NASIG 2026

Research metrics shape academic careers, influence funding priorities, and quietly drive inequities across disciplines. Many researchers and subject specialists encounter these systems as neutral or inevitable. In this session, a subject librarian and a scholarly communication librarian examine two intertwined critiques of metric culture. Together, the presenters highlight how deeply metrics structure academic life and discuss ways that scholarly communication librarians can help faculty and subject specialists recognize and resist the ways in which metrics have become the built-in logic of academic institutions with unintended consequences - shaping what research is produced, circulated, and valued.