Tietoasiantuntijan rooli ja osaamisen hyödyntäminen alueellisessa kehittämishankkeessa
Keywords:
information specialists, research services, knowledge practices, developing expertiseAbstract
The role of information professionals is understood to be changing from information mediators to researchers, guides and consults. However, there are few empirical studies on information professionals working in projects. This article reports findings from a study of a regional innovation project with the focus on how the expertise of information professionals was used in the project, and how the role of information specialists was understood by themselves and by the other project participants. Project members wished to receive only a few optimally relevant information sources whereas the information specialists understood that their role was to make a comprehensive search of materials relevant to the project. The project experts had expectations that information specialists would have been active in filtering and synthesizing relevant information from information sources and offering concise reviews, whereas information specialists understood the selection, interpretation and evaluation of sources to fall outside the scope of their expertise. The article discusses why it is important for information professionals to gain more experience from project work, and what are the areas that are critical to pay attention to as information services develop their research and innovation services.
