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The aim of this case study is to describe a project created to enhance e‐research support activities within an Australian university. Within the university sector, e‐research support activities are becoming more sophisticated due to increased research activity and funding both nationally and internationally.

The paper case studies a project undertaken within an academic library to increase its capacity to offer e‐research support to the research community. The university's research community and research support staff are key players in this project.

The outcomes of the project have been successfully achieved. However, the project work should continue and ideally become core business in order to keep pace with developments in e‐research. The continual skills development of the university's researchers and research support staff in e‐research is imperative in the university becoming a competitive research institution.

Although a single case study, the work has been contextualised within the national research agenda and benchmarked with other universities conducting similar activities.

The paper describes a project model that can be adapted within an academic library without requiring external or specialist skills. It is also scalable and can be applied at a divisional or broader level.

The paper highlights the current drivers for research investment in Australia and provides a model for how universities can leverage this investment and contribute towards successful e‐research activity.

The aim of this paper is to explore the way in which e‐research is changing the nature between researchers and libraries, and to suggest how librarians can become more engaged with professional research under an e‐research environment.

This paper takes the example of research into ultrasonic motors to investigate what can be done in current library facilities with regard to collecting and sharing data, and what should be provided in future libraries to facilitate the research of ultrasonic motors under an e‐research environment.

Current libraries can facilitate professional research through retrieval of digital resources such as diverse databases, in which researchers can get information on trends, hot topics, and the main problems in order to conduct further investigations. To completely realize e‐research of professional researches, it is suggested that more extended services such as infrastructures of remote laboratories and virtual research environments are needed in future libraries to facilitate the collaboration of different research groups in different places.

The paper provides methods for professional research into specific topics (such as ultrasonic motors in the present case) under the e‐research environment, with a particular focus on collaboration in a universal infrastructure for sharing computing power and data storage, as well as data and research. The result of this study should also be helpful in shaping future libraries.

The paper aims to present a conceptual model for networked academic library services in a research‐intensive university. It also seeks to focus on the potential challenges that the networked library faces in responding to massive needs of the researchers for digital content in different forms and formats.

The author conducted a personal interview (face‐to‐face, and email communication) with 75 research faculties and postgraduate students in the colleges of business, engineering, IT, and sciences at the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU). The approach to design the conceptual model for the research‐oriented library service was based on the feedback and observations of the interviewees on the pattern of query processing, research consultations (e.g. comprehensive, expert, topical search), e‐resources coverage, and relevance of the returns to their queries and information needs.

The proposed conceptual model demonstrates the virtual reference service, processing of research queries, online information search and retrieval, and data delivery to the researchers within a virtual research environment (VRE) in the UAEU. The study argues that the UAEU library should employ new strategies to meet the arising challenges of digital content and ongoing advances in information and communication technology (ICT), as well as considering how to embed itself within a research‐intensive university.

The personal interview does not claim to be all‐inclusive since the research faculties in the humanities and social studies were not reached. The inference of the study is encouraging the directors of the academic and research libraries to consider new models and strategies for providing reliable research‐oriented information services for supporting the emerging paradigm of e‐research activities.

The study derived research‐oriented service implications for the subject librarians to engage effectively with the research‐devoted community either in the physical or in the virtual sphere, i.e. a two‐faceted sphere.

An extensive literature review revealed that there is a lack of scholarly works on research‐oriented library services that are provided by the academic libraries at the UAE‐based universities. The study is the first in the UAE to provide a broad understanding to an academic library in a research‐intensive environment for adjusting its web‐based information services. It presents also a suitable approach to embed librarians in the activities of the new paradigms of e‐learning and e‐science.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a Library 2.0 service model for an African library.

The paper focuses on the academic library at the University of Pretoria (UP), South Africa.

The UP is well on its way to becoming a Library 2/0 library.

This case study may pave the way for other academic libraries to integrate Library 2.0 within their service offering to the benefit of all.

陰陽 (yinyáng in Pinyin) is about interconnectedness rather than opposites. The purpose of this paper is to highlight how collaboration connects and strengthens the efforts across the sector and reinforces how the sum of the parts is greater than any one university alone. This paper shares the experience of conducting a collaborative project with three universities. It illustrates the fine balancing act of collaboration (yin) with competition (yang) amongst three of Australia ' s higher education institutions at a national level, with the aim of contributing to the career development of professionals in the fields of library services and eResearch.

