Building an information literate research community

In response to the changing research landscape in Australia, Charles Darwin University Library in the Northern Territory has developed a series of services and resources to meet the special needs of its growing research community. In particular, a range of workshops, specialised and general, face-to-face as well as online have been developed and are supplemented by a research consultation service to support the wide range of researchers based both on and off campus, in the Northern Territory as well as interstate (within Australia) and overseas. The main aim of group and individual support is to help researchers become information literate, so that they are able to work more independently, and in this way are able to achieve an increased level of success in their research endeavours. In rising to meet this challenge, library staff have themselves had to upgrade their own skills and competencies. The impact of the support being provided has been measured through a survey questionnaire followed by focus group discussions. Feedback is also obtained regularly from workshop participants through an evaluation form. In order to meet researchers' needs, Library staff have successfully used both formal and informal methods of professional development on an ongoing basis in order to bridge any gaps that are identified.