The Role of the Academic Library in the Socialization of Education Research Results: Qualitative Findings in Four Mexican Universities

Abstract

The findings of education research are shared with peers and the general public. Academic libraries require a detailed identification of their current and potential role in supporting their researcher users as creators of new knowledge in order to provide a better service. In this text, we share the qualitative advancements of a study which had the objective of retrieving the elements that define the current and potential role of the library in the context of the meanings and actions linked to result socialization processes for education researchers, who address priority processes for Mexican society. The data comes from semi-structured interviews with four academics belonging to two public and two private universities, diverse in their size and geographic location. The analysis used the Grounded Theory method, and analysis categories were generated for each institution through various technological supports. Although the results are specific to each researcher and university, we can identify some common aspects about the role of the library in the socialization of research results; one example would be reviewing literature through electronic databases. Previous results establish that libraries are a benchmark in the researchers’ trajectory and may have a key role in formation, for creating informational materials and establishing alliances to situate research results on specialized and general platforms.