Back in March, we were snowed out of presenting at the Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students conference, and we just couldn’t let all that preparation go to waste. So, we’d like to invite colleagues near and far to join us for an online presentation discussing our experience transforming the dissertation and thesis deposit procedure into a librarian-led scholarly communication consultation.

We hope you can make it, and we’re happy to answer questions on or off-list.

What:

“Not Just Degree-Seekers: Graduate Students as Scholarly Contributors”

Led by Jill Cirasella and Roxanne Shirazi

When:

Wednesday, December 19th

1-2pm EST (11am PST)

Where:

Zoom - Register here

Why:

Most graduate students are required to produce theses and dissertations that make an original contribution to the field of study. This requirement informs how students and faculty approach graduate research, but colleges and universities often treat the culminating works merely as student records, not scholarly contributions encompassing original research. Librarians, however, are uniquely situated to treat graduate students as emerging participants in the scholarly communication ecosystem and to help them prepare their culminating works for an outside audience. Librarians have the expertise to advise students during the submission process with questions regarding copyright, licensing, fair use, and author’s rights, as well as the awareness to spot such issues even when students are not aware of them.

Our institution recently moved responsibility for thesis and dissertation deposit from an administrative role to a librarian position. We will present our experience transforming the deposit process into a scholarly communication consultation, and will provide a first-hand report of the educational benefits of making deposit a library function, helmed by a copyright-literate librarian. This session will help participants identify how and where the thesis approval process takes place on their campuses, and strategize ways to insert librarian-led scholarly communication consultations into the graduation checklist.

Jill Cirasella is Associate Librarian for Public Services and Scholarly Communication at The Graduate Center, CUNY.

Roxanne Shirazi is Dissertation Research Librarian at The Graduate Center, CUNY.