Investigation and analysis of research support services in academic libraries
| Pages | 281-301 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-06-2018-0125 |
| Published date | 01 April 2019 |
| Date | 01 April 2019 |
| Author | Li Si,Yueliang Zeng,Sicheng Guo,Xiaozhe Zhuang |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
Investigation and analysis of
research support services in
academic libraries
Li Si
Center for the Studies of Information Resources, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
and School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
Yueliang Zeng
Department of Library Science, School of Information Management,
Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
Sicheng Guo
School of Information Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China, and
Xiaozhe Zhuang
Library of Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China
Abstract
Purpose –This paper aims at understandingthe current situation of research support services offeredby
academic libraries in world-leading universities and providing useful implications and insights for other
academiclibraries.
Design/methodology/approach –Of the top 100 universities listed in the QS World University Rankings
in 2017, 76 libraries were selected as samples and a website investigation was conducted to explore the research
support services. The statistical method and visualization software was used to generalize the key services, and
the text analysis and case analysis were applied to reveal the corresponding implementation.
Findings –Research support service has become one of the significant services of academic libraries in the
context of e-research and data-intensive research. The research support services can be generally divided into
seven aspects, as follows: research data management (62, 81.58 per cent), open access (64, 84.21 per cent),
scholarly publishing (59, 77.63 per cent), research impact measurement (32, 42.11 per cent), research guides (47,
61.84 per cent), research consultation (59, 77.63 per cent) and research tools recommendation (38, 50.00 per cent).
Originality/value –This paper makes a comprehensive investigation of research support services in
academic libraries of top-rankinguniversities worldwide. The findings will help academic libraries improve
researchsupport services; thus, advancing the workof researchers and promoting scientificdiscovery.
Keywords Academic libraries, Research support, E-research, Data-intensive research
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Research strength is one of the main metrics by which universities are measured, and
universities usually have a keen interest in improving their research output and impact.In
This paper is one of the research outcomes of the project supported by The National Natural Science
Foundation of P.R. China (Project Name: Research on the Formation Mechanism and Service of the
Federation of Institutional Research Data Repository in Big Data Environment, Project No.
71573198).
Analysis of
research
support
services
281
Received26 July 2018
Revised24 November 2018
12February 2019
Accepted13 March 2019
TheElectronic Library
Vol.37 No. 2, 2019
pp. 281-301
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0264-0473
DOI 10.1108/EL-06-2018-0125
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0264-0473.htm
the twenty-first century,the merging of information and communication technologies (ICTs)
with traditional research practices has created a new movement called e-research (Thomas,
2011), defined as research activitiesthat use a spectrum of advanced ICTs and that embrace
new research methodologies emerging from increasing access to advanced networks,
services and tools (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, 2006).
Moreover, with the advent of data-intensive research, the activity of re-contextualizing and
re-interpreting research data leads to new and ground-breaking discoveries across all
disciplines (McRostie, 2016).The transformation of research has brought forth an enormous
impact on researchers’informationneeds and behaviors.
As part of universities, academiclibraries assume significant responsibility of supplying
scholarly resources and services to researchers. In general, research support refers to
anything a library does to support the activity of scholarship and research at its parent
institution (Hoffman, 2016). Confronted with a shifting research paradigm, more and more
academic libraries across the world have taken steps to reform themselves and are shifting
to broader forms of research support. Academic libraries in countries such as the USA (Jia
et al., 2017) and Australia (Huang et al., 2017)are now pursuing research support strategies,
which aim to provide researchers with innovative information services throughout the
research process. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the current development of
research support serviceof academic libraries, in view of its importance and transformative
nature.
This study explores the current situation of research support services of academic
libraries in world-leading universities and provides useful implications and insights for
other academic libraries. Specifically, this research intends to answer the following
questions:
RQ1. What kinds of research support services are currently offered by academic
libraries of world-classuniversities?
RQ2. How are these research supportservices implemented by academic libraries?
RQ3. What strategies can be articulated to transform the existing research support
services in academiclibraries?
Literature review
Types of research support services
In the context of e-researchand data-intensive research, research supportservices offered by
academic librariesencompass numerous activities, some of which have been studied.
As more and more research funding agencies and periodical publishers encourage or
require researchers to submit data management plans (DMPs), research data management
(RDM) has been an inevitable challengefor researchers and research institutions, and thus,
been an area to which academic libraries are contributing(Brown et al.,2015). An increasing
number of academic libraries are currently involved in developing new institutional RDM
policies and services, and see thisas an important part of their future role (Coxand Pinfield,
2014). Priorities such as the provision of RDM advisoryand training services are emerging
(Cox and Pinfield, 2014). According to a worldwidesurvey, the main RDM services include
research data introduction, data management guideline, data curation and storage, data
management training, data management reference and resource recommendation (Si et al.,
2015).
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