Scholarly Communications and Research Support Librarian

Reports To: Head of Library Services

Objective: The Scholarly Communications and Research Support Librarian plays a pivotal role in supporting the research and scholarly publishing needs of the RCSI Bahrain community. The role provides expert guidance in areas including open access, research impact, responsible metrics, copyright, data management, and publishing strategies. The librarian collaborates with faculty, researchers, and postgraduate students to strengthen the university’s research output and visibility.

• Lead the development and promotion of scholarly communication initiatives, including open access publishing, author rights, and compliance with OA policies.

• Creating strong working relationships with academic staff and researchers, raising awareness of the institutional repository and supporting the deposit of research outputs to ensure compliance with the university and funder policies.

• Design and deliver training programs and library guides on scholarly publishing, research integrity, and open science.

• Develop partnerships with academic staff to embed scholarly communication concepts into curricula and research training.

• Coordinating the organisation, preparation and delivery of OA support and training.

• Provide guidance on predatory publishing, copyright, Creative Commons licensing, and author publishing agreements.

• Coordinate support for publication tracking, research metrics (e.g., h-index, altmetrics), and bibliometric services.

• Working closely with the Research Office in the development of Research Information Management Systems.

• Collaborate with the Research Office and academic departments to increase the visibility and impact of RCSI Bahrain research through repository deposit and research dissemination strategies.

• Deliver expert consultations and workshops on systematic reviews, evidence synthesis, advanced literature searching, and reference management tools (e.g., EndNote, Mendeley, Zotero).

• Lead the management and development of functionality for managing and archiving research data.

• Promote the benefits of good Research Data Management practices across the institution, push the agenda for open data and FAIR principles and understand researchers’ needs throughout the process.

• Support researchers in identifying suitable journals for publication, using tools such as Journal Finder and Scopus/SJR.

• Assist in grant application processes by offering support with literature reviews, bibliometrics, and compliance with open science requirements.

• Support students and researchers in scholarly communication, open access, and research impact.

• Facilitate the development of a culture of open research, promoting the benefits of openness and overseeing activity to drive this agenda.

• Develop services to support new and emerging disciplines, ensuring that emerging and changing requirements are understood and reflected in the library services.

• Provide advice and guidance on digital preservation issues, particularly on preservation of research data.

• Develop the Library’s support for implementation of identifiers such as ORCID.

• Represent University in appropriate external forums and groups.

• Undertake any other duties appropriate to the post as required by the Head of Library Services.

• PhD or Postgraduate qualification in library and information science

• Minimum of 3 years’ experience in an academic or research library setting, with a focus on research support or scholarly communications.

• Demonstrated knowledge of open access publishing, copyright, and research impact metrics.

• Experience supporting systematic reviews or advanced literature searching in databases such as PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, and Scopus.

• Familiarity with biomedical or health sciences research environments.

• Experience working with institutional repositories (e.g., DSpace) and current awareness tools (e.g., ORCID, ResearcherID).

• Understanding of research data management practices and policies.

• Knowledge of emerging scholarly communication trends such as preprints, open peer review, and transformative agreements.

• Excellent communication, interpersonal, and presentation skills.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities.

• Ability to work independently and collaboratively within cross-functional teams.

• Commitment to user-centred service and continuous improvement.

• Awareness of ethical issues in scholarly publishing and research integrity.