By Kenneth Field (Librarian, Trent University Durham)

This past year, I have had the great good fortune to be Researcher in Residence at the Dalhousie School of Information Management. Thanks to the wonderful Faculty and Staff at the School, I have been welcomed, engaged, and exposed to many new people and ideas.

My work this year has been primarily focused on a citation analysis of resources used by faculty in the humanities and social sciences at Trent University between the years 2012 and 2016. Thanks to guidance from Dr. Ryan Whalen, I was able to efficiently gather citations to the articles of the target group and begin the job of extracting the data from the cited references. Having access to Dal’s information resources expanded the data available for the analysis; I the scope of data would not have been as broad at my home institution. Dr. Whalen also provided me with some data visualization software that I hope to use as my research progresses.

Dr. Lori McCay-Peet enlisted me early on in my tenure to present a guest lecture on copyright in her Information and Society class and to do a research presentation as part of the IM Public Lecture series. These opportunities to share my knowledge and talk about my research with students and faculty greatly enriched my work and would not have been available to me otherwise. It was also Dr. McCay-Peet who suggested I contact Dr. Vincente Lariviere at the University de Montreal. Prof. Lariviere does research in the areas of scholarly publishing and citation analysis and through this contact, I obtained a trove of data related to Trent faculty citation practices that will provide much greater insight into journal use by Trent faculty.

Dr. Bertrum MacDonald had several conversations about citation analysis, and he exposed me to very current work being done in the area of bibliometrics that will definitely inform my work. On a tangential note, through Dr. MacDonald that I had the opportunity to sing in the choir for the Symphony Nova Scotia performances of the Messiah, a great privilege and pleasure.

Thanks to Dr. Sandra Toze (SIM Director), I was included in the regular life of the School; I was invited to attend and participate in regular faculty meetings, and included in social events. I was made to feel a part of the community by all its members.  Thank you also to Kim Humes (SIM Administrative Assistant) for so ably providing me with the facilities and the resources that made my work possible.

Lastly, a big thank you to Prof. Carla Heggie for sharing her knowledge and expertise on privacy and access to information with me.

All in all, being Researcher in Residence at SIM has been tremendously rewarding. I have had opportunities to engage with new scholars, researchers and students, and I have been a part of a wonderfully collegial and active community. Once again, thank you to everyone at Dalhousie’s School of Information Management for a wonderful year.