Introduction

Staff in academic libraries have supported researchers for as long as they have been in existence. The nature of this research varies from undergraduates working on set assignments to senior lecturers producing their latest peer-reviewed journal article. Each type of user requires a different level of support and library staff have adapted their services accordingly. However, in recent years there have been several major changes to the way original research is funded and assessed, resulting in new challenges for researchers and new opportunities for library staff. Academic libraries are increasingly advertising for research support staff but what does this role actually entail? This chapter outlines some of the key changes for libraries and researchers in order to demonstrate how and why librarians can play a key part in supporting their research communities. At the end of this chapter readers will have a more detailed understanding of what is meant by the terms ‘scholarly communication’ and ‘research support’, how the job of the researcher and the library is changing in the 21st century and the various ways in which institutions can offer support to their community.

What's in a name?

Although the terms ‘scholarly communication’ and ‘research support’ are often used interchangeably they actually have different meanings. The American Library Association's Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) defines scholarly communication as ‘the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evaluated for quality, disseminated to the scholarly community, and preserved for future use’ (ACRL, 2003). This definition explains scholarly communication as a process – it is the way in which researchers share the outputs of the work they have done once they have been completed. These outputs are referred to as scholarly because they are produced within the sphere of academia. Researchers often work in an academic setting such as a university to answer a question or investigate a problem through methods such as conducting experiments or analysing historical documents. They use the results of their work to produce an output such as a peer-reviewed journal article, which is typically aimed at an audience of other researchers and academics.