RLUK research shift programme

RLUK is delighted to announce the launch of a new Research Shift Programme (RSP) RSP is a series of three interconnected, interactive online events designed to empower and support librarians, archivists, information professionals, and colleagues across the Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (GLAM) sector to actively engage in research.

Running from April to June 2025, the RSP will foster a collaborative community of practitioners, mentors, archivists, and researchers and explore practitioner research, tackle structural barriers, and provide practical guidance for professionals looking to deepen their engagement in research.  The series is co-created with members of our AHRC-RLUK and TNA (The National Archives) Professional Practice Research schemes as well as our Research Catalyst Cohort programme to ensure it reflects the diverse needs and interests of professionals across libraries, archives, museums, and beyond. The programme is open to both RLUK and non-RLUK member institutions.

Booking for all three sessions is now open, links below.

Building Capacity, Capability and Confidence

RLUK champions the role of academic and research libraries as active participants and leaders in the production of scholarly research and to bring wider recognition to the pivotal contribution libraries make to the research process, as enablers, partners and leaders of research excellence.  The Research Shift Programme support this vision and will help to inclusively develop a growing community of practitioners, mentors and researchers to further build their research capacity, capability and confidence across the sector.

Find out more at libraries X research

Who Should Attend

The RSP is open to librarians, archivists, information professionals, and colleagues across the wider GLAM sector. This includes professionals working in academic and research libraries, public libraries, and special collections, as well as those in archives, museums, and cultural heritage organisations.

Whether you are an early-career researcher looking to get started, a librarian or archivist interested in contributing to scholarly research, or an experienced professional seeking to expand your research engagement, this programme offers valuable insights, connections, and opportunities for professional development.  

Programme Themes and Dates

The Research Shift Programme is structured around three core thematic events, each focusing on a different aspect of research engagement for librarians, archivists, information professionals, and GLAM professionals, with opportunities to meet like-minded colleagues and to share experience and expertise.

1. Defining Practitioner Research

📅 Date: 15 April 2025 🔍 Theme: Exploring the concept and significance of practitioner research within the library, archive, and wider GLAM sectors. This session will define key methodologies, highlight case studies, and examine the evolving role of research within professional practice.

Register for Defining Practitioner Research >>

2. Overcoming Structural Barriers

📅 Date: 13 May 2025 🔍 Theme: Identifying and addressing challenges to overcome structural barriers in research engagement, including institutional policies, funding limitations, and recognition issues. This session will highlight successful institutional strategies to navigate these obstacles and advocate for greater support within libraries, archives, and the wider cultural heritage sector.

Register for Overcoming Structural Barriers >>

3. Engaging in Research

📅 Date: 10 June 2025 🔍 Theme: Providing practical strategies for initiating and sustaining research projects, building collaborations, and effectively disseminating findings. Attendees will gain insight into developing their research profile and making a meaningful impact across libraries, archives, and museums.

Register for Engaging in Research >>

RLUK's Research Shift Programme (RSP)

The Research Shift Programme (RSP) is a new RLUK series of online events designed to empower and support librarians, archivists, information professionals, and colleagues across the Galleries, Libr...

Catalyst Cohort progamme

The third AHRC-RLUK Research Catalyst Cohort programme also opens for applications on the 3rd of April. The RCC will provide a step-by-step overview of the research development process for colleagues who, although interested in developing their research profile, have little or no experience of applying for research funding. The Research Catalyst Cohort programme is open to both RLUK and non-RLUK member institutions and starts in September 2025.

You may have seen Gillian Siddall's post from HLG conference last week, well she also went to CILIP conference 2024, 10th-11th July in Birmingham, to present on the LIRG research project and share her reflections with us. 

Gillian is an Academic Librarian at University of Northampton

Presenting at a conference and getting a speaker’s place for a day is a great way to attend a conference you wouldn’t ordinarily be able to. I’m grateful that by presenting on the LIRG research project I was able to attend the CILIP’s conference: uniting the sector’s leaders. I attended the second day of the conference and listened to inspiring speakers. Starting with the CILIP’s new CEO Louis Coiffait-Gunn, who encouraged us to fight for intellectual freedom and use evidence and civil discourse to lean into tricky debates. The conference was filled with interesting presentations that shared ideas to help promote and build our profession and role.

Janet Peden from Ulster University presented her experience as University Librarian, building and developing the staff and library sites. Her fundamental message was that in the current climate of significant digital acceleration and fluid change you must:

Turn the library inside out and become highly visible – you have to be seen, to be valued!

A lesson for us all: we can’t assume everyone understands the purpose or value of a library, we need to make sure it’s clear for all. Janet explained how the library service had moved from collecting resources to connecting the university community. A key change for her department was the move from service and support to partnership and expertise.

Speaking about becoming ‘match-fit for a senior leadership role’ Regina Everitt, from the University of East London, highlighted the importance of building trust in and with your team. As a leader, you set the culture for the department, so you have to be authentic and specifically engage with the digital landscape. Working with IT, rather than against or in isolation from it. Partnerships move everyone forward. From NHS England, Louise Goswami highlighted the importance of skills development to improve your knowledge and experience. In the current tempestuous times, it’s reassuring to hear from someone with experience that redundancy can be a positive step to help you buy time to think about what you want to do next. The knowledge and skills you develop come with you and those transferable skills are highly valuable: influencing, negotiating, and communicating skills. Louise encouraged us to remember that everyone’s a little bit frightened and you are not alone, work with your network, and your team.

Leading and managing a team is helped by understanding the ‘why’ – if you understand why something happens and you understand the language that resonates with the people you’re trying to influence, you can find your advocates. A key tip from both Regina and Louise was to always over-prepare your information and do your homework so you understand your audience and use the language and evidence that is most appropriate. Don’t blind them with library speak! In response to questions in the room, self-care came up as a key part of leadership. Leading by example (allowing people to say no, to have down-time and be honest) helps your team. If you look after yourself, your team will see it’s ok for them to look after themselves too and know that you’ll do your best to look after them as well.

Considering the entrepreneurial leader Tom Penford and Zak Mensah presented different ways of understanding and building your core ‘business’. From his role in Birmingham Museum’s Trust Zak encouraged the audience to look at the lifetime value of our customers, what can we do to support those true fans who will support us in return. Suggesting we consider how far we can push things without getting fired! Framing changes and developments in terms of the needs of your true fans (or community):

As a …

I need …

So that …

To understand and then justify the changes that need to be made.

Tom Penford explored the Lego story to help us understand why we need to think ‘around’ the box. To look at what our core values are and build on those (rather than trying to create something completely different or simply maintain the status quo). Linking back to Janet’s presentation – we need to be part of the conversation, visible to our community to help them understand the value we bring. Discover and demonstrate why you are key to the community you are in.

The inspirational talks continued after lunch when I went to a talk discussing inclusive collections. A really interesting point was the fact that the majority of libraries are outsourcing key library skills, such as acquisitions and we’re also not training people in them. If we’re to make a difference and make a coherent and relevant collection for our communities, we need to be clear about how and why we are purchasing (or subscribing) to resources. We should avoid being passive consumers and re-invigorate our skills with acquisitions and cataloguing – understanding the data (and the power it holds).

Presenting at a conference can be a nerve-wracking experience. However, Louise and Regina’s point about over-preparing really helps. The more confident you are in what you’re saying, the easier it will be to stand up and feel confident in what you have to share. Most library conferences I have been to have been incredibly friendly and supportive, attendees want to learn, and they want you to succeed. Hopefully if you keep that in mind, it will help you conquer your nerves. In my case, the value I took from the conference presentation was the breadth of ideas and expertise of the audience we were presenting to. It’s reassuring that even though we work in different sectors, we are all keen to see the profession grow and succeed. Sometimes we may only be making incremental steps, but we are moving forward and that is something to celebrate.

We have one remaining session in our lunchtime series for this period.

Narrative Inquiry with Rebecca Scott - Friday 21st June 2024 - 12-1pm

This session, led by Becky Scott, will explore using narrative inquiry as a qualitative research method and discuss how narratives shape our lives. Participants will embrace their creativity and transform a short narrative into poetic form, amplifying authenticity and depth.

Becky is an academic librarian at the University of Hertfordshire and an AHRC-RLUK Professional Practice Fellow using narrative inquiry in her research.

Attendance is free but please register on the events page to receive the link for the session. Please note the session will be recorded.

We are excited to invite you to the upcoming Lunchtime Webinar hosted by the Library and Information Research Group (LIRG).

This webinar, focused on Online Interviews, is part of our CPD events series designed to introduce LIS practitioners to workplace research methods.

Event Details:

• Date: Friday, March 1st, 2024
• Time: 12-1 pm
• Topic: Online Interviews with Sheila Webber
• Cost: Free
• Register here: https://www.cilip.org.uk/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1778120&group=
•  

During this session, Sheila Webber, Senior Lecturer at the Information School, University of Sheffield, will discuss characteristics and guidelines impacting research interviews.

She will delve into considerations for online interview settings, explore various online spaces for interviewing, and touch upon choices related to audio, video, and graphics in the interviewing process.

Ethical aspects of online interviews will also be addressed.

About Sheila Webber: Sheila is a Senior Lecturer with extensive experience teaching research methods on the iSchool's master’s programmes. She also serves as the Head of the Libraries, Information & Society Research Group and is an Honorary Fellow of CILIP.

Upcoming Webinars in the "LIRG's Research Methods: Lunchtime events series":

• Thursday 25th April 2024 - Statistical Analysis
• Friday 21st June 2024 - Narrative Inquiry

Stay tuned for more information about these and future sessions in the autumn.

Each session will be conducted virtually on Zoom, starting at noon.

Attendance is free, and the events will be recorded and circulated to those who have registered for the event. 

For additional information, please feel free to contact Ebony Burke

There is still time to register for Session 4 of our Library and Information Workplace Research events series

Writing for publication - 17th November 2023 13:30-16:30

This session takes the form of an online workshop in which Leo Appleton (University of Sheffield, Information School) will talk about writing for publication.

The session includes practical elements and focuses on how to turn your Library and Information workplace research, evaluation activities and projects into scholarly and academic publications. He will be joined by several Library practitioners who all have recent experience of writing for publication and will share this with the participants in the second part of the workshop.

Guest speakers:

• Marilyn Clarke - Institute of Advanced Legal Studies Brooke Combie - University College London
• Natasha Howard - NELFT NHS Foundation Trust
• Tracey Pratchett - Citizens' Advice Bureau
• Tim Wales - Cranfield University.

Register: https://www.cilip.org.uk/event/LIRG2023-libraryandinformationworkplace  (You can choose this individual session under the Attendee Selections tab)