How to assess the influence of research - translating user feedback into tools

Abstract

How influential is scholarly communication? This is a question increasingly asked of librarians in the face of higher expectations around the availability and rapid provision of relevant data. These questions have traditionally been addressed by document output counts and the Impact Factors of journals that have been published in; while this is certainly useful to a degree, concern has been expressed about basing decisions on such limited metrics that apply to varying degrees to distinct fields and career stages.