Dynamic research support for academic libraries

Over the past decade, academic libraries have increasingly segmented the provision of their services into those for teaching and those for research. A dependable text that informed the management of the research support function in the past decade was Providing Effective Library Services for Research by Webb, Gannon-Leary and Bent (Facet, 2007). This new book is therefore a timely update on ways in which research support has developed in the past few years. As it says on the cover, the book “provides illustrative examples of emerging models of research support and is contributed to by library practitioners from across the world”. The book is well structured, being broken down into three parts:

1. Part I: Training and Infrastructure, describes the role of staff development and library spaces in research support.

2. Part II: Data Services and Data Literacy, illustrates the way research data services in universities help researchers to develop their data-literacy and the importance of doing so.

3. Part III: Research as a Conversation, discusses academic library initiatives that support the dissemination, discovery and critical analysis of research.

Introductions to each of these three parts, two written by Starr Hoffmann, the third by Jackie Carter, cleverly serve to bind the book together. Indeed, I found these introductions to be the most satisfying and inspiring sections. It was refreshing, for instance, to see Hoffman recognising the need for libraries to “do less, but deeper” encouraging librarians to look at the specific needs of their institution, at their library’s strengths and tailor their approach accordingly.

The introductions also complement the content in each chapter, providing an opportunity to touch on some additional research support services which augment the more detailed case studies which form each chapter. Thus in the introduction to Part 3, Hoffman mentions roles librarians can take in supporting open access such as making faculty aware of options to retain copyright, providing funds to support publishing in gold open access and hosting or creating open access journals for their institution. These examples add significantly to the sole chapter on open access that focuses on an institutional response to the strengthening of the Research Council’s UK open access policy.

The nine chapters in the book are broad ranging. Part 1 covers a model for Mexican libraries, researching illustrated books in art history and digital scholarship. Part 2 has chapters on data services and data literacy, training researchers to manage data and supporting Geographical Information Systems (GIS); Part 3 comprises a case study on implementing open access, the development of a MOOC for information literacy and the book concludes with a chapter on enhancing metadata through developing a name authority file using ORCID. While accepting that it is difficult to cram everything on research support into a single book, this volume might have been strengthened yet further with the inclusion of a chapter from an institution in the New World or Asia. Australia in particular has taken some innovative and enterprising approaches to several areas of research support – the collaborative nature of the Australian National Data Service and the leading role of Queensland University of Technology in developing open access being but two. Overall, however, this is a useful, inspiring and wide-ranging text which will be useful for practitioners and others interested in how libraries support research.