The isolation of practitioners in bibliometrics: Observed challenges

Barbara S. Lancho Barrantes, Sheila Craft-Morgan, Madelaine Hare, Naomi Richards, Emily Mazure, & Jeffrey Demaine

The first post in an ongoing series about the realities of bibliometrics practice, the LIS-Bibliometrics Committee comment on four key challenges facing bibliometric practitioners in institutional settings: siloing within institutional settings, feelings of ineptness in relation to expertise and training, changing technological factors, and a misalignment between roles and policies. Readers are invited to share their own experiences, observations, and insights through an interactive survey, which will inform a subsequent "community-written" blog post.

Bibliometric practitioners: On the rise

In the past decade, bibliometrics have become more widespread across academia, with some institutions creating dedicated bibliometric positions and other roles to leverage these methods in their work. Despite the increasing institutionalization and professionalization of bibliometrics, most institutions currently have only one or a very few bibliometric practitioners working in these spaces. Our definition of bibliometric practitioners encompasses professionals who work with scientometric, bibliometric, or research metric data to support individual or institutional needs. This includes but is not limited to librarians, research data analysts, impact officers, and researchers. These circumstances can lead to assumptions from management, specifically regarding the expertise associated with job titles. Research Impact Librarians, for example, often must educate themselves about responsible research evaluation, in addition to their typical responsibilities. 

In this post, we describe four challenges facing some bibliometric practitioners working in institutional settings: 1) a notable separation between practitioners and other academic staff/units, 2) feelings of ineptness in relation to the wider pool of bibliometricians globally, 3) technological factors such as the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and 4) a misalignment between practitioners' roles in institutional contexts and higher-level policies in relation to metrics.

1. Siloing within institutional settings

It is essential to acknowledge that there is often a distinct separation between the bibliometric work conducted by practitioners and that undertaken by personnel from other units, including academics and scholars. This distinction is important because coordinating resources and training across different institutional units presents challenges, which can lead to the siloing of expertise, funding, and training. For example, bibliometric databases funded by libraries are often used for research and administrative purposes, whereas other research databases, funded at the enterprise level or by individual units, may be available only for administrative use. This creates an incomplete view of the institution's research profile and can discourage collaboration across units to share resources for a comprehensive, enterprise-wide solution.

2. Feelings of ineptness in the bibliometrics space

Secondly, it is common for bibliometric practitioners to experience feeling inept or "not expert enough" compared to other bibliometricians or data scientists in research spaces, for example. This sense of inadequacy often stems from imposter syndrome related to their bibliometric expertise, technical abilities, and academic knowledge,  causing self-doubt about individuals' roles and abilities (Corrall et al., 2013). Of course, there are differences in the roles of bibliometric practitioners at various institutions, which lead to a host of other challenges, as outlined in the second point. The lack of formal training in bibliometrics within the majority of LIS programs has contributed to these feelings, which led to the development of the bibliometric competency model aiming to address these gaps (Cox et al., 2017; Lancho Barrantes et al., 2021; Lancho Barrantes et al., 2025; Lancho Barrantes, 2025).

3. Technological factors

In addition to the structural factors previously discussed, a further source of isolation may come from the very technologies that are used to perform bibliometric analyses. The incorporation of AI assistants into products such as the Web of Science, Scopus, and Dimensions may lead to a subtle erosion of the role of specialists in the field. 

While this issue is not limited to bibliometrics, the convenience offered by AI assistants may serve to undermine the expertise of practitioners who specialize in the analysis of research impact. While such new technologies are undoubtedly a valuable feature and will help users uncover insights by cutting through the mass of information, their very convenience may indirectly contribute to the isolation of bibliometricians who may end up being consulted less and less by the users they want to help. This would be unfortunate, as the expertise of bibliometricians lies as much in their contextual knowledge of the issues in scholarly communications as it does in their skills in analyzing metadata. In effect, this may be seen as a new kind of silo (now technological) that isolates bibliometricians from their institutional context.

4. Misalignment between roles and policies

Finally, there is, at times, an observable misalignment between the roles that bibliometric practitioners play within their institutions and national policies relating to responsible metrics. Institutional policies often evoke the language and values of responsible research evaluation cultures, acknowledging that qualitative assessment should always complement the use of metrics in evaluation activities. Despite this, practitioners find that the requirements of their roles do not align with these policies, and an incompatibility persists between policy and practice.

Addressing shared challenges

This post has aimed to highlight diverse experiences within bibliometric roles and foster community discussion. By bringing challenges to the forefront, bibliometric practitioners can confer on shared barriers, establish solutions, and collectively address the lack of recognition bibliometricians often face within institutional settings.

To address feelings of ineptness in the bibliometrics field, we suggest that bibliometric practitioners can continue their learning through various methods, connect with other practitioners and bibliometricians in different settings, and continue to engage with these challenges by making them visible and thus addressable. 

Indeed, bibliometric practitioners can aim to address gaps in their training through internal and external training opportunities. We recommend signing up for email lists, joining social media groups, and keeping an eye on the websites of major bibliometric organizations and research centres across the globe, which frequently host training seminars, lectures, and publish bibliometric resources. The LIS-Bibliometrics committee is one such group that maintains a listserv through which practitioners can ask questions, seek guidance, and benefit from the knowledge of a broad group of practitioners, researchers, staff, and others interested in bibliometrics.

