Formalized Curiosity: Reflecting on the Librarian Practitioner-Researcher

There’s a well-documented gap between research and practice. A Google search for scholarly articles using the term “research practice gap” yields 2,530 hits as of this writing, while a search using the discovery layer at the University Library, University of Saskatchewan, for the same search termsyields 1,038 hits. There are a large number of articles which explore bridging the research/practice gap. So what will fill that gap in librarianship? Partnerships between LIS scholars and librarians have been suggested,and this can certainly help to mitigate the research/practice gap. Each group has things that the other group needs. Practitioners often have funding barriers, a real or perceived lack of research skills, and uneven access to the research literature. Scholars have less access to certain data that can only be obtained from practice situations, and a partnership with library practitioners can provide greater access to real life locations, users, and situations. As well, a partnership can help ensure that what the scholars are researching is relevant to the practitioners. However, scholar/practitioner partnerships sometimes are not practical, even in our age of social networking. In Canada, forexample, there is a dearth of library schools to cover our vast physical space. Physical proximity can play a role in whether or not a partnership is successful. Timeliness also is a factor. Practitioners sometimes need to “hit the ground running" and get their research done in order to inform practice. The logistics of a partnership can be time-consuming. As well, I am estimating that there are far more library and information professionals than there are university library scholars, so it’s really up to us to fill that gap ourselves in many cases.