Dear Colleague:
Today, we are publishing
Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Public Health Scholars. The report is the result of a collaborative project between Ithaka S+R and research teams from seven universities and is the sixth in our
Research Support Services series.
The field of public health is complex in its interdisciplinary nature and far-reaching in its potential impact. Both of these aspects affect the ways that scholars within it discover and access information, conduct their analyses, and disseminate their research. We also found that the highly collaborative nature of public health research causes a number of challenges. Research teams that span different regions may have unequal access to licensed resources. And scholars struggle to find tools to responsibly share sensitive data with their colleagues.
In short, there's a lot of room for librarians, publishers, and other scholarly resources providers to develop tools and services to better support this important field. We outline a number of possible strategies in the report and look forward to seeing our community respond.
Later this winter, we will publish a similar report for Asian Studies, with Indigenous Studies and Civil & Environmental Engineering to follow. And in a year from now, we will be launching studies of the research practices and research support needs of scholars of modern languages and literature, and possibly physics as well. If you are interested in learning more about any of these projects, or other ways to join Ithaka S+R's efforts to help academic libraries transform to serve tomorrow's needs, I would be happy to speak with you at any time.
