Research Support in Practice, 24 September 2007

The presentations and discussions of 24 September closely addressed some of the issues that kind of remained in the background during the first week of the Academy. Karin offered practical answers to the question: "...what can librarians do?" to deepen support to research. It was also interesting to learn about the sampling technique that UCT used to enhance their LibQUAL response rate.

During an earlier break away session, the challenges of attracting researchers to the Research Commons physical space were noted. One practical suggestion that came out today included the need to offer sophisticated software support essential to researchers, including use of the MS Office suite. The challenge is to ensure that all research librarians are fully equipped with the software knowledge and skills required to offer this support. The experiences with RefWorks training should be quite informative.