A Meeting of the Minds: Enhancing Collaboration with the Department of Psychiatry through the Institutional Repository

Abstract

This presentation will provide an overview of an ongoing collaboration between the Lamar Soutter Library and the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) to promote faculty research. The Library has a long-standing liaison relationship with the Department of Psychiatry to share information about library collections and services, and to support the department’s teaching, clinical, and research needs. In 2009 the Library formally established a Research and Scholarly Communication Services department, with one librarian overseeing the university’s institutional repository, eScholarship@UMMS. eScholarship@UMMS is a digital archive offering worldwide access to the research and scholarly output of the University of Massachusetts Medical School community. Its goal is to bring together all of the University's research under one umbrella, in full text whenever possible, in order to preserve, promote, and provide access to that research. Important features include usage statistics, optimized indexing in Google and Google Scholar, the opportunity to create a personal researcher page, electronic journal publishing software, RSS feeds and email alerts, and ongoing Library support and administration. The Library leveraged the existing liaison relationship with the Department of Psychiatry to advocate for the use of eScholarship@UMMS as a tool to maximize the readership and impact of faculty scholarship. The Department has proven to be an enthusiastic collaborator. eScholarship@UMMS has been enhanced with new research materials, faculty researcher pages, and the publication of an electronic journal. This project serves as a model for library collaboration with faculty departments to support and preserve faculty research output. Presented at the Association for College and Research Libraries New England Chapter Annual Conference, "Creative Collaborations," on May 13, 2011, in Worcester, Mass.