Two factors identified as contributing to the lack of communication between researchers and practitioners, terminology and relevance, are the focus of this paper. A questionnaire distributed to senior staff in academic libraries asked participants to assess abstracts from articles in top ranked LIS journals. Results indicated a relatively high level of understanding of the articles, indicating that terminology was not a problem, and two thirds of the articles were rated as relevant to the profession. This result suggests that there is less of a gap in understanding between researchers and professionals than has been perceived. Involvement of practitioners in joint projects may be more feasible than was previously thought. (Contains 3 tables and 32 notes.)