Research and practice revisited

Citation

Bawden, D. (2015), "Research and practice revisited", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 71 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-03-2015-0033

Research and practice revisited

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Documentation, Volume 71, Issue 3

In a previous editorial in Journal of Documentation (Bawden, 2005), I commented on the gap between research and practice in the information sciences, which has been lamented since the 1980s, being described as flawed, adversarial and disfunctional. I argued that the role of academic journals such as JDOC should be an unapologetic promotion of good research and scholarship, in the belief that this is an effective contribution to good practice. At the same time, I suggested ways in which journals such as JDOC could seek ways of making our research reports accessible, and valuable, to practitioners.

In the intervening ten years, what has changed?

In one sense, the situation seems to be worsening. A study of practioner article in library information journals, shows a rather depressing picture (Finlay et al., 2013). This finds that the proportion of articles due to practitioners in falling, as is the extent of research collaboration between academic and practitioners. Furthermore, practitioner articles include fewer references, are cited less, and have a shorter citation half-life, than others; they are, in short, less integrated with the disciplinary knowledge base. Woods and Booth (2013) found a relatively good level of practitioner research and publication, but noted that it was largely in areas divorced from the general research activity of the discipline.

More positively, we might note recent developments including the inclusion of short research reports in practitioner journals, and also the emergence of blogs written by practitioners and incorporating research reports in a more helpful style than is possible via the norms of journal publication. Perhaps this suggests that the way forward may not be to try to force practitioner research into the academic journal straightjacket, but rather to let new publication forms emerge. Providing that this leads to a range of communication channels with some linkages between them, this can only be a good thing; what is certainly not needed is another silo of material, with its authors speaking only to themselves.

In any event, we agree with McMenemy (2010, p. 324) that: “Academics need to understand how important the issues of practitioners are and help to design research that helps practitioners inform their own professional knowledge. Practitioners need to understand how important research is to their own practice, and work closely with academia to build a research culture within their organisations”. This journal will do what it can to make this two-way interaction happen effectively.

References

Bawden, D. (2005), “Research and practice in documentation”, Journal of Documentation, Vol. 61 No. 2, pp. 169-170

Finlay, S.C., Ni, C., Tsou, A. and Sugimoto, C.R. (2013), “Publish or practice? An examination of librarians’ contributions to research”, Portal: Libraries and the Academy, Vol. 13 No. 4, pp. 403-421

McMenemy, D. (2010), “Fostering a research culture in UK library practice: barriers and solutions”, Library Review, Vol. 59 No. 5, pp. 321-324

Woods, H.B. and Booth, A. (2013), “What is the current state of practitioner research? The 2013 LIRG research survey”, Library and Information Research, 2013, Vol. 17 No. 116, pp. 2-22