog posts (this is my fourth!). I most enjoyed working on a post about alternative outputs in cIRcle. As a podcast devotee (I regularly listen to a baseball podcast while inputting submissions- Go A’s!), I’ve long been interested in their application in a scholarly context. Wouldn’t it be awesome to listen to your “readings” for a class while going for a walk? It was heartening to see the wide variety of outputs available in cIRcle, from videos to podcasts to cook books!
Signing Off
To wrap up each day, I add my accomplishments to an email draft to the cIRcle team which I send off at the end of each week. I also alert them to any challenges I’m facing, lessons I’ve learned, and what projects I plan to tackle for the next week.
Now that my time with cIRcle is coming to a close, I’ve been looking back at these emails to reflect on my time here (…and to help update my CV). I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work on a diverse array of projects and advance my skillset as a communicator, educator, and librarian. I have deepened my interest in the world of scholarly communications, coming to enjoy the often slippery and nebulous ins and outs of publishing, licensing, and access. In this field, I have learned that an affinity for investigation is beneficial and an optimistic outlook is key. We must always celebrate making research accessible!