Possible Solutions

Integrating bibliometrics as a cross-service within institutions can help reduce colleagues' sense of isolation by transforming it into a shared, connective practice rather than a siloed specialty. By embedding bibliometrics into research support, teaching, strategy, and library services, it encourages common goals, promotes collaboration across units, and underscores the value of this expertise. This cross-functional organization not only increases visibility and recognition but also encourages the development of networks and shared projects, providing professionals with a stronger sense of belonging within their institutions. The skills developed in bibliometrics, such as knowledge dissemination, text mining, database management, data analysis, critical evaluation, visualization, and understanding complex networks, are highly transferable and applicable in many other contexts. Integrating these skills into different areas of their institutions strengthens overall research and analytical capabilities.

Share your experiences, observations, and insights!

To make challenges more visible, we invite readers to share their commentary or insights into their own experiences of isolation and/or their experiences connecting with others to feel less isolated through our Google form (the form will close December 1, 2025) or by commenting on this blog post. All responses will be anonymized, and we will follow up this post with a second one highlighting community responses.

Community survey (open until December 1, 2025): https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSclq1CVEAuUpZ2_h53wbXcbHcZVu6evvaBDJ4BXSzesoX83Aw/viewform?usp=header

References

1. Corrall, S., Kennan, M. A., & Afzal, W. (2013). Bibliometrics and Research Data Management Services: Emerging Trends in Library Support for Research. Library Trends, 61(3), 636–674. https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2013.0005
2. Cox, A., Gadd, E., Petersohn, S., & Sbaffi, L. (2017). Competencies for Bibliometrics. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 51(3), 746-762. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961000617728111 
3. Lancho Barrantes, B. S. (2025). Academic perspectives on bibliometrics in a leading UK research university. Education for Information, 41(2), 88-106. https://doi.org/10.1177/01678329251323443
4. Lancho Barrantes, B. S., Vanhaverbeke, H., & Dobre, S. (2021). The new competencies model for bibliometric work. https://thebibliomagician.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/competenciesmodel_june2021-2.pdf 
5. Lancho Barrantes, B.S., O'Hara, M., & Rasuli, B. (2025). Assessing Training Needs in the Global Bibliometrics Community. In the 29th Annual International Conference on Science and Technology Indicators- STI ENID 3-5 September 2025: Reconciliation of research and its measurement. University of Bristol. https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/zceux_v1

About the authors

Barbara S. Lancho Barrantes is a Senior Lecturer in Data Science and Analytics at the University of Brighton. She completed her BSc in Information Science and her PhD in Bibliometrics at the University of Extremadura (Spain). She has led the Bibliometrics Service at the University of Leeds and carried out a postdoctoral research position at Tecnologico de Monterrey (Mexico). Her research focuses on citation analysis, mappings of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and research integrity. She is also Chair of the LIS Bibliometrics Committee.

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9994-8886

Sheila Craft-Morgan is the Research Impact Librarian and an Assistant Professor at Ohio State University. She leads the development of systematic, scalable approaches that support scholarly research impact within the research lifecycle. She also supports faculty, staff and students in managing, communicating and promoting the impact of their scholarly work. Sheila holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Ohio State, an MLS from Kent State University and a J.D. from Capital University Law School. She has more than 20 years of experience in institutional research and expertise in data analysis and visualization.

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4845-2650

Madelaine Hare is a PhD in Information student at Dalhousie University. She graduated from Dalhousie in 2017, 2021, and 2023, respectively with her BA and MA (both in History) and her Master of Information. Maddie seeks to use bibliometrics to illuminate the dynamics and evolution of scholarly communities, and the global scientific research system more broadly. Her doctoral research aims to understand how ongoing developments in open access and open science relate to equity, diversity, and inclusion in the scholarly research system.

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2123-9518

Emily Mazure, MSI serves as the Research Impact Librarian at Virginia Tech University Libraries, providing expertise and support to faculty, researchers, and students in maximizing the visibility and impact of their scholarly work. She specializes in bibliometrics, citation analysis, and scholarly communication, offering guidance on identifying appropriate metrics, utilizing relevant tools, and developing effective dissemination strategies. Emily collaborates with university stakeholders to foster a greater understanding of research impact and promote its strategic use in advancing the institution's research mission.

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9426-4853

Naomi Richards is the Research Intelligence Librarian at the University of Derby. In her current role she works to showcase and shape the research identity of the University and its researchers through bibliometric practices. She is passionate about responsible metric use and highlighting impact and knowledge dissemination using Alternative Metrics. She graduated from the University of Dalhousie with her Master of Information in 2024, and previously completed her BSc in Biology from the University of British Columbia.

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-3935-7890

Jeffrey Demaine is the Bibliometrics and Research Impact Librarian at McMaster University, and had the same role at the University of Waterloo. He worked at the National Research Council of Canada for a dozen years, and then at iFQ in Germany. His recent publications have uncovered Sleeping Beauty articles, characterized trends in the gender of researchers, and has captured the interplay between Altmetrics and citations. He is a co-organizer of the annual Bibliometrics and Research Impact conference  (www.bric-conference.ca). His interest in Bibliometrics began so long ago that his first analysis used the Science Citation Index in printed format.

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4586-1317

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