Barriers to University Librarians` Research Utilization

The present study surveyed university librarians` perceptions of barriers to research utilization using the Barrier Scales. The results shows that in mean Barriers Scale scores, characteristics of the organization had the highest, and then followed by the communication, the research and the librarian. The most important factor was perceived to be organizational support relating to insufficient time to implement new ideas, inadequate facilities, and lack of authority to make changes and in the communication relating to lack of clarity of research implications for practice, lack to demonstrate research`s relevance to practice, and lack of readability of research. Also, incomprehensible English research reports and statistical analyses were perceived as major barriers. The comparison with those of nursing was discussed. In order to settle the barriers identified, librarians should be educated to have `research literacy` and organazational merit and reward systems were reinforced for research utilization. Also, it needs to explore librarians` specific experiences of barriers in utilizing process in practice. In further research, by integrating both the result of the quantitative and qualitative research, it needs to develop and to assess a standard measurement for librarians` barriers of research utilization in national and international context.