“The term ‘research’ is ambiguous. For some it means consulting some oracle–the Internet, the Library, the encyclopedia–finding out what some authority has said on a topic and then reporting on it. Fine, sometimes that’s what research is.”

During my days as a liaison librarian, I routinely came across the problem raised by the fact that, for most faculty, this is definitely not what “research” is. “Research,” they would tell me, is the process of independent inquiry that a student or scholar undertakes to answer a well-defined question. “Consulting the oracle,” they told me, is simply data-gathering, or, at its most complex, a literature review. The literature review is a critical context for research, but it is not “research,” itself. This semantic difference between (many) librarians and (many) faculty could lead to differing expectations in terms of instructional collaboration, as well as differing perceptions of the role of the librarian in supporting the work of students and faculty as researchers.

After a few of these run-ins (and team-teaching an intro research methods course myself), I came to appreciate the need to differentiate in my discussions with faculty and academic administrators between, for example, the ability to critically evaluate a piece (or body) of research, and the ability to design, conduct, and report the results of one’s own research. There is an important librarian role in each (I’d argue), but my ears got pinned back enough on this issue that I learned to respect it.