Advancing transdisciplinarity through library–academic collaboration

Gabriele Bammer (), Thomas Foley, Nithiwadee Chitravas, Alexander P. Richardson, Krisztina Valter, Ehsan Nabavi, Lynette Johns-Boast, Chris A. Browne, Terhi Nurmikko-Fuller and Judith S. Jones
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Gabriele Bammer: Australian National University
Thomas Foley: Australian National University
Nithiwadee Chitravas: Australian National University
Alexander P. Richardson: Australian National University
Krisztina Valter: Australian National University
Ehsan Nabavi: Australian National University
Lynette Johns-Boast: Australian National University
Chris A. Browne: Australian National University
Terhi Nurmikko-Fuller: Australian National University
Judith S. Jones: Australian National University

Palgrave Communications, 2025, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Libraries are a central part of the academic system, which is increasingly embracing a range of approaches for tackling complex societal and environmental problems, including transdisciplinarity, which is our focus. The systemic, structural and discipline-based challenges that supporting transdisciplinarity poses for academic libraries are outlined, along with how they are compounded by murkiness around what transdisciplinarity is. A case study of producing a world-first library guide to transdisciplinary problem solving is used to highlight how library–academic collaboration can provide a way forward, with lessons for individual libraries in producing their own library-based resources to support transdisciplinarity. The lessons are (1) exploit your context and seize opportunities, (2) find a task and framework that suits your purposes, (3) adapt to, and make the most of, your means, (4) be in it for the long haul. While action in individual libraries is important, embedding transdisciplinarity in the academic system needs much more, both in libraries as a collective, and in the information science field, with these also requiring library–academic collaboration, but on a global scale.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1057/s41599-025-05492-6

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