Supporting Scholars: An Analysis of Academic Library Websites' Documentation on Metrics and Impact

A number of indicators and metrics have been devised, especially in the past 10 to 15 years, to assist scholars in making a case for themselves and for their work. These metrics describe the impact of traditional venues (i.e. scholarly journals) as well as the impact of the scholars based on the number of times their work has been cited in traditional and nontraditional venues. Academic librarians assist faculty in explaining their impact and productivity in their respective fields in part through information published to their websites. Terms/concepts associated with common metrics relating to scholarly impact were searched in the library websites of the 62 Association of American University (AAU) members. A total of 61 libraries had web pages or LibGuides providing information on these topics, with Journal Citation Reports and the Impact Factor being the most commonly discussed (100%; 98.4%). Slightly over 90% (90.2%) supplied information about the h-index and 80.3% addressed altmetrics. We conclude that AAU librarians are assisting with the understanding and use of both traditional and new metrics as part of their service to their community of users.