"Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it."-- Steve Jobs, Fortune, Nov. 9, 1998
"Enough research will tend to support your conclusions." - Arthur Bloch
Most posts to the Desulfurization Blog have at least one or two direct references to desulfurization technology. This post does not. But please read it anyway. It offers clues to how your research organization can leverage its potential by incorporating the services of an information professional … such as a corporate or academic librarian.
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Library support for research in a university context
Imogen Garner
University Librarian and Director John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library, Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia
i.garner@curtin.edu.au
Abstract
An increased focus on research within Australian universities, driven by the federal government’s research agenda, has heightened interest in the services and resources provided by academic libraries to enhance research within higher education institutions. While academic libraries have always had as part of their mission support for research within the university, what constitutes this support has changed over time.
This paper looks at library support for research in the university environment over the past 10-15 years. In evaluating the changing functions of this support for research, examples from Australian university library websites are used to identify current activities. Questions are raised as to whether these activities reflect the evolving functions of traditional libraries or whether fundamental new innovative roles are emerging.
Times of change lead to changes in organizational structures and at Curtin University of Technology Library and Information Service (LIS) the Research Services Unit was established in 2005 to drive library support for research within the university.
The purpose of the Research Services Unit is to:
Proactively support the growth and development of research activities at Curtin University by providing high quality resources, supporting research processes, facilitating scholarly communication and promoting research output.
The paper will discuss the main functions of this new unit and how its introduction has strengthened the partnership between the LIS and the academic community. Plans to further this role in support of research are also considered in the context of a higher education landscape where research is becoming a collaborative global activity enabled by the Internet.
Keywords: Research Support; Academic Libraries.
source: http://www.iatul.org/doclibrary/public/Conf_Proceedings/2006/Garnerpaper.pdf
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[Excerpts]
The paper will discuss the main functions of this new unit and how its introduction has strengthened the partnership between the LIS and the academic community. Plans to further this role in support of research are also considered in the context of a higher education landscape where research is becoming a collaborative global activity enabled by the Internet.
...
Scholarly Resources
Traditionally library support for research has been most clearly identified by its collections. Fifteen years ago collections were still dominated by print books and journal titles. In the print only environment the size of the collection and the amount of funding provided in the book vote reflected the status and importance of libraries holding major research collections in Australian universities.
However the shift from print to electronic journals, databases and e-books has witnessed a major shift in the importance of collections as an indicator of support for research. The availability of electronic journal titles and significant backsets from publishers such as ScienceDirect and JSTOR has enabled all academic libraries to provide access to significant collections of scholarly resources outside what was possible in the print only environment.
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Document Delivery
All Australian academic libraries offer a document delivery service as an adjunct to the building of collections and providing access to databases as reflected on the LATN and GO8 websites. The debate of the early 1990’s was ‘access versus ownership’ when the expansion in the number of print journal titles being published plus spiraling price increases put pressure on even the GO 8 academic libraries. Document delivery became an alternative method of acquiring documents especially in specialized areas of research. As electronic methods of delivering documents developed and the waiting times shortened from six weeks to a couple of days demand for the service soared. Some of the surveyed libraries fully fund the acquisition of this material from their collection budgets while others subsidize or charge the full price for this service. It is clearly a service in support of research and in most institutions is only offered to academic staff and postgraduate students.
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Training
The demand for training both for postgraduate research students and academic staff has increased with so many new electronic services and resources available to support research. Training workshops include
• Information literacy for the researcher;
• Bibliographic management software;
• Referencing styles for academic publishing;
• Citation searching;
• Workshops in mastering research resources and services;
A project that is currently under development in the LATN group is the E-Grad School information literacy project. This project is part of a larger Australian Technology Network (ATN) project to develop a virtual e-Grad School. This online information literacy course will assist research students and staff to develop advanced information literacy skills.
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[C]hanges in the research process that are emerging may lead to a major transformation in the way that academic libraries support research enabled by ICT. Alternatively academic libraries may risk becoming irrelevant as partners in the research process. This change is linked to the emergence of new research practices referred to in Australia as eResearch
The term ‘e-Research’ encapsulates research activities that use a spectrum of advanced ICT capabilities and embraces new research methodologies
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E-Research focuses on primary data not published scholarly information and the question is how libraries will support this new form of research.
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Linda O’Brien in her article on E-research comments that: Libraries have traditionally been central to the research
endeavor, managing and preserving scholarly resources, increasingly in digital form, and making these resources accessible to the researcher, often through collaboration and partnerships with other libraries. … [but] no longer is scholarly communication a final discrete publication that is to be managed, made accessible, and preserved.
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In the Australian context the implications of e-research are not yet clear but several significant initiatives are currently emerging that will provide directions for the future.
The Backing Australia’s Ability program is now in its second phase and will continue with a raft of initiatives until 201011. Two initiatives in particular may have an impact on the way that academic libraries in the future support research in their institutions.
The first strategy is an Australian e-Research Strategy and Implementation Framework.
The Framework is yet to be finalized and accepted by Government but progress reports to date indicate that it will be implemented over a five year period using advanced and innovative information and communications technologies to produce high quality research outcomes in a range of activities such as skills development in e-research and data management.[16] Academic libraries in Australia will need to be in a position to respond flexibly and innovatively to these latest directions. Library staff, including university librarians, will require new skills and understandings. There will need to be close collaboration between university libraries, offices of research and development and ICT units within institutions. Consideration must also be given to positioning academic libraries as areas of expertise in information management.
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source: http://www.iatul.org/doclibrary/public/Conf_Proceedings/2006/Garnerpaper.pdf
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