# Raising the Profile of the NCSU Libraries’ Research Support Strategies & Engagement ## Brief Description: This initiative will inform the development of outreach strategies to promote research support and engagement while providing a framework for learning about and responding to needs of researchers at NC State. ## Initiative Description: Relationship to key strategic initiative(s): Library engagement with the research enterprise is a primary strategic initiative that emphasizes collaboration with faculty and students at the intersection of research, interdisciplinary collaboration, emerging technologies, and scholarly communication. We have built strong relationships with campus stakeholders that result in impactful user experiences and library advocates. Our continued success depends not only on delivering on what we promise, but also on making our collections, spaces, technology, services, and expertise easy to access and evident at the point of need. ## Aims: This initiative aims to (1) Develop a solid grounding for building our awareness of researchers’ behaviors, expectations, and workflows as well as provided a unique picture of both unmet and unarticulated needs, (2) Inform the development of outreach strategies that provide an easy starting point for different types of researchers (students, early career, mid career, senior, etc.) to intersect with the Libraries’ research assets; (3) Outline a framework to learn about researcher needs and library strategies to support those needs. ## Problem to Be Addressed: Researchers expect little to no learning curve in discerning how our library can support their workflows and needs. Yet, we repeatedly find that they are unaware of the fullest scope of what we have to offer them in terms of research services, spaces, teaching/instruction, technology interventions (like Scholar’s Backpack), and experts. We need to surface researchers' needs, behaviors, and expectations to inform better outreach strategies and uncover research engagement opportunities that will scale and concomitantly help us transform our model of research support strategies and engagement. Existing library assets are siloed (services, spaces, expertise, collections, technology, events, instruction) making it difficult for researchers to navigate and capitalize on library support. By presenting our researchers with simple, defined paths through our portfolio of services, we can catalyze the integration of the broadest set of library assets into the research workflow and create a feedback loop into the shifting landscape of what researchers need.