IN DEPTH
A skills and engagement approach to library research support
The University of Birmingham Library’s Head of Research Skills Team Judith Hegenbarth explains how a restructure to the team has enabled it to improve the services it off ers by taking a holistic approach to researchers’ needs.
THE Research Skills Team1 in the
Library at the University of Birmingham is a unique2
formation of librarians, a
postgraduate skills offi cer and post- graduate teaching assistants.’ The team’s clear focus is the researchers themselves, and their ‘lived experience’, from the moment of registration on a PhD course, through post-doctoral early career posts, to lecturer and professor level. The team’s mission is to be a seamless interface to the research services off ered by the library, to demystify the increasingly complex scholarly communication system, and to advocate for initiatives such as open research.
By taking a holistic approach to the researcher experience and orienting services accordingly, and by safeguarding staff time to fi nesse an ongoing suite of training opportunities, the library is demonstrat- ing an ongoing commitment to facilitate high-quality research.
Background
In 2017, the Library Academic Engagement (LAE) division was reconfi gured to better support the university strategy, and to strengthen the division’s threefold remit of engagement with academic schools, devel- opment of students’ learning and academic skills and support for research. Although no additional resource was available as part of this restructure, an
44 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
Judith Hegenbarth (
J.Hegenbarth@bham.ac.uk @judeheg) is Head of Research Skills (Library Services) at the University of Birmingham
https://bit.ly/376z4WV
opportunity was taken to more directly align the library-related research-support off ered by former library Subject Advisors with the information-related skills required by researchers from research student level to academic staff who publish on a regular basis.
Under the previous structure of support, where individual Subject Advisors were the key channel of communication between the library and a School, there was awareness that some Schools disproportionately benefi ted from information-related research support. By replacing and enhancing this inconsist- ent service, the new team off ers:
l A ‘menu’ of information skills related indicative content was created, so that schools select from a suite of skills training
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