Practicing qualitative research

Earlier this week I moderated a workshop about qualitative research as part of the event “Research Day” at Loyola Marymount University Library. The goal of “Research Day” was to raise librarians’ awareness and understanding of qualitative research. My workshop was to provide an opportunity for librarians to practice in-depth interview and focus group interview – two prevalent qualitative research methods. I only had 3 hours, so I thought a lot about how to best make use of the time. Finally I decided to follow an organic four-step process as I do in my research methods class – 1) the participants would start by developing a qualitative research question; 2) then based on their research question, they would chose either in-depth interview or focus group interview as the data collection method; 3) they would then develop an interview guide and practice conducting the interview; and 4) finally they would reflect upon their experience and talk about their understanding of qualitative research.

Overall I was able to stick to my agenda – but at the end we weren’t able to spend as much time on reflection as I had planned. Step 3 was monstrously time-consuming. Still, I felt the workshop gave everyone a basic sense of what it’s like to conduct qualitative research. I created four handouts to guide the participants through the four steps, and I’m posting them here. Hopefully it will be beneficial to other people who are also interested in practicing qualitative research.

Sources:

Rubin, H. J., & Rubin, I. S. (2011). Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Guest, G., Namey, E., & Mitchell M. (2013). Collecting qualitative data: A field manual for applied research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Krueger, R., & Casey, M. (2014). Focus groups: a practical guide for applied research (5^th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

2014 Institute for Research Design in Librarianship

In the last two weeks of June, the first IRDL cohort gathered in the beautiful library of the beautiful Loyola Marymount University and went through an intensive professional development program focusing on research design and methodology (see my previous post about this program). As a research methods geek, I was thrilled and honored to be one of the instructors there. I was impressed with the IRDL scholars’ motivation, interest and enthusiasm in conducting quality research and enhancing the rigor of LIS research and publications. Their research topics covered a variety of LIS practices, including the quickly emerging area of data librarianship. During my first two days there, I got to talk with all four members of the cohort whose topics were related to data management, data literacy and data service. Our conversations were illuminating and gave me a lot to think about in terms of preparing out students for this area. Among the twenty-five scholars, four were SJSU SLIS alum – one of them took the Reference and Information Services course with me, and another one was my advisee. It’s great to see them at IRDL and chat with them about their experience at SLIS. I’m so proud of what they have accomplished and what they will be accomplishing after IRDL.

There so many memorable moments throughout the program. The highlight was the scholars’ presentations on the last day, where they talked about their research idea and how it had taken shape during the two weeks. It’s very rewarding to see that they are leaving IRDL with a fairly concrete research plan and ready to dive in and churn out peer-reviewed articles one after another. Hopefully by the end of the three-year IRDL grant, we will be able to compile a list of publications resulting from the scholars’ research projects at IRDL.

In addition to the great discussions and interactions with the IRDL scholars and my co-instructors Greg and Michael, I really appreciated how well LMU library had taken care of us – the classroom was spacious with a great view, the catering service was wonderful, and our host Kris, Marie and Carol were so thoughtful and warm. I can’t thank them enough for making this experience a great memory of summer 2014. I’m already looking forward to 2015!

Oh, before I forget, I tweeted more in the past two weeks than I did in the previous five years, and I think I will keep tweeting at that frequency. Social media, I’m serious about you now.

Research topics from my research methods class in spring 2014

Part of the joy of teaching the Research Methods class is reading the various interesting research topics proposed by my students. I always gather them and put them into a list. Recently I have been sharing them in this blog. Here’s the list from spring 2014:

Do extensive recruitment efforts increase cultural diversity in the workplace for archives & special collections libraries?
What anticipated changes in operational factors such as budget, staff training, required staff volume, ease of assisting patrons, patron usability, processing time for returns and new books, and space usage lead managing librarians to decide on a materials classification and stacks organization scheme?
Do parents have a positive or negative view of graphic novels as tool for literacy for their children?
What are Mexican American immigrant patrons’ use and perception of public library services?
What are the factors that impact OPACs’ perceived user-friendliness and search outcomes from undergraduate students’ perspectives?
What are the information needs and behavior of practicing veterinarians in the Los Angeles area, and are these needs currently being met by available resources?
How does self-disclosure affect reference user satisfaction?
What is the relationship between archival collections available through online digital platforms, such as websites and catalogs, and the researcher and information seekers’ conception of the extent of an archival institutions’ full collection?
What technology tools do students prefer to use within the library to aid them in collaboration with their peers?
Is it beneficial for public libraries to join library consortia in order to share e-media?
What are patrons, specifically teens, looking for in terms of space design?
What is the relative value and impact of research and publication experience as compared to other factors on a selection committee’s decision to hire an entry-level candidate?
What are the definable goals for academic and research institutions like libraries and archives with regard to collecting and exhibiting art objects?
How are students, patrons, faculty and staff using the Online Archive of California and what is their success of using this resource?
Do public library users perceive a significant difference between the usefulness of information they receive from a professional librarian and information they retrieve themselves through common internet tools?
What are the qualities of a research room in a cultural institution desired by users, and how does the presence of a research room affect users’ perception of the cultural institution?
What approaches do libraries and archives use to improve user access to and awareness of audio resources within their collections?
Does open access to digital resources for objects in museum collections lessen the esteem that they receive from the general public?
Do programs implemented in the school library have a positive effect on students’ motivation?
Does library reference promotion and marketing encourage library users to utilize library reference services over quick online search engines such as Google or Yahoo?
How do various age groups respond to web tutorial information delivery methods in terms of perceived helpfulness and information retainment?

