A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Executive Summary

This report was commissioned by the National Institute on Postsecondary Education, Libraries, and Lifelong Learning (PLLI) and The National Library of Education (NLE), Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education to serve as the basis for decisions concerning continued U. S. Department of Education support for library research. We have sought to inform that process by describing two earlier efforts in OERI to establish a research agenda and comparing the priorities established at that time to research since accomplished. We have also examined Federal and non-Federal funding trends and compared those with the OERI priorities. Based on this data and its analysis, we have made recommendations for the U. S. Department of Education in regard to library research policy.

In 1982, A Library and Information Science Research Agenda for the 1980s (henceforth, "Cuadra Report") documented a project sponsored by OERI that developed a "research agenda" through a process involving 26 researchers and practitioners, selected to represent the leadership of the field. A later document, Rethinking the Library, was based on yet another project sponsored by OERI in 1986-87 consisting of a series of four meetings at which field-nominated experts identified issues they considered most important to the profession. Research priorities from these two projects were consolidated for this report and used as a basis for comparison with subsequent library research.

Library research projects from 1983 to 1997 were collected and compared to the 1980s priorities that emerged from the two initiatives mentioned above. These included Federally-funded projects, non-Federally funded projects, unfunded published studies, and unfunded unpublished studies. It was found that:

• Some of the 1980s priorities were frequently met by the research studies; others were less frequently met. There were no indications that the priorities, as a group, affected the direction of research.

On the other hand,

• A comparison of "priorities" met by the surveyed library research shows a remarkable coincidence in the percentage of projects groupable under specific priorities between those projects funded by the Federal government and those privately funded, while there are quite different distributions for published research and unpublished (dissertations, conference papers, etc.) research.

In regard to funding patterns, it was found that:

• Total Federal funding for library research since 1983 has been approximately three and a quarter million dollars. In other words, total Federal support for library research has averaged less than $275,000 per year.

• Annual Federal funding for the entire period to all library research projects has been approximately one-quarter of the typical annual funding of OERI national centers of research in other topics.

• Federal funding for library research peaked in 1987. As funding from traditional sources, such as the Department of Education, has declined, so has the amount of research on traditional areas involving physical collections, their use and access.

• Total non-Federal funding for library research since 1983 has been under $6 million ($5,593,797), or approximately $430,000 per year.

• Total funding for library research, Federal and private, has averaged less than three-quarters of a million dollars per year since 1983.

• In recent years, funding for library research from other Federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, and from two large private foundations, has sharply increased in the specific research area of digital or electronic library planning.

The unfocused nature of library research in the period 1983-1997, the decline in research support from traditional sources, the relatively low level of federal support in relation to other research areas advanced through National Research Centers, and recent shifts in research support towards electronic library issues, all suggest the need for a coordinated national agenda for library research. Recommendations include:

• Develop a national library research policy and capacity.

• Develop a Federal -- interdepartmental -- library research policy.

• Develop a National Center for Library Research, modeled after other U.S. Department of Education research centers, to provide national and Federal leadership in library research. The National Center for Library Research should be closely linked to both the National Institute on Postsecondary Education, Libraries, and Lifelong Learning and the National Library of Education, with strong liaison relationships with the National Science Foundation and other Federal funders of library research, especially the Institute for Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the United States National Commission on Libraries and Information Science.

[Title page]

[Background]