Grant Funded Project to Study Research-Practice Gap in Librarianship

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Striving to bridge the gap between research and practice, Dr. Lili Luo is conducting an in-depth investigation of how librarians employ the best available evidence to solve practical problems in the field.

Striving to bridge the gap between research and practice, Dr. Lili Luo is conducting an in-depth investigation of how librarians employ the best available evidence to solve practical problems in the field.

Luo, an associate professor at the San José State University School of Information, was awarded a College of Applied Sciences and Arts grant to support her to work with the Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium on a project titled “Exploring Evidence-Based Library and Information Practice via a Collaborative Project.”

“I’m excited to receive the grant and to work on this project because it investigates an important phenomenon in library and information science— Evidence-Based Library and Information Practice, which refers to the practice that promotes the collection, interpretation and integration of valid, important and applicable user-reported, librarian-observed, and research-derived evidence,” she said.

According to Luo, EBLIP allows librarians to apply the best available evidence, moderated by user needs and preference, to improve the quality of professional judgment. She said it is a movement to change the direction of library practice to be more research-based and requires a paradigm shift in the profession. EBLIP signifies the incorporation of research as a means to improve the quality of librarians’ day-to-day decision making.Luo, EBLIP allows librarians to apply the best available evidence, moderated by user needs and preference, to improve the quality of professional judgment. She said it is a movement to change the direction of library practice to be more research-based and requires a paradigm shift in the profession. EBLIP signifies the incorporation of research as a means to improve the quality of librarians’ day-to-day decision making.

“In other words, it is the daily application of research to practice,” Luo explained. “The importance and value of EBLIP is well acknowledged in the literature. Researchers have increasingly called for more endeavors to explore how to gradually bridge the research-practice gap in librarianship.”

The grant award will allow Luo to develop one such endeavor, with her project “seeking to examine librarians’ engagement in EBLIP, promote their awareness of the phenomenon and effectively prepare them for it,” she said.