Librarians' Views of Academic Library Support for Scholarly Publishing: An Every-day Perspective

This article reports on a study of academic librarians' views of their work and possibilities regarding support for researchers' publishing. Institutional repositories and Open Access are areas being dealt with in particular. Methods used are highly qualitative; data was gathered at two Swedish university libraries over a six month period through focus group interview sessions and personal logs by informants. Findings indicate that attitudes are often in collision with practicalities in the daily work in libraries. Even though they have a high degree of knowledge and awareness of scholarly publication patterns, librarians often feel insecure in the approach of researchers. There is a felt redirection in the focus of academic librarianship, from pedagogical information seeking tasks towards a more active publication support, a change which also includes a regained prominence for new forms of bibliographical work. Although there are some challenges, proactive attitudes among librarians are felt as being important in developing further support for researchers' publishing.