Comments on: Paper Or Poster Session At ACRL: Making The Choice

By: Eric Schnell

Eric Schnell — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:59:23 +0000

Those working at tenure track institutions need less than 2 seconds to think about this one as well. It’s the paper.

While the culture is changing – slooowwwly – in many (most?) institutions a poster carries less weight during a faculty review than a paper appearing in the proceedings.

I think this is in part because there is still a big focus on the medium over the message. Plus, it’s easier to do a citation analysis on a paper than it is to figure out a metric to uncover the impact of a poster.

By: Margaret Keys

Margaret Keys — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:59:52 +0000

Submit a poster, enjoy your time, and then spend the next year submitting the research as an article to one journal at a time, since that is the ultimate in prestige and credibility. If you can’t turn it into an article. This is just one of the many reasons why posters at science conferences aren’t looked down on–that and the fact that the graphs display really well on posters. If you, too, have quantifiable, graphable research, then remember what the S in your degree stands for and submit a poster presentation with pride. And no, I don’t know if graphable is really a word .

By: Lauren

Lauren — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:47:42 +0000

This is an interesting post! I’ve been a librarian for almost three years now and have presented numerous poster sessions at different conferences, including ARCL when it was in Seattle. In the beginning, I was vaguely aware that poster sessions carried more weight on a resume.

Recently, I’ve actually gone out of my way to put together poster sessions instead of papers. I feel that the poster sessions give me so much more time to talk to my colleagues about projects and it is easier to have a conversation which many people came be a part of, instead of the single-opportunity Q&A a paper sessions. Overall, I just find the poster sessions more enjoyable, but realize that some research is better presented in paper format. You’ve certainly given me something to think about!

By: Barbara

Barbara — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:45:15 +0000

The whole scarcity and status thing is an intriguing algorithm in an era when scarcity is artificially constructed. Another number to plug into the formula: how many people are proposing because they get either more travel support or they get a needed line on a CV or both?

Maybe this is why I like the unconference idea. More like a fleamarket, less like a peculiarly complex derivatives market that drives value up without necessarily producing tangible goods.

I’ve been involved enough in peer review that I respect the screening process. I just wish that the major motivator to conduct research was genuine curiosity.

What would it look like if we measured intellectual productivity differently: “give us your five best ideas tested by some form of peer review” instead of “produce as much published research as possible in the most prestigious journals (as defined by how little of what’s sent to them gets published) .” It would sure be easier on my library’s budget, not to mention the lives of the scholars I work with.