The major take-away from our new research is that librarians are motivated to conduct research, yet the factors leading to their success are complex and varied.
Kris and I have already conducted two studies (with five years between the first and second) on the attitudes, involvement, and perceived capabilities of librarians doing research, and as the time neared for another study, we partnered with two librarians (Kristin Hoffmann and Selinda Berg) doing similar work to conduct an updated study. We have admired and cited the research of these two over the years and it was a treat to get to work with them so closely on a research endeavor.
This updated study is still focused on academic librarians in the United States but this time uses the survey structure from our partners, adapting and extending it. The focus of the work was to identify the factors that have a positive effect on the research productivity of librarian-researchers. As we found in our previous studies, respondents believe that their master’s degree coursework did not prepare them to conduct research, but despite this they are research productive. The three factors of Individual Attributes, Peers and Community, and Institutional Structures and Supports continue to influence research productivity, with no single factor rising to be the main influence.
The usual limits of what we can learn from a web-based questionnaire that was administered during the COVID-19 pandemic apply. Future work will focus on the individual level, to allow for nuance in response and to better understand the fuller complexities and variation among librarians conducting research.
The manuscript has been accepted for publication in College & Research Libraries. The pre-print, appendices, and data may be accessed via https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/librarian_pubs/141/.
