Role of Librarian in Guiding Research and Executing Sponsored Project

A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library, providing access to information. In addition, librarians provide instruction on information literacy. Librarians’ roles vary from the custodian of resources to providers of diverse nature of activities ranging from collection development, organisation of knowledge, information services, preservation and conservation, and management. Now the role of librarian is not only limited to information gatherers, organisers or disseminators but continues to evolve in support of long-term learning as information generators. This exploratory research study will seek to investigate the role of librarian in guiding research and executing sponsored projects. The purpose of this study is to explore the interest and involvement of librarians in research activities by finding the number of research papers read by them per week, number of research work guided/sponsored projects executed by them. Apart from it, data would be collected regarding various activities like developing online space to share research, setting RSS feed to track new research, facilitation workshop/seminar/brainstorming sessions, etc. carried out by librarians in promoting research. In addition to this information pertaining to topics of research interest of librarians would be gathered and also various motivational factors and impediments in guiding research/executing projects would be studied.

Originality/Value: This study would help in knowing the attitude of librarians towards research activities. It would also help in assessing the factors which could promote the interest of librarians in guiding research work/taking up sponsored projects and also removing impediments that hamper their research work, so that metamorphosis of librarians can occur from knowledge managers to knowledge creators.