Paper , Order, or Assignment Requirements

Research support is big business in universities, and over the last five years or so, research support has increasingly been a strong focus for academic libraries. Traditionally, liaison librarians have provided some support to academics in their research practice, but more recently, research support librarians have taken on the role of providing a cohesive portfolio of products, programs and services, and training other library staff to provide research support.

The state of research funding in Australia impacts on the need for robust research support services. The Australian Research Council (ARC) recently released a new set of priorities for research funding that are geared towards supporting medical and scientific research. This is likely to have an enormous impact on researchers in other domains because linking to the ARC priorities is impacts on the likelihood that your work will be funded. In 2013 (and beyond), there was heated discussion about �wasteful� research, where the value of research in philosophy, the humanities and the social sciences was questioned by politicians and the media. Winning funding is hard work, and there is evidence to suggest it�s getting harder. Government funding is declining. There has been criticism of the way funding is allocated in Australia. It�s really tricky business.

Librarians are uniquely positioned to provide support to academics in all aspects of their research. They can help with development of funding applications. They teach researchers about data management. They run training that teaches researchers how to assess and maximise their research impact (which in turn helps them win more funding). They have the info sleuth skills that every researcher needs and they support researchers by flexing these skills through training programs, publication planning consultations, and literature searching.

Research support is a dynamic and exciting space that is critically important in the current climate of declining funding, lower success rates, and very narrow, science-focused research priorities.

The following article is a great example of linking user needs and service design:

Brewerton, A. (2012). Re-skilling for research: investigating the needs of researchers and how library staff can best support them. New Review of Academic Librarianship, 18(1), 96-110.
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Part1 – you have to answer these fourth questions :

Q1 Should librarians create more partnerships with researchers and contribute actively to research projects? How?

Q2 What sort of activities should librarians be involved in? What is the domain of the librarian? The researcher?

Q3 Can you see any possible negative impacts of an increased focus on research support in academic libraries?

Q4 How important is subject specialisation to effective research support? Are librarians subject experts? Should they be?
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Part 2 – you must choose:

One of your activities must be a program review.
or
One of your activities must be a service review.

– you have to write program review or services review in a separate paragraph .