RIMS tool for analyzing research contribution

The changing dimensions of libraries and services have introduced different roles to the librarian. Awareness about teaching-learning process, documentation, record management, publication activity, participation in academic gatherings such as conference and seminar, and association with the academic network, has made librarians to extend their services beyond the library responsibility. Today, librarians are involved in many responsibilities to match the nomenclature to the roles they performed in an organization. And, the librarians have accepted the nomenclatures such as – Knowledge Manager, Record Manager, Head of Information Services, Information Manager, Head – Web Services, etc. – gracefully. Since libraries are the storehouse of publications, any activity pertaining to publication librarian will be the defined member in the committee. Hence, librarians own the responsibility of managing records of the Institute publications and publications by faculty/research community too.

The recent development in institutional ranking by various magazines, private organizations and government bodies has brought more importance to record management activity of research publication and research activity. Further, the publication data requirements by the assessment and accreditation bodies have made it more vital. Since libraries have maintained such records, librarians have become responsible to provide authentic and organized data to these questionnaires and applications. The assessment and accreditation bodies demand the data pertaining h-index of an author, impact factor, h-index for an institution, social media presence analysis, research grants, etc.

To support the systematic archiving of publications, generation of reports, and to call out various analysis, technology has given a helping hand to librarians. ‘Research Information Management Systems’ in short RIMS are the technological solutions for such activity. To put it in simple terms ‘technological solutions which support archiving, organizing, analyzing and reporting of academic publications of an organization is called as Research Information Management System (RIMS)’. 

Happy to contribute a paper on RIMS title 'Research Information Management System (RIMS) -  tool for analyzing institute research contribution' to the felicitation volume initiated on the occasion of superannuation of beloved teacher and alumnus of University of Mysore Dr Khaisar Muneebulla Khan, Professor and Chairman, Department of Library and Information Science, Mangalore University, Mangalore, during March 2019.