Rachel Borchardt
Scholarly Communication Librarian
University Library Faculty
Additional Positions at AU
Scholarly Communications Librarian
Degrees
B.A., Oberlin College, Neuroscience and Psychology Double Major. MLIS, University of Pittsburgh, medical specialization.
Favorite Spot on Campus
The Dav
Bio
Rachel Borchardt is the Scholarly Communications Librarian at American University. Her job responsibilities include managing open access and open education resources (OER) initiatives, institutional repository management, and supporting research impact needs on campus. Her professional research focuses on equitable models of research dissemination and evaluation, including diverse models for measuring scholarly and non-scholarly research impact and the use of open access as an equitable publication model. She has written and presented on the topic in many venues, including a 2015 book publication titled Meaningful Metrics: A 21st-Century Librarian's Guide to Bibliometrics, Altmetrics and Research Impact, published by the American Library Association and available from the ALA Store and Amazon.
Rachel previously served as the Science Librarian and Associate Director for Research and Instructional Services until 2022. Prior to arriving at American in March 2009, she worked at Emory University as the Biology and Neuroscience and Behavior Biology Librarian, and also spent 2 years as a research assistant in Carnegie Mellon's Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging prior to entering graduate school, where she helped design and run MRI studies on human subjects.
