Connecting Faculty Researchers to Librarians via Departmental Associates

Abstract

Librarians have provided reference and research support for faculty to varying degrees for many years, and librarian support is needed more than ever today with the rapidly evolving nature of library resources and online information. Learning about faculty research needs and determining ways to support their research is an ongoing challenge facing librarians. This article describes a library program that uses academic department administrative personnel to connect with faculty researchers and helps clarify the roles that librarians, faculty, and administrative personnel play in the research process.

Needs assessment for improving library support for dentistry researchers

“…Some researchers question librarians’ qualifications and competencies, which may lead them to undervalue or fail to fully take advantage of library support services [11–14]. Improved communication [10, 15, 16] and targeted marketing and outreach efforts [1–3, 5] are vital to creating successful research support services in academic libraries. However, it is equally important for librarians to develop a better understanding of researcher needs and perspectives [1–3].…”

Information Literacy Skills among Library and Information Science Professionals: a forecaster of Research Support Services

“…A review of the literature reveals, internationally, numerous studies are available on IL (Safdar and Idrees, 2020;Mansour, 2017;Anyaoku, 2016) and RSSs (Jager et al, 2016;Keller, 2015;Karasmanis and Murphy, 2014) separately. However, only fewer studies address the correlation between ILSs and research productivity (Li and Hung, 2010;Epstein and Rosasco, 2015), but the respondents of these studies are staff members or academia, not the LISPs. Therefore, no research study is available on the current research topic.…”

“…Now they have to justify their significance in the environment of budget and staff cuts, shifting priorities of institutions and progress in research (Karasmanis and Murphy, 2014). Learning regarding the research requirements of researchers and establishing techniques to assist them in their research work is a current challenge for LISPs (Epstein and Rosasco, 2015). LISPs have been providing reference and research support to faculty at diverse levels for decades.…”

“…LISPs have provided research and reference support to faculty members for decades, and today this support is needed much more than ever. Moreover, knowing and fulfilling the information needs of researchers is a current challenge for LISPs (Epstein and Rosasco, 2015). To support the faculty research LISPs, usually have to gain new skills to effectively fulfill their roles (Brown et al, 2015).…”