Librarians from the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo took part in a multi-institution project to learn more about the research practices of civil and environmental engineering faculty. The project, designed and coordinated by Ithaka S+R, and sponsored by ASCE, involved conducting one-on-one interviews with civil and environmental engineering faculty to learn more about their research methods, the types of data they produce, their publishing practices, and more. After transcribing and coding the interview results, each library team produced a report highlighting the key factors discussed by faculty and the implications of those factors for the library at their institution. As the only Canadian schools taking part in the study, the librarian teams from Toronto and Waterloo maintained a line of communication during the project to compare notes on process and findings.
In this paper, the authors describe the research methods of the Ithaka S+R project and their findings, focusing on the experiences of the civil and environmental engineering faculty who participated in the interviews from a Canadian perspective. The paper will examine some of the challenges that civil and environmental engineering faculty are facing, especially around research data management and complying with the tri-agency open access policies of governmental grant bodies. The paper will also focus on supporting graduate students as they develop into researchers in their own right, examining opportunities for increased support, and exploring how targeting graduate students may lead to an increased awareness of the library’s services by faculty members as well. Finally, the paper will discuss plans for how the library might respond to these ongoing challenges, and provide updates on how both the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo have used the information from this study to better support researchers at their respective institutions.
Rachel Figueiredo has been the Engineering & Entrepreneurship Librarian at the University of Waterloo since 2014. She has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Waterloo and a Master of Library and Information Science from Western University.
Angela is the Head of the University of Toronto's Engineering & Computer Science Library, where she has worked as a librarian since February 2014. She has an Honours Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Information Studies, both from the University of Toronto.
Michelle Spence is an Engineering & Computer Science Librarian at the University of Toronto. She holds a HBSc and a MISt, both from the University of Toronto. She has held positions in academic and public libraries, as well as a corporate setting.
Mindy Thuna completed a BSc. in Palaeontology (University of Toronto) in 1993, an MSc. in Vertebrate Morphology (University of Calgary) in 1997, and an MISt from the Faculty of Information Studies (University of Toronto) in 2005. Mindy worked at the UTM c
Siu has a graduate degree in both organic chemistry, and library and information science. Prior to his engineering liaison librarian contract at the University of Waterloo, Siu worked at the National Research Council of Canada doing vaccine adjuvant research.
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