What becomes of your research? Yes we all know that it is used for journal articles, patient care, patient education, department guides, etc. But do you know specifically that you provided research that led to 10 journal articles, 5 departmental guidelines, 42 patient care treatments in one year? Probably not.

You see a non-library friend had mentioned that I should start tracking what actually becomes of my research and hard work. It got me thinking. Librarians track the number of articles they copy, they track the number of ILLs, the number of books that get check out, etc. While those are great examples of hard data, what does it mean to the library administrator? Not much. All those statistics show is that people are indeed using the library, but it doesn't show how that use can benefit the hospital.

So, I am attempting to develop a way to track what happens to my research, not only for my curiosity, but to use whenever I need to justify my library and its resources.

My question:
Do you track this information, if so how?