This case study describes the development, implementation, and assessment of a series of grants research workshops for graduate students, which were implemented to fill a gap in graduate student support. We assessed the workshops through a series of focus groups, and findings show overall satisfaction with the grants tools and workshop. However, participants noted areas of improvement around outreach and promotion and general communication with graduate students. Additional themes emerged related to graduate student socialization and research behaviors , which suggests that librarians have an important role to serve in these areas. The current environment of research in higher education is characterized by emerging technologies and an exponential rise in information, a focus on interdisciplinary research, expanding faculty workloads, and greater calls for accountability. 1 Regardless of the institutional type, the modern college or university is also increasingly reliant on funding from external constituencies to support faculty research. 2 Within this new research paradigm, the implications for graduate students, as future faculty members and professionals, are extensive. In addition to the traditional expectations for teaching, research, and service, they need to understand the broader expectations for scholarship and develop expertise in the different forms of scholarly work. They must be able to collaborate with colleagues in other disciplines and with individuals and organizations outside the academic environment while at the same time raising funds for their own research. 3 The University of Denver (DU) is a private, coeducational research university with a graduate student population of approximately 6,261, 4 with a total of 11,780 students. 5 The Office of Graduate Studies oversees admissions, theses and dissertation processing, career services, and budgets, with a focus on student academic success. The Graduate Student Governance fosters a sense of community and advocates for graduate students, arranging meetings to discuss issues, workshops on topics of interest, and an annual summit for presenting research to the academic community. Yet, DU has a decentralized structure, which means that individual schools and colleges offer services and support for their own students that are not necessarily available to all graduate students. Because of the institution's decentralized organization, some graduate students are missing research and professional skills that would help them prosper in academia and in their future careers. The librarians, recognizing this inconsistency as a challenge for a large part of our community, identified gaps in the graduate student experience at DU and created instructional programming to provide graduate students with opportunities to develop foundational research skills. In this paper, we describe the development, implementation, and assessment of a series of grants research workshops, a relatively new venture for us because, in the past, we had not considered that librarians h...

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -This paper aims to report on the University of Denver Penrose Library's Research Center, a new reference service model created to respond to the changing needs of students and to strengthen the connection between research and writing. Design/methodology/approach -An increase in reference questions requiring more time, a financial gift to the university which provided an opportunity to propose a new vision of integrating research and writing, and the opening of a new Writing Center in the library prompted the reference librarians to implement a consultation model in fall quarter 2008. A highly visible, dedicated space for one-on-one, in-depth consultations, the Research Center reinforces skills learned in library instruction sessions and effectively promotes reference services. Findings -A successful new Research Center reaches a larger segment of the university community, better serves student research needs, and enhances library instructional services. During the course of the academic year, 856 consultations were provided to students and faculty, attesting to the popularity of the service. Research limitations/implications -More robust assessment data are needed to establish the impact of the Research Center on student learning. Practical implications -The paper outlines a successful method of delivering research services that leverages existing staff resources, increases the visibility of library services, and provides more personalized, in-depth research consultations to the university community. Originality/value -Adapted from the Writing Center consultation model, the Research Center's prominent location and configuration encourage active learning interactions, complement the library instruction program, and actively promote consultations with subject-specialist librarians.

This case study describes the development, implementation, and assessment of a series of grants research workshops for graduate students, which were implemented to fill a gap in graduate student support. We assessed the workshops through a series of focus groups, and findings show overall satisfaction with the grants tools and workshop. However, participants noted areas of improvement around outreach and promotion and general communication with graduate students. Additional themes emerged related to graduate student socialization and research behaviors, which suggests that librarians have an important role to serve in these areas.The current environment of research in higher education is characterized by emerging technologies and an exponential rise in information, a focus on interdisciplinary research, expanding faculty workloads, and greater calls for accountability.1 Regardless of the institutional type, the modern college or university is also increasingly reliant on funding from external constituencies to support faculty research.2 Within this new research paradigm, the implications for graduate students, as future faculty members and professionals, are extensive. In addition to the traditional expectations for teaching, research, and service, they need to understand the broader expectations for scholarship and develop expertise in the different forms of scholarly work. They must be able to collaborate with colleagues in other disciplines and with individuals and organizations outside the academic environment while at the same time raising funds for their own research. The University of Denver (DU) is a private, coeducational research university with a graduate student population of approximately 6,261, 4 with a total of 11,780 students. 5The Office of Graduate Studies oversees admissions, theses and dissertation processing, career services, and budgets, with a focus on student academic success. The Graduate Student Governance fosters a sense of community and advocates for graduate students, arranging meetings to discuss issues, workshops on topics of interest, and an annual summit for presenting research to the academic community. Yet, DU has a decentralized structure, which means that individual schools and colleges offer services and support for their own students that are not necessarily available to all graduate students. Because of the institution's decentralized organization, some graduate students are missing research and professional skills that would help them prosper in academia and in their future careers. The librarians, recognizing this inconsistency as a challenge for a large part of our community, identified gaps in the graduate student experience at DU and created instructional programming to provide graduate students with opportunities to develop foundational research skills.In this paper, we describe the development, implementation, and assessment of a series of grants research workshops, a relatively new venture for us because, in the past, we had not considered that librarians had a rol...

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