Juliet Eve 

Biography - Juliet Eve is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton, where she is the Course Leader for the MA Information Studies, and teaches research methods.  She has been a member of the LIRG committee since 2001.  Her research interests are in the research-practice relationship and public libraries' role in society.

Abstract - Informing and communicating research – who's responsibility?

Research carried out last year as the ‘Interactions' project sought to examine the knowledge transfer between academic researchers and LIS and archive practitioners, focusing on the ways research is conducted, communicated, accessed and utilised. The research discovered widespread support for research in all its forms, from ‘blue skies' to that specifically focused on developing services. There continues to exist, however, a ‘culture gap' between academics and practitioners in terms of research. Common areas of difference between the two groups are: relevance of research; what ‘counts' as research; appropriate dissemination and communication of research findings. Practitioners complain of research that is not relevant, that academic journals are dry and impenetrable: they want research results to be translated for them. They sometimes fail to see what they do as part of service development as ‘research', and therefore are often reluctant to make the time to share it by writing for professional or research journals. Academics claim they are pressured to publish for RAE purposes (i.e in the top refereed journals), yet the RAE definitions themselves do not support this. This is not new – indeed, it is a depressingly regular finding of similar projects .