How does research affect practice? LIS Professionals asked to complete survey

The LIS Research Coalition’s RiLIES project has launched a final survey. 

Aimed primarily at UK-based Library and Information Science (LIS) practitioners, its purpose to is check our findings to date on the relationship between the output of LIS research projects and its impact on practitioners.

LIS professionals living in another country, and LIS researchers or students are also welcome to participate, as the project is interested in their perspective too

The survey can be accessed by visiting: http://bit.ly/RiLIES2

The survey should take about 15 minutes to complete. Responses are needed by Friday 15 July.

Background information:

The Research in Librarianship – Impact Evaluation Project (RiLIES – pronounced “realise”) is a study supported by the LIS Research Coalition. It explores the extent to which funded librarianship research projects influence library practice in the UK. Of particular interest are the factors that increase or hinder the impact of project outcomes on practice. Currently little is known of the impact of particular research projects on the day to day work carried out by librarians. This makes it difficult to assess an important aspect of research undertaken. Equally, although it is possible to cite reasons why a particular project may have a greater influence than another – such as the means by which it is conceived and implemented, how output is disseminated, what is disseminated, the profile of the research team or the target audience – knowledge of the relative value of these factors is low.

This study is led by Professor Hazel Hall, Director of the Centre for Social Informatics at Edinburgh Napier University and Executive Secretary of the Library and Information Science Research Coalition.

Librarians and library and information science researchers have been invited to contribute to the study: including through a short initial poll (now closed), focus groups and now a final survey to validate some of the project findings.

For regular updates, please follow the project on Twitter at @LIS_RiLIES