Academic Librarians’ Knowledge of Bibliometrics and Altmetrics

Abstract

Objective – To measure the knowledge and opinions that academic librarians have of established and emerging research metrics. Methods – An online survey was distributed to all academic librarians in Oklahoma during Summer 2015. Results – Librarians were less familiar with altmetrics than with bibliometrics, but they viewed altmetrics as effective and were interested in receiving training to learn more about them. Librarians who had been in the profession for over five years knew more about both bibliometrics and altmetrics than newer librarians. Conclusions – Technological advances and changes in the ways that research products are shared have led to the possibility of and need for new ways of measuring research impact. Altmetrics have emerged to fill this need, but academic librarians need more familiarity and training to be able to fulfill a role as providers of these metrics.