Reevaluating the Role of the Research Librarian

Reevaluating the Role of the Research Librarian by Rya Ben-Shir & Alexander Feng

 

Great article about what librarian can do to help their clients.  What I think is crucially important is that this was not published in a library journal, but instead on a pharma/IT site.  Librarians are often guilty (myself certainly included) of telling each other how great we are, but not everyone else.  Articles like this put our value in front of the people we serve. 

Some of the parts I especially liked…

• Quoting a scientist they interview: “When our research librarians were all eliminated, as many departments as could found a way to convert an open position to hang on to at least one of them for their own group. We became the haves and the have nots… I would not work without a research library function again, if I could help it.”  How I wish the organization I worked for had made this epiphany.
• A research librarian will ask the right questions—even the ones no one has thought to ask—and knows which databases and resources will yield the most objective and complete information to advance key projects, and place that information into context.  Other people I’ve featured on the blog have written about how important the reference interview is and we see it again here. 
• Research librarians bring out the best in the skills of others. They encourage the team to freely share information among themselves, and more importantly, test their ideas and hypotheses against the world of scientific and business information.   
• Of course, anyone can surf the Web’s limitless free information. But that takes time, which for most researchers is in short supply. 
• A research librarian is able to select and expertly research the most authoritative, objective information sources. Yeah, we’re badass like that. 
• If your organization is willing to subject all of your investment of time, funding, and hard work to the vagaries of risk and failure, then surfing through oceans of un-vetted information on the Internet is fine. Ouch… but true.