Introduction

Informal and practice-led research began long before the introduction of formal education programmes in librarianship. It led to the development of essential tools and standards and best practice guidelines in classification, cataloguing and indexing, reference and advisory services, and so on.

Today most of the university departments that offer postgraduate degree programmes in librarianship also offer PhD and in some cases MPhil degrees in librarianship. However, much librarianship research today is practice- rather than theory-led, and many research projects and activities are undertaken not as part of a formal degree, but as part of research and development activities, designed to resolve practical problems facing the library and information profession. Though some research has been funded by government and other agencies including libraries, in general funding for research in librarianship has a history of being in short supply compared with other disciplines engaged in professional education and research.

This chapter provides a broad overview of research themes and research methods and data collection techniques used by researchers in the field of librarianship.

The nature of research in librarianship

Formal research in librarianship is done through academic research programmes at universities leading to MPhil or PhD degrees; such research may be theoretical and/or practical in nature. Formal, scholarly and/or practical research in librarianship also takes place in the form of research projects funded by national and international funding bodies and charities, as well as professional associations and institutions. Projects of this nature are designed to explore specific research issues and questions, or aim to find solutions to some practical problems. In addition to the formal research degrees and research projects, a large amount of practice-led research activity is carried out by library professionals in the course of their day-to-day work, or as a one-off activity. This kind of research project explores various professional issues and practical problems with a view to finding solutions or developing benchmarks, best practices and so on.

In the UK library research has been primarily funded by the British Library Research and Development funding scheme in the past. Current sources of funding include the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, the Scottish Library and Research Council, and so on.