Lean Library, a browser extension from SAGE Publishing that delivers library services directly into the patron’s workflow, is pleased to announce its partnership with scite, the discovery and evaluation platform. Together, Lean Library and scite will provide libraries the ability to present article-level citation context to their patrons directly within discovery workflows, helping students and researchers better evaluate the research they read and reference.
The partnership has begun by integrating scite’s Smart Citations API with the Lean Library browser extension. Smart Citations show how a scientific paper has been cited by providing the context of the citation and a classification describing whether it provides supporting or disputing evidence for the cited claim. This includes retraction information. Integrating the Smart Citations API with the Lean Library browser extension enables this information to be embedded in library patrons’ preferred discovery tools, such as Google Scholar, publisher websites and other relevant academic resources.

Figure 1: scite integration
The next phase of the partnership will co-develop advanced analytics for libraries, examining patron reading and citation patterns using scite’s Smart Citations dataset.
Matt Hayes, Managing Director of Lean Library, said: “At Lean Library we’re always trying to think of how we can bring the library into patron workflows, and that’s about much more than collections or services – it’s also about librarian expertise. Our partnership with scite will help librarians bring those essential skills of information literacy and robust evaluation directly into the patron workflow, at the point of need. I’m also excited about what we can achieve with scite in patron reading and citation analytics for libraries, providing the sort of insights that help librarians identify key interventions that improve learning outcomes and research impact – guiding patrons toward the highest quality research.”
Josh Nicholson, co-founder and CEO of scite said, “We’re excited to partner with Lean Library to help researchers better understand research articles in context. Our Smart Citations offer a nice complementary tool and datasource to the amazing services already offered by Lean Library. It’s also great that users don’t need to download yet another browser extension.”
The scite article evaluation context integration is now available to existing Lean Library customers, who can turn this feature on from within their Lean Library Dashboard (it is off by default) and deploy directly to their patrons.
To find out more, contact your Lean Library or scite representative or email us info@leanlibrary.com.