Bond University, University of Western Australia and Griffith University have collaborated to develop a career mapping toolkit which builds on an earlier commissioned project completed by Council of Australian IT Directors (CAUDIT) focusing on enterprise information technology roles. This tri-institutional collaborative project reviews in detail the skills, knowledge and abilities of library and eResearch management roles in the respective organisations.

This project has been hugely rewarding for the initial three project partners who worked and collaborated well together, successfully completing project goals within agreed timeframes. Looking forward, career pathing will become more widespread as managers receive the requisite training, take ownership of these activities and grow to fully realise the value and potential of active career management to team performance. Ultimately, the use of the career pathing toolkit will enhance career satisfaction of the individual which in turn will lift the productivity of the organisational unit.

To ensure the ongoing viability of the career pathing toolkit, it is necessary to measure its relevance and effectiveness: each institution is confident in adopting/modifying the final product for internal use. This demonstrates confidence in the quality of the work produced by the other collaborators; adoption of the product by institutions which were not part of the initial collaboration; and willingness of another institution (not originally involved) to join the collaborative project and make a contribution.

The catalyst for collaboration between the three universities was realised when the authors saw an opportunity to address the important and pressing issue of career and workforce planning as a partnership project. The main objective for collaboration was to achieve a more comprehensive and speedier project outcome.

This paper shares the outcomes of the project which illustrates the fine balancing act of collaboration (yin) with competition (yang) amongst three of Australia ' s higher education institutions at a national level, with the aim of contributing to the career development of professionals in the fields of library and eResearch.

The aim is to develop a toolkit that: catalogues and maps the core professional roles needed in the next two to three years in the respective institutions; and specifies the knowledge and experience required in each core professional area including where there is overlap. In essence, the career map provides a toolkit for identifying the knowledge areas and skills, abilities and competencies required for each core area (organised by career streams) and professional role.

This paper focuses on the motivation of females to start businesses in developed and emerging economies. Although the issues related to the motivation of entrepreneurs have been widely studied, there are a few studies focusing on the differences in women’s entrepreneurial motivation in countries with different levels of market economy development. Furthermore, existing studies on female founders mainly adapt the concepts that have often been developed in male-dominated paradigm. The purpose of this paper is to explore in depth motivations of female entrepreneurs in different contexts and discover the dissimilarities in women’s entrepreneurial motivations in countries with different levels of economic development.

The qualitative research approach is applied in this study to explore the social-driven and profit-driven motives of female entrepreneurs. The authors have employed purposeful sampling to select cases. The authors investigated the motivations of 45 female entrepreneurs in Norway (12), Russia (21) and Ukraine (12). Semi-structured interviews were used to collect primary data. The authors have also triangulated the data collected from interviews with the data available on the internet, company reports and newspaper publications.

The findings indicate that women often pursuit business opportunities to satisfy social needs, rather than focusing on traditional business outcomes such as growth or profit. However, different contexts – the emerging economies context of Russia and Ukraine and the developed one of Norway – seem to influence the motivation to establish new ventures differently. The study found a stronger desire to contribute to a society’s needs among female founders in Norway compared to their counterparts in Russia and Ukraine. This indicates that cultural and social context in developed countries, such as in Norway, probably provides more possibilities for female entrepreneurs for self-realisation elsewhere leaving more room for focusing on societal issues in business in comparison with emerging countries contexts.

A novel conceptual contribution is the exploration of links between the social-driven and profit-driven motives of female entrepreneurs in emerging and developed economises. The study also adds to debates relating to context embeddedness of smaller firms.

This paper aims to assess whether the current eResearch Knowledge Centre’s (eRKC) research support practices align with researchers’ requirements for achieving their research objectives. The study’s objectives were to assess the current eRKC research support services and to determine which are adequate and which are not in supporting the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) researchers.

This study uses interviews as part of the qualitative approach. The researcher chose to use interviews, as some aspects warranted further explanation during the interview. The interviews were scheduled using Zoom’s scheduling assistant. The interviews were semi-structured, guided by a flexible interview procedure and supplemented by follow-up questions, probes and comments. The research life cycle questions guided the interviews. The data obtained were coded and transcribed using MS Excel. The interview data were analysed, using NVivo, according to the themes identified in the research questions and aligned with the theory behind the study. Pre-determined codes were created in line with the six stages of the research life cycle and applied to group the data and extract meaning from each category. Interviewee responses were assigned to groups in line with the stages of the research life cycle.

The current eRKC research support services are aligned with the needs of HSRC researchers and highlight services that could be expanded or promoted more effectively to HSRC researchers. It proposes a new service, data analysis, and suggests that the eRKC could play a more prominent role in research impact, research data management and fostering collaboration with HSRC research divisions.

This study is limited to assessing the eRKC’s support practices at the HSRC in Pretoria, South Africa. A more comprehensive study is needed for HSRC research services, capabilities and capacity.

Assessment of eRKC followed a comprehensive interviewee schedule that followed Raju and Schoombee’s research life cycle model.

Zoom’s scheduling assistant may have generated Zoom fatigue and reduced productivity. Technical issues, losing time, communication gaps and distant time zones may have affected face-to-face interaction.

eRKC research support practices are rare in South Africa and most parts of the world. This study bridges the gap between theory and practice in assessing eRKC research support practices.

The purpose of this paper is to report on “turning a new page” (TNP), a business improvement initiative undertaken by Scholarly Information & Research (SIR). The aim is to embed innovation and integrate e‐research and library services. SIR is part of the Information Services (INS) division at Griffith University, one of the top research universities in Australia. SIR provides library services, publication support and eResearch services to over 43,000 students and staff at five campuses and online.

TNP combines methods from best practices around continuous improvement, change management and business planning to achieve better alignment operationally and to prioritise potential improvements to services. The focus is on services required in three to five years for the “new generation” of users who will need them.

Existing services were unevenly delivered and resources unevenly distributed. A key initial step is restructuring to collocate similar capabilities and redistribute resources, and provides a framework for developing future capacity. The integrated staffing approach nurtures innovation and skills development.

Integrating e‐research services with library services to this extent has not been achieved in an Australian context before. The combination of methods applied and the progress achieved to date illustrates the value of the approach and may be relevant for other research‐intensive universities.

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a study exploring the emerging field of data science from the library and information science (LIS) perspective.

Content analysis of research publications on data science was made of papers published in the Web of Science database to identify the main themes discussed in the publications from the LIS perspective.

A content analysis of 80 publications is presented. The articles belonged to the six broad categories: data science education and training; knowledge and skills of the data professional; the role of libraries and librarians in the data science movement; tools, techniques and applications of data science; data science from the knowledge management perspective; and data science from the perspective of health sciences. The category of tools, techniques and applications of data science was most addressed by the authors, followed by data science from the perspective of health sciences, data science education and training and knowledge and skills of the data professional. However, several publications fell into several categories because these topics were closely related.

Only publication recorded in the Web of Science database and with the term “data science” in the topic area were analyzed. Therefore, several relevant studies are not discussed in this paper that either were related to other keywords such as “e-science”, “e-research”, “data service”, “data curation”, “research data management” or “scientific data management” or were not present in the Web of Science database.

The paper provides the first exploration by content analysis of the field of data science from the perspective of the LIS.

This study aims to investigate the preferences of 96 educational researchers on the use of digital technologies in scientific research.

The study was designed as a quantitative-dominant sequential explanatory mixed-method research.

Despite the spreading use of advanced technologies of big data and data mining, the most preferred digital technologies were found to be data analysis programs, databases and questionnaires. The primary reasons of using digital technology in scientific research were to collect data easily and quickly, to reduce research costs and to reach a higher number of participants.

The use of digital technologies in scientific research is considered a revolutionary action, which creates innovative opportunities. Through digitalized life, probably for the first time in history, the educational researchers have analytical information, which we can benefit from more than the individual's own statements in research involving human factor. However, there are a few studies that investigated the preferences of educational researchers who use digital technologies in their scientific research.