Briefing Notes

B: Further Analysis of Research Methods

B9: Towards evidence-based library and information work?

I have been thinking about these questions a good deal recently, partly because Re:source (the UK Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries) has asked me to prepare a discussion paper on evidence-based library and information work (not forgetting archives and museums services too). There are a few problems in moving towards, or even envisaging, an evidence-based library and information profession, and together they call into question our whole approach to doing research as well as the methods we choose to carry out the job.

Moving into evidence-based working

The concept of evidence-based (or E-B) working and its application in practice has been pioneered in the health service (first in North American and then Australasia and the UK). The approach is increasingly applied in the UK social care sector and adapted (in one version rebadged less challengingly as evidence-informed practice) in the British education system. The key components common to all these sectors include:

• availability of sufficient evidence of high enough quality to inform a specific practice question
   
• synthesis of the available evidence on a key question to provide an overview of the findings
   
• adequate dissemination of the evidence to enable practitioners to gain access to the evidence in an appropriate form
   
• disciplined reporting of the research processes and the evidence in 'practitioner-friendly' manner, to enable people to gauge the relevance, importance and reliability of the evidence
   
• fostering of a management climate and introduction of structures to encourage E-B working
   
• professional development support for managers to equip them to find and appraise the evidence
   
• active debate about the nature and basis of professional knowledge and practice.
   

E-B and LIS

How does the library and information field internationally shape up to this sort of challenge? In my estimation we have a long way to go!

• IRWI reflects a tradition of national research projects of variable quality, largely conducted by university researchers; but with little sense of 'building a corpus of knowledge'
   
• For many areas of research and types of LIS there is only limited dissemination and uptake beyond the research community and almost no systematic reviewing of the available evidence
   
• However, there is rapidly growing interest amongst managers in assessing the impact of services (going beyond performance indictors of service efficiency)
   
• There is a small but active evidence-based librarianship community operating in the USA and UK in the health libraries domain.
   

Overall, there appears to be a continuing gap between much academic research and practice. Local research and evaluation may provide evidence to inform practice. However, efforts to address issues of educational, social and economic impact of services are often constrained by an absence of baseline information about how well the service is doing now.

If we compare the two lists shown here it is clear that there is more than enough to do under all these headings if we are ever to reach the stage where library and information research is taken seriously by practitioners. Evidence-based LIS work may take a little longer! Before any of this comes about it will be necessary to engage in a serious debate with LIS practitioners about what (if anything) they want from research. It will also be necessary to ask whether LIS research is using the right methods to supply the sorts of evidence that can influence practice and policy in the field.

What can we do?

If the research – practice gap is to be bridged we first need to ask whether we are doing the right kinds of research. Do we need more in depth studies of the problems of providing services in complex social settings? Should a main focus of research be on the comparative effectiveness of different approaches to service delivery, or should the emphasis be on rigorous national and international service outcomes-focussed work using sophisticated quantitative methods such as comparative controlled trials? And is there any place for yet more national surveys of LIS processes and activities – which contribute almost nothing to our understanding of the value and impact of services?

All of this boils down to recognition that the 'natural' interests of the research community in exploring and understanding social processes in depth may have to give way to the outcomes focus demanded by LIS managers and politicians. Turning to the need for debate, efforts to apply E-B approaches in other fields have brought issues about the nature of professional practice and knowledge to the fore:

• E-B approaches tend to assume that professional practice follows a technical-rational model (emphasising rules, laws, routines, prescriptions; efficient systems; technical expertise; fixed standards, knowledge seen as graspable and permanent, etc.)
   
• the role of professional judgement may be undervalued
   
• views of good practice arising from experience and peer discussion also tend to be discounted. This raises a real issue about what constitutes the evidence base
   
• uncertainty, messiness, unpredictability and unique situations are part of the working life of most professionals, calling for "wise judgement under conditions of considerable uncertainty." E-B working makes no allowance for this dimension.
   

What do you think?

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