One of my students was interested in the qualities of a research room in a cultural institution desired by users, and I thought of her topic when I visited the Museum of Modern Arts in Istanbul. There is a research room/library inside of the museum and it’s interestingly designed. As you can see from the pictures, there were books hanging from the ceiling by a string piercing through the middle of each book. I wonder what this means. Well, this is modern art so it’s open to all kinds of interpretation. I have my own, but it’s too cynical so I’ll just keep it to myself.

Enhancing academic librarian’s research knowledge and skills – A lesson from South Africa

I’m currently working on a project to conduct content analysis of research articles published in the last decade in three popular journals among academic librarians, and the goal of the project is to understand the topics, trends, methods, strengths, and weaknesses of practitioner research (see previous post for more information about this project). Although it’s a lot of work, reading all these articles has been quite rewarding, particularly for my teaching – e.g. I have identified some really good candidates to use as readings for my courses.

One of the articles, “Darch, C. and De Jager, K. 2012. Making a difference in the Research Community: South Africa’s Library Academy Experience and the Researcher-Librarian relationship. Journal of Academic Librarianship. 38(3): 145-152. ”, talked about the organization, implementation and evaluation of a series of ‘Library Academy’ events within a Carnegie Corporation-funded project to improve library service to researchers in six South African universities. To some extent, the “Library Academy” series was similar to the Institute for Research Design in Librarianship (see previous post for my involvement in this project), which seeks to assist librarians to develop the skills necessary to complete a research project of their design, and to construct a personal network of possible collaborators for future research projects.

The Library Academy aimed at “exposing participants to research content and methodologies in a wide range of non-LIS subject domains, and in requiring the production by each individual of an original and publishable research paper”, hoping to improve academic librarians’ research knowledge and enable them to provide better services to researchers, and thus ultimately enhance the researcher–librarian relationship.

Comprehensive assessment measures were used to understand the impact of The Library Academy. I particularly liked one of the self-assessment approaches – a process of real-time feedback was developed, using Post-It notes on a wall during or at the end of sessions, and the notes were then collected and transcribed. Maybe we can borrow this idea in the sessions of the Institute for Research Design in Librarianship, so we can make real-time adjustment to our teaching.

At any rate, this article about The Library Academy series for academic librarians in South Africa was quite informative, and definitely worth reading, especially for those of us who are involved in developing the Institute for Research Design in Librarianship.

A course on library assessment/valuation

The spring semester is just getting started, and yet I’m already thinking about my plans for the summer. I’m not teaching any summer courses, and instead, I plan to use the time to develop a couple of new courses. After getting tenure, I feel like I can finally take my foot off the gas pedal of research for a little bit and contribute more to curricular development. As mentioned in a previous post, one of the courses I’m developing is a methods course on survey research. The other course I have in mind is about library assessment.

Assessment is key to understanding the value of libraries. Professional organizations are already actively engaged in exploring ways to build effective, sustainable, practical assessment. The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has been organizing the biennial Library Assessment Conference since 2006, and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) has created a national portal containing a wide range of resources and discussions about assessing the value of libraries. Personally, I have learned from many librarians that assessment has become one of the top priorities in their organizations. Thus, given the importance of library assessment in library practice, it is important for our students to have a well-rounded mastery of this topic.

Right now I’m looking for a textbook for this potential course on library assessment, and I have my eyes on a former colleague’s work “Library Assessment in Higher Education by Joe Matthews”. I’m also thinking about drawing ideas from librarians on how to best approach such a course – if you are a practitioner who happen to be reading this post and would like to share some of your thoughts/experience on library assessment, please don’t hesitate to drop me a note!

