College and Research Libraries


392 College & Research Libraries 

when it's good, it is not enough.-William 
A. Moffett, Oberlin College Library. 

Lynam, Peter, Slater, Margaret, and 
Walker, Rennie. Research and the Practi-
tioner: Dissemination of Research Results 
within the Library-Information Profession. 
London: Aslib, 1982. 83p. ISBN 0-
85142-163-6. 
This slim volume reports on research 

sponsored by the British Library Research 
and Development Division (BLRDD) to 
discover the: "extent of awareness of on-
going research amongst practitioners; 
their attitudes towards research (and rea-
sons for holding them); assessment of the 
utility and relevance of research to their 
day to day work; the kind of research that 
ideally they would like to see in prog-
ress." It builds on two earlier and related 
BLRDD-supported studies-one on the 
dissemination of research to library educa-
tors and one on the dissemination prac-
tices of researchers. Marketing concepts 
and terminology are used throughout. 

The report describes responses to a 
questionnaire mailed to 1, 950 library-
information workers selected from three 
sampling frames: the membership of 
Aslib ( the Association of Special Libraries 
and Information Bureaux), the member-
ship of the Institute of Information Scien-
tists, and the Library Association (Great 
Britain). Chapter 2 summarizes results 
succinctly in one or two paragraphs de-
voted to each of the remaining chapters of 
the report which are: the potential audi-
ence for research; participation in profes-
sional groups and activities; reading 
habits: use of the professional literature; 
the practitioner as researcher and author; 
how practitioners hear about research; 
awareness and evaluation of research. A 
final chapter called ''Let Them Speak for 
Themselves" provides verbatim com-
ments. 

The potential audience for research was 
segmented in three different ways: by cur-
rent employment (industry, commerce; 
central government; societies, associa-
tions; local government; education), by 
extent of experience (six categories begin-
ning with "under 3 years" and ending 
with "over 20 years"), and by qualifica-
tions (none, Library-information only, 

September 1983 

other (subject) only, dual (library-
information and other). These variables 
were correlated with responses on all 
other topics. Current employer is the one 
which revealed the greatest number of sig-
nificant differences among respondents. 

Many of the results provide an interest-
ing perspective on the field although they 
do not relate directly to the dissemination 
of research. Of those that do so relate, 
none are suprising but a few seem worthy 
of mention. Only 27 percent of the practi-
tioners had been involved in research and 
the involvement usually meant in-house 
studies rather than generalizable ones. 
Only 23 percent felt that they were well in-
formed about research and only 32 per-
cent claimed to be ''fairly'' or ''greatly'' 
interested in it. 

Although talks at meetings might seem 
to be a good way to disseminate research 
findings, learning about research is not 
one of the reasons why respondents at-
tend meetings. In view of reasons why 
they do not attend, the authors suspect 
many would cease to come if research 
were featured. When the various media 
where one might read about research 
were considered (secondary services, 
newsletters, primary journals, research 
reports, theses) the journal article was eas-
ily the most popular. This remained true 
even when informal means of learning 
about research were also considered (i.e., 
various forms of personal contact). Re-
search reports were not heavily used 
partly because they are hard to locate. The 
authors found this a ''perturbing finding'' 
since many researchers believe dissemina-
tion is completed once they have pro-
duced a research report. 

The United States has no agency like the 
BLRDD to exert leadership in matters re-
lated to research. If it did, and a similar 
study were conducted, the results would 
probably be very similar in the U.S. Re-
searchers interested in disseminating 
their results and library educators inter-
ested in helping practitioners to appreci-
ate research should take heed.-Mary ]o 
Lynch, ALA Office for Research. 

Morrow, Carolyn Clark. The Preseroation 
Challenge: A Guide to Conseroing Library 
Materials. White Plains, N.Y.: Knowl-