Valerie Vera has been named University Libraries’ inaugural Research Impact Librarian. In this role, Vera will work with faculty, staff and students to help them understand and more effectively communicate the value and influence of their work.

Formerly a research and instruction librarian, Vera brings to the position significant knowledge of the research enterprise at the University of South Carolina as well as firsthand experience as an academic researcher. She will complete a Ph.D. in library and information science this semester and has a strong research and publication record of her own; and in her six years in research and instruction, she has supported faculty and student scholarship in multiple disciplines and at multiple stages of the research process.

“Valerie brings a wealth of experience from her successful career in academic libraries, along with deep expertise in scholarly research and strong technical and communication skills,” said Kate Boyd, the Libraries’ Director of Digital Research Services and Collections. “She truly understands researchers and their needs. With her intelligence, dedication, and integrity, we know she’ll be an incredible partner to our faculty and graduate students.”

“We are very fortunate to have been awarded this position as part of President Amiridis’s new faculty initiative, which has created 100 new faculty lines in high-priority areas,” noted Dean of Libraries David Banush.  “It’s a testament to the great work of our library faculty that we have been entrusted with two of these lines, one in AI and Data Science and this new one, to help advance USC’s research enterprise.”

Below, Vera describes her new role and the services she provides to faculty and students.

--How will you be supporting the USC community in this role?

At its core, my role is to partner with USC’s research community to help them showcase their work, be more competitive on grant applications, and demonstrate the value of their work both within academia and beyond.

I’ll be providing support in two main ways:

• Working directly with individual researchers to enhance their visibility and track their impact,
• Developing larger-scale reports that give units a big-picture view of their collective impact,

At the center of this role is responsible research impact assessment, making sure metrics are used thoughtfully, in context, and in ways that reflect the diverse ways that research has impact.

--How does your new position dovetail with other kinds of support the Libraries provides to the USC research enterprise?

This position complements our existing data services and scholarly communication services by tying together the full research lifecycle. At the Libraries, we support researchers from the very beginning of a project through to its dissemination. And now, with this role, we also help them evaluate their impact after the work is published.

For example, a researcher could work with Stacy Winchester, our Research Data Librarian, at the initial planning stage to identify datasets and create data management plans, then connect with Vandana Srivastava, our AI/Data Science Specialist, and Glenn Bunton, our Data Visualization Librarian, in the middle stages of a project for support with cleaning and analyzing data, developing machine learning models, and creating effective visualizations, then, on the dissemination side, find open access publishing opportunities through our scholarly communication services. This new position takes that support one step further by focusing on what comes next: helping faculty and students understand how their work is being received, cited, and used.

--What support or services will you be providing to researchers that might not have been as available to them before?

With the establishment of this role, researchers now have a dedicated point of contact for research impact, somebody they can reach out to for support, rather than having to assess their impact on their own.

While the Libraries has always supported research in a lot of different capacities, my role centralizes some of that support in new ways through things like providing guidance on creating and maintaining persistent identifiers and author profiles, as well as offering trainings on how to use bibliometric and altmetric indicators responsibly.

And researchers will now be able to request tailored reports, both for themselves and for entire units, such as departments, colleges, or labs. While individual publication metrics can help with everything from tenure and promotion dossiers to grant applications, group metrics offer a comprehensive view of a unit’s productivity and collaborations, making it easier for departments to track their collective research output and identify trends over time.

--What are some specific examples of how working with you can help faculty enhance their research and accelerate their careers?

Working with me can help faculty in very practical ways. For example, I can help generate reports that pull together a snapshot of their research impact, including citation metrics, altmetrics, and collaborations, which can be used to strengthen a grant application or a tenure and promotion dossier. Having those metrics clearly presented can save time and help faculty make a stronger case for their work.

On a larger scale, I can prepare reports for departments, labs, and institutes that highlight collaborative productivity and expertise. These reports can support both internal reporting and external promotion.

And beyond reports, I’ll be offering individual consultations, including topics like scholarly identity management – things like setting up and maintaining ORCID and Google Scholar and Scopus Author Profiles, where that kind of visibility work helps ensure faculty get proper credit for their publications and makes their work more discoverable.

--What excites you most about this new job?

I’m very excited about the opportunity to help researchers tell the full story of their research, including in ways that go beyond traditional measures. Our faculty and students produce incredible work, and this role creates new opportunities to highlight that work.

And it’s exciting that this is a new service for the Libraries. Because it’s new, it’s something we’ll be building together with the research community. That means I’ll be listening closely to faculty and administrators about what kinds of support are most useful. The services will grow and adapt directly from those needs.

To learn more about Research Impact services from University Libraries or to schedule a consultation with Valerie Vera, visit our Research Impact web page.