Student research ideas from fall 2013 Research Methods class

I have finally finished all my grading. It’s been a joy reading all the research proposals my students developed in the Research Methods class. Here are their research questions:

What are the evidence gathering activities and types of research used in special libraries for decision-making?
What is the need among librarians, and library workers for assessment tools to identify the underlying values of technology tools and cost of digital participation for patrons?
Is user satisfaction effected by the accuracy of the content provided by the Digital Humanities Project?
Are the Chinese senior patrons who were foreign born and immigrated to the U.S. as an adult or senior, satisfied with the Chinatown branch’s bilingual information services and Chinese seniors’ lifelong learning programs?
Is social media an effective marketing tool for small branch libraries?
What is the impact of makerspaces in libraries on library traffic and the circulation of materials?
How do project resources and participant community affect citizen science activity?
How does the inclusion of tablets in storytime affect children’s library usage?
How do video game programs impact teenagers’ actual use of library services in San Francisco Public Library?
How do individuals newly diagnosed with multiple sclerosis perceive the usefulness of the information resources available to them in choosing a disease-modifying medication?
Does the availability of research guides in a non-academic health science library have a positive relationship with user satisfaction with search results on the library’s website?
To what extent are the branches of the San Diego Public Library collecting racially diverse young adult novels?
What are the elements in library design and services that lead to improved use for library users and non-users?
Does the addition of comic books and graphic novels to a library’s collection lead to increased patron usage of other library materials and library services in public libraries?
What are the specific challenges archivists encounter saving digital audio materials?
How do users’ usage rates of virtual reference services compare with usage rates of traditional reference services at public libraries, and what are the reasons behind the use/non-use of such services?
Are Web 2.0 tools, used in academic libraries’ information literacy instruction, effective in aiding the students to improve their information literacy skills?
How effective and accurate are librarians using the chat reference service at the San Francisco Public Library in providing information to patrons on sexual health questions?
What is the extent of Aboriginal groups involved in digital preservation of indigenous knowledge activities in preparing, adopting, and presenting ‘protocols’, or ‘codes of ethics’?
How effective is the San Francisco Public Library main location’s Teen Center at bringing teens into the library to participate in events and use the libraries resources?
What interactive applications do users prefer in a women’s ministry website?

Quite a variety, aren’t they? I find this topic particularly interesting – “What is the need among librarians, and library workers for assessment tools to identify the underlying values of technology tools and cost of digital participation for patrons”. The student writes in her proposal:

“Emerging among the different types of literacies now vital for navigating through our information environment is a type of literacy that concerns technology and information ethics, where a user of technology, rather than just obtaining skills to use technology, can identify the underlying values that have shaped its design and determine whether becoming a participant in those values would therefore be desirable. This form of literacy assumes that technology does not represent a moral neutral and that, very often in current digital culture, using technology requires an exchange of information for a service or tool. Instead, technology reflects values, whether or not it has been intentionally designed with those values, and there are often costs that must be weighed before participating. The need to address this is growing in importance as we use an increasing amount of technology tools daily with little to no assessment. A lack of assessment leaves very important questions unasked: what values are supported in the use of a technology tool? How is a participant’s use of a technology being monitored and why? What is the participant’s information used for? Who owns this information when the participant that created it does not?”

Technology and information ethics is indeed an increasingly important topic, and I wonder what role our library and information professionals can play in enhancing people’s awareness of this issue. Looking forward to more research about it.

Ideas for the Research Methods course

I’m the course coordinator for LIBR 285 “Research Methods in Library and Information Science” at SJSU SLIS. As mentioned in a previous post, there are a variety of special topics that LIBR 285 covers, giving students a wide array of choices. Recently, I have been reviewing the 285 curriculum, trying to come up with ideas for new topics that students might need. Here’s what we have offered since 2008

General introduction of the frequently used research methods in LIS.
A particular research method, including action research, historic research, ethnography and survey research
Research in a particular research context, including youth service, school library, reference service and information literacy instruction.
A particular research purpose or perspective, including evaluation research, needs assessment, reading research and post-modern perspective..

For future planning of LIBR 285 offerings, I have two ideas. First, it might be helpful to look at the career pathways that are popular among students, and consider offering 285 sections that focus on the methods, contexts and purposes useful for those pathways. For example, as more and more of our students are considering jobs in non-traditional environments (e.g. the information industry), it could be beneficial to offer a 285 section focusing on that (e.g. methods for user experience research).

Another idea is preparing students with the necessary research skills if they are interested in academic librarianship. Research and publishing is a required component in most academic librarians’ job description. It might be helpful to have a 285 section dedicated to research and academic librarianship, talking about the research culture, research process, publishing opportunities, and other related topics for academic librarians. Our partnership with Loyola Marymount University Library’s research institute for academic librarians can be quite useful in developing such a course.

If readers of this blog have good ideas of what should be covered in a research methods course, I’m all ears!

A grant project to help academic librarians improve research skills

I mentioned in the first post of this blog that in March I attended the “Research Day” event organized by Loyola Marymount University (LMU) Library and Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC), the purpose of which was to promote practitioner research and cultivate a research culture among academic librarians. Another important purpose this event served was to be a component in the grant application LMU submitted to IMLS to seek funding to create a learning opportunity and a support system for academic librarians who want to improve their research skills and increase their research output. Recently we learned that the project has received full funding from IMLS. How exciting!

SLIS is a partner in this grant application, and I will be involved as one of the project’s lead instructors. My responsibilities include developing, assessing, and refining Institute curriculum, identifying and addressing sustainability issues, and sharing project findings. The project will be three years long, and each year, LMU Library will host a nine-day Institute for Research Design in Librarianship (IRDL) in the summer, supplemented with pre-institute learning activities and ongoing support for the year following the institute to help participants conduct their research and share their findings. This means I will be going to LMU every summer and talk to librarians about research. I’m so glad to have this opportunity to work with practitioners about the research problems they encounter at work, and explore with them how to conducting research studies to solve the problems. Of course before the first institute, we will have to do a lot of work developing the curriculum. I can’t wait to get started!

Students’ research ideas from LIBR 285 Research Methods in LIS

The spring semester is officially over. There is one thing I always do before diving into the joy of summer – gathering the research ideas my students had in the Research Methods class and putting them into a list. I used to do this in an Excel file, but now, documenting them on this blog seems a better idea. So here we go:

What barriers exist that inhibit parents of elementary school children from utilizing public library materials and services?
What motivates patrons to use tagging features in library catalogs? Do different tagging interfaces make a difference?
What connection, if any, does the age of a school library collection have upon student use of the library, both in terms of visits and circulation? In addition, are there specific genres/subject areas in which currency has a greater impact?
Are public libraries attracting new digital users through mobile library services?
Do academic libraries lend more support to group studying, or to individual studying, or do they support the two types of studying equally?
Do LGBTQ young adults have access to LGBTQ collections and programs in San Francisco Bay Area public libraries?
How does library jargon on reference desk signage affect student recognition of in-person reference services at the CSULB Library?
What are best practices for developing and administering Drupal user permissions and roles for library websites?
What are the challenges users face when browsing and transferring library ebooks into their ereaders?
How does the content and visibility of online Interlibrary Loan signage impact the success of library patrons in using ILL services?
What are key factors in the success of animal-assisted literacy programs offered at public libraries?
How do California public librarians use information gathered from social cataloging sites in their reader’s advisory programs?
How effectively does the Oakland Public Library meet the technology needs of Oakland teens?
What is the level of accuracy in the mapping of interface terminologies from selected fields in electronic health record systems to SNOMED CT?
How do library patrons’ emotions and thought processes affect their choice of mode of reference service, specifically between face-to-face reference service and chat reference service?
What are the nature, size, and accessibility of the University of California and California State campus radio archives?
Does pictogram signage improve patron access to the collection in the elementary school library?
Does allowing food and drink increase the number of people coming to the library?
Do reference librarians yield the same results when given the same research question face-to-face vs. an asynchronous form?
What are attorneys’ perceptions of their law library transitioning to an entirely electronic library?
Do professionally staffed elementary school libraries have an impact on students’ reading achievement?
How does the library staff benefit from a full-time social worker at the SFPL?
What comparisons and contrasts can be drawn between the respective impacts of children’s and teens’ participation in variously structured public library-run summer programs on teen reading and library use habits?
What combination of skills, experience, and academic qualifications are required to get a job as an entry-level special librarian in a hi-tech company?

As always, a wonderful array of research questions seeking to tackle various kinds of important problems in our profession. They each designed a study based on their respective research question, and wrote a research proposal about it. Hopefully some of them will actually carry it out!

(photo from http://www.ksos.kit.edu/img/IDEAS_Design.JPG)

Getting started

Earlier in March, I was invited to give a presentation at the “Research Day” event organized by Loyola Marymount University Library and Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC). The purpose of this event was to promote practitioner research and cultivate a research culture among academic librarians. The morning session focused on research methods – I gave a talk about qualitative research methods, and two other speakers talked about quantitative methods and data analysis techniques. The afternoon session showcased librarian research via both posters and 20-minute presentations. The topics ranged from reference service assessment, information literacy evaluation, user behavior on library Website, to medical/health information service. Representatives from publishers were also present and delