Collaboration of librarians in health research teams

Abstract

Introduction: Librarians have adopted strategies that reflect their professional relevance, incorporating their knowledge into research. Collaboration in health research projects, whether academic or clinical, is a developing objective. Objectives: To identify librarians' perceptions of their competencies regarding collaboration in health research teams (HRTs); to identify researchers' perceptions of librarians' competencies as collaborators in HRTs; to identify the competencies that librarians should possess to collaborate with HRTs; to draft a set of recommendations and/or guidelines for the training of librarians for collaboration with HRTs. Methods: Mixed methodology. The quantitative approach is based on a questionnaire about competency perceptions for a sample of researchers and librarians regarding collaboration with health research teams. The qualitative approach is based on a semi-structured interview about competency perceptions and perspectives on the librarian's contribution, conducted with health librarians and a selective sample of health researchers. Results: The participants' perception in the study points to a set of skills highly valued by researchers and which librarians possess: 1) skills that fall within the so-called core of the profession (selection of information resources, information research, citing and referencing, identification of predatory journals and publishers, etc.); 2) skills that librarians possess but acquired in a professional context (filtering research results, data migration, etc.). The study results allowed for the drafting of recommendations for the renewal of skills to be integrated into the training of health librarians. Conclusions: The existence of a permanent interaction of skills between librarians and researchers was demonstrated, and the result of the collaboration integrates a dialogue based on a balance between areas of knowledge and expertise.