What do you do?
There are many staff in professional services across campus working to support doctoral researchers. In this regular item we will be highlighting a staff member and service supporting the doctoral community & telling you a bit more about their role, and how they can help you.
Name: Bethany Logan
Role: Research Support Supervisor
Department/Division: The Library
What do you do?
I work in the Library Research Support team to support the Sussex research community. We provide guidance and support for doctoral researchers and research staff, running various group training workshops and events, looking at requests for new resources, supporting Open Access and managing Sussex Research Online. A central part of my role is to deliver bespoke one-to-one support sessions to researchers.
We also work with the Research Hive Scholars, and together we look after the Sussex Research Hive, the Library's dedicated space for researchers. I support the Scholars throughout their tenure, assisting with their peer-support activities.
What support do you offer to doctoral researchers?
Researchers can book one-to-one support sessions online. These sessions usually last an hour and are tailored to each researcher's specific information needs, this might include; locating subject specific resources, searching databases effectively, organising references or identifying relevant archives.
I am involved in delivering a number of workshops on the Researcher Development Programme organised by the Doctoral School. Workshops explore a number of interesting topics, from keeping up to date with new research to measuring research impact using bibliometric tools. At the end of November I delivered our first ever webinar, which was really exciting and a great way to provide support for distance researchers. I am looking forward to offering more of these sessions.
Working with the Research Hive Scholars is really rewarding, it’s brilliant to be able to help doctoral researchers provide support for their colleagues. They organise seminars and talks, run Shut Up and Write sessions and blog about relevant issues. There’s never a shortage of good ideas!
When researchers would like the Library to subscribe to a new journal or database, I work closely with colleagues and Library representatives to evaluate the resource and gather useful information. This process helps ensure that Library collections serve the needs of doctoral researchers, research staff and students.
How can doctoral researchers get in touch?
Researchers can get in touch by email or telephone.
e: library.researchsupport@sussex.ac.uk
t: 01273 877941
If you’d like to book a one-to-one support session, please fill out the online form.
What’s the most common question you are asked by doctoral researchers?
One of the most interesting parts of my job is that I receive an enormous range of questions from doctoral researchers. Many new researchers want to know about resources that are relevant to their research so a one-to-one support session is perfect for exploring collections, finding materials and discussing techniques.
I also get more specific queries; from helping researchers access up-to-date policy documents to locating the birth certificate of a renaissance scholar or scouring international archive catalogues for a writer’s private correspondence. There is so much fascinating research in progress at Sussex, every day is different.
Are there any useful online resources doctoral researchers need to know about?
The Library’s Support for Research page contains lots of really helpful information for doctoral researchers around Open Access, Research Data Management and the Hive, plus options for booking a one-to-one support session and requesting new books or journals. I would also recommend Sussex Research Online for discovering other research from Sussex and finding out how to deposit your own publications. And, don’t forget to check out the Research Hive Blog.
In terms of Library resources, there is a huge amount of material available and always something new to discover. I would recommend that everyone checks out the Subject Guides as a useful starting point for exploring resources. I’d also highlight COPAC as a really useful tool for searching materials held at other libraries.