Redesigning the Researcher-Library Experience

Abstract

Libraries have developed ways of designing their online user experience and student experience. What is our design method for research? Researchers no longer depend on libraries for “search” and the resources purchased and licensed are of diminishing centrality. Providing new functional services, infrastructure, and expertise is essential. Services such as data curation, visualization, and geospatial analytics are now core capabilities. Capacities such as metadata, digitization, and copyright are being deployed in new ways. Library expertise and collaborative spaces are of critical importance. Yet, these often remain hidden by traditional image of libraries, or by organizational models obscuring vital points of intersection for both researchers and library staff. In this session, we will identify essential elements derived from case studies and offer recommendations and checklists for assessing, redesigning, and repositioning the library’s presence in campus research.