Queen’s University Library encourages all faculty, doctoral students, and postdoctoral fellows to respond to a survey on their usage of scholarly journals. 

In November, an email was sent asking survey recipients to identify the top 10 journals in their field for research and top 10 journals for teaching. This survey is part of a larger study that has been deployed at 22 Canadian universities and will be managed by Dr. Vincent Larivière, Canada Research Chair on the Transformations of Scholarly Communication at the Université de Montréal.

The Queen’s results will be included with other feedback and data obtained by the library to ensure that faculty, students and staff have access to the resources they need at reasonable and sustainable costs to the university. The deadline to complete the survey is Friday Dec. 9, 2016. All responses will be anonymous.

The library has been engaging in extensive consultations with stakeholders across all faculties in the development of its information resources strategies. These sessions seek to optimize resource selections to meet the needs of the Queen’s community. Back in May, the Senate Library Committee and library facilitated an invitational meeting of academic stakeholders, and this fall the library has been following up with each faculty and Senate. The information gathered through these and other consultations with stakeholders will be used to make evidence-based decisions about subscriptions to be retained, based on user needs.

Heather McMullen, Associate University Librarian, says that it’s important for the community to be involved.

“We continue to collaborate at provincial, national and international levels, and encourage the Queen’s community to respond to the Canadian multi-institution survey, continue to tell us about resources you want, and understand when we need to assess costs, priorities and alternative forms of access," she says. "We invite the Queen’s community to work with us to improve the timely flow of scholarly information at sustainable costs over time.”

For more information, please see the information on Journal Usage Project via Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN). 

For questions, contact Heather McMullen, Associate University Librarian, via email or telephone (613 533-6000 ext. 79293).