Who are our researchers - and what do they need?

Jo Webb

Head of Academic Services

Researchers• Subject area• Career stage• Contract and

institution• Solo or team-based• In institution or

remote

What do they need?• Use of library

– as destination or last resort?

– services

• Use of academic resources

• Use of information resources– Information behaviours

• Training and support?

What researchers told meResearch is• Theory-led; Data-led; Scholarship• Grounded in disciplines; multi / inter / trans disciplinary• Investigation; interpretation; gathering evidence; policy

focused• A holistic activity; a set of transferable skills• Collaborative / solo activity• Related to self• Validated by peer group• Made meaningful by an external audience

What the researchers told meResearchers are:• Usually recognised within organization and…• people who find out new things, reflect and take action• at different levels and career stages• working in different disciplines • obliged to share what they find – to put knowledge into the

public domain• ready to be challenged• making connections• passionate• ambitious

Researchers’ learning lives - the 7 ages model

• Different conceptions of research and information needs / IL information behaviours by age and/or career stage

• Interviews with researchers in UK and more widely indicated:– Earlier experiences (and emotions) influenced

present behaviours– Needs and priorities varied at discrete career

stages– Attitudes and values change at each stage

7 ages of research• Masters students• Doctoral students• Contract researchers• Early career researchers • Established academic staff• Senior researchers• Experts

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Early• Apprenticeship - influenced by supervisors / tutors /

mentors• Skills and competences are defined (also funded

and monitored)• Different levels of control• Transition from structured learning to self-

organization• Interaction between personal life / prior experiences• Managing different roles e.g. other jobs, developing

teaching skills• Information consumer, objective is production

Early• I consider myself to be at the start of my research career,

although I have been doing research for about 4 years. [Recent PhD graduate, South Africa]

• I don’t think I was a good researcher for my PhD. You need to have a mentor to show you the ropes and the pitfalls. You can train for some things. The best is to work alongside someone successful and learn from them. [Dean of Research, UK]

• I reckon I spent nearly all my first year reading journal articles. [Computing Sciences Final year PhD, UK]

• I worked to all hours in my carrel in the library on my thesis. I was so immersed, the library felt like a blessed place. [Assistant Professor and recent PhD, US]

Mid• Moving field / moving role / learning a different landscape • Balancing teaching and research• Situating yourself / making a name / establishing

credentials– locally (e.g. in department) and in wider research community

• Need to be adaptable / avoiding isolation • Supervising other researchers• Role in management / administration• Information production and consumption• Shift from systematic to pragmatic information retrieval

– ‘Librarians love to search. Everyone else likes to find’ (Eric Lease Morgan http://infomotions.com/musings/software-development/)

Mid• I hardly ever use databases, probably because I’m not usually

starting from a position of knowing nothing. I tend to start with a few key papers and then follow up their references. [Senior lecturer in Biology, UK]

• When I'm writing papers I focus more attention on the abstract – often that is as far as most people (including me) get with e journals! [Environmental Scientist, UK]

• Each project has involved a very steep learning curve requiring me to involve myself in the associated literature and get up to speed with the topic in hand. [Contract researcher in the social sciences]

RIN studies on search and discovery, access and use of information services (www.rin.ac.uk)

Late / Senior• Significant role in research leadership and

administration

• Leading research teams / research centres / research projects / mainstream management

• Examining theses

• Leading research(er) development

• Plenary conference speaker

• Editorial board of journals etc.

• Refereeing / peer reviewer / specialist assessor

• Disseminating research practice or defining their fields

Late• I have 5 years to retirement but research is becoming more

important in my career. I still have one, even though retirement is looming [South African researcher]

• If I couldn’t find it myself on the Internet, then I’d ask my students first, my RAs, then I’d come to the library. The RAs live and die finding info. [Professor of Industrial Statistics, UK]

• These days all my papers are invited plenaries and similar tertiary reviews. [Retired Professor of Chemistry, UK]

• As a researcher, the difference is that I know how to do research and I am connected into all the networks. [Dean of Research, Humanities, UK]

External drivers• Funding

– distribution of QR monies after RAE 2008

• Research Excellence Framework– Bibliometrics– Increased importance of repositories– End of selective submission of research-active staff

• Roberts and skills development• PRES (Postgraduate Research Experience Survey)• Research Information Network• Institutional competitiveness• Millennials / digital natives…• Concern about the data deluge and e-science / e-research

• While searching, I’m mostly looking at the articles that I do have access to, and quite often not even bothering to read the abstracts of the ones that I haven’t got access to, since it would take me a couple of days to receive that information anyway. If there’s nothing useful in the accessible ones, I’ll turn to the rest. Sad but true… (PhD Chemistry Student, Sweden)

• I simply read more less-relevant material …. Costs and reliance on the internet have diminished the variety of materials available. [TESOL lecturer, Turkey]

• Information overload, so much being published, you need to siphon off the good from the bad. Now you have to be much much more choosy – that is the biggest challenge facing us all. [Professor in Industrial Statistics, UK]

What do they need?• Universal and seamless access to

knowledge and information

• User-centred LIS services / organizations

• High impact / value / cost-effectiveness

DMU Research Support Strategy 2008 -

1. Collections and document supply services

2. Researcher training and support

3. REF, bibliometrics, repository development and scholarly communication

4. Researcher spaces

5. Targeted services

6. Marketing

7. Library staff roles

I hate the way the interfaces are designed and the structures are constructed, which suit the librarians’ mental models of running a library, but do not support browsing search strategies and the users’ mental models. The user is forced to adapt and learn by heart, the logic which is meant as a tool for storing things – in order to retransform it into a logic which is usable for finding things. [Assistant Professor, Pedagogy and ICTs, Denmark]

ReferencesBent, M., P. Gannon-Leary and J. Webb (2007) Information literacy in a researcher’s learning life: the seven ages of research, New review of information networking, 13(2), pp. 81-99.Gannon-Leary, P., M. Bent and J. Webb (2008) The research library of the future, its users and its librarians, Library and Information Research, 32(101), pp. 3-14. Lipsett, A. (2009) Anxious wait. Guardian 20 January, Available from http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jan/20/universities-research-funding-allocationsWebb, J., M. Bent and P. Gannon-Leary (2007) Providing effective library services for research. London: Facet.