Through a lens for engaged scholarship (Boyer in Journal of Public Service and Outreach, 1(1), 11–20, 1996) this multiple case study (Merriam, 1996) explores the potential of scholarly podcasts for public knowledge dissemination, highlighting the misalignment of university impact metrics with this medium. Our team collected qualitative and numerical data from six podcasters across our university system. We identify metrics for assessing scholarly podcast value, offer recommendations for institutional communication, and share our insights and challenges. Data analysis suggests that a Listen Score (Listen Notes, ND) and an increasing Podcast Success Index (Singh et al. JMIR Medical Education, 2(2), 1–10, 2016) may be consistent with a wider reach. Consistent production and promotion are key and infrastructure support for scholarly podcasters is necessary.

Academic libraries have long consulted with faculty and graduate students on ways to measure the impact of their published research, which now include altmetrics. Podcasting is becoming a more viable method of publicizing academic research to a broad audience. Because individual academic departments may lack the ability to produce podcasts, the library can serve as the most appropriate academic unit to undertake podcast production on behalf of researchers. The article identifies what library staff and equipment are required, describes the process needed to produce and market the published episodes, and offers preliminary assessments of the podcast impact.

Academic libraries have long consulted with faculty and graduate students on ways to measure the impact of their published research, which now include altmetrics. Podcasting is becoming a more viable method of publicizing academic research to a broad audience. Because individual academic departments may lack the ability to produce podcasts, the library can serve as the most appropriate academic unit to undertake podcast production on behalf of researchers. The article identifies what library staff and equipment are required, describes the process needed to produce and market the published episodes, and offers preliminary assessments of the podcast impact.

Academic libraries engage in assessment for a variety of reasons. Improving processes, responding to customer needs, fulfilling accreditation reporting requirements, and demonstrating impact and value to the institution are just a few. Many academic libraries find themselves in the position of being required to prove they are fulfilling a mission that contributes to the academic success of students and their value to the institution. Assessment is no longer a choice for libraries—it has become an expectation. Although most libraries are already doing some form of assessment, there seems to be little effort in many institutions to build a culture of assessment, where staff understand and participate in the process. In many organizations, assessment is often initiated and driven by library administration. Despite good intentions, many initiatives ultimately fail due to lack of staff buy-in.

When the Open Access (OA) movement began at the beginning of the 21st century, librarians and select scholars saw it as a way to level the playing field by disseminating scholarly work freely, by easing the financial burden placed on rising subscription costs, and by offering alternatives to the traditional publishing model. Predatory and opportunistic OA publishers were quick to arrive on the scene, however, leaving faculty and researchers scrambling for a new and updated vetting process for selecting their publication targets. Jeffrey Beall's blog and Beall's List, along with other important publication directories, have become an important part of the effort to provide oversight and information to scholars about OA publishers. This paper will discuss OA controversies and review sources and opinions on the transformation of academic publishing efforts in the context of OA issues. Recent trends in librarianship demonstrate the need to educate authors on how to comprehensively research journals before submitting manuscripts to them, how to avoid predatory OA publishers, and where scholarly communication is going in terms of oversight and reputability of OA journals. This paper will briefly summarize many of the possible roles of the librarian, as well as discuss and evaluate the impact of Beall's List on both the publishing world and librarianship.

The literature, activities, and resource needs of engineering students and faculty provide insight into a demographic that is often among the early-adopters of new technologies, tools, and methods of sharing information. Despite the often non-bibliographic nature of their research efforts, there are numerous elements of the traditional service model that remain relevant and integral to the engineering research patron base. New methods of in-person and virtual instruction, the improved promotion of research consultation, and data management are prime targets for efficient and effective service updates. This article outlines the current engineering research environment, using a large research institution as a model and case study for evaluation and future planning for outreach and service marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parts of the work presented here were originally prepared for and published in: Zuber, M. T., J. W. Head, D. E. Smith, G. A. Neumann, E. Mazarico, M. H. Torrence, O. Aharonson, A. R. Tye, C. I. Fassett, M. A. Rosenburg, et al. (2012a), Constraints on the volatile distribution within shackleton crater at the lunar south pole, Nature, 486 (7403), 378–381 and Kreslavsky, M. A., J. W. Head, G. A. Neumann, M. A. Rosenburg, O. Aharonson, D. E. Smith, and M. T. Zuber (2013), Lunar topographic roughness maps from Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) data: Scale dependence and correlation with geologic features and units, Icarus, 226 (1), 52–66

A new technique is described to transfer time between distant satellite laser ranging stations via simultaneous one-way laser ranging to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The time standard of the primary station is referenced to a nearby Master Clock using an All-View GPS receiver. A ground-based experiment has been conducted to validate the technique. Subnanosecond precision and accuracy is shown to be achievable.

The Laser ranging (LR) experiment on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has been in operation for more than 4 years, since shortly after the arrival of the spacecraft in lunar orbit in June 2009. Led by NASA's Next Generation Satellite Laser Ranging (NGSLR) station at Greenbelt, Maryland, ten laser ranging stations over the world have been participating in the experiment and have collected over 3,400 hours of one-way laser ranging data. These range measurements are used to generate precise orbital solutions for LRO and monitor the behavior of the LRO clock. To achieve high-quality range measurements, the NGSLR and four other ground stations are using Hydrogen-maser clocks as a stable and continuous time reference for the orbit solutions. In January 2013, an All-View GPS receiver was installed at NGSLR, to monitor the H-maser time against the master clock at the United States Naval Observatory (USNO) via GPS satellites. With these improvements, NGSLR established nano-second level epoch time accuracy and 10 clock stability. By using the LR tracking data alone, together with a high-resolution gravity model from the GRAIL Discovery mission, the LRO orbit solutions have an average total position error of 10 meters, and show the same quality as those generated using conventional radiometric tracking data. With this approach, 2-week long arcs were used with range biases adjusted once per arc. A timing bias was also adjusted to compensate both the ground and spacecraft clock characteristics for each arc. We present the results from both orbit prediction and orbit reconstruction, and an assessment of the quality of the orbital solutions by comparing the results with those from S-band radiometric tracking data.

Comprehensive assessments have shown that academic library users prefer a welcoming environment that provides the opportunity for self-sufficiency. Libraries need to meet these expectations and improve the quality of library reference by creating a comprehensive training program for librarians, staff, and students. This article will review standards for reference training in academic libraries with a focus on one-desk service points and consider best practices for planning, implementing, and assessing training programs for staff, students, and librarians.