Providing Support for an Interdisciplinary Research Group with a Multidisciplinary Informationist Team: Is It Effective?

Abstract

Background Three subject librarians and a data librarian, representing three departments and two libraries at a university, were awarded an NLM Informationist Supplement to support an interdisciplinary Research Group with an NIH grant. The Informationist Team developed a model to utilize the skills of multiple librarians to support the increasing number of interdisciplinary and interprofessional research groups at the university. Librarians routinely attended lab meetings and shared notes with each other to monitor researcher needs. Methods The Informationist Team regularly provided support for literature searches, creating search alerts, bibliographic citation management and sharing, and data management to an interdisciplinary Research Group over a two year period. Two new library workshops were also developed after observing researcher needs. Surveys were administered to the Research Group prior to, during, and after a two-year period to assess the effectiveness of an Informationist Team model that employs the skills of multiple librarians. Results Surveys administered to the Research Group showed that the group increased their use of appropriate resources to find scientific and technical information over a two-year period. Additionally, by the final survey, all members of the Research Group had worked with a librarian and all felt it had saved them time. The data librarian also facilitated the creation of a form to collect data for a lab protocol that helped the group avoid significant errors. Conclusions The relationship between the multidisciplinary Informationist Team and the Research Group was mutually beneficial. The Research Group was able to improve its knowledge and efficiency with the Informationist Team’s assistance, and regular librarian attendance at lab meetings enabled librarians to enhance their understanding of basic science research. Having a multidisciplinary team of librarians allowed for sharing the workload and for deeper assistance to the Research Group in specialized areas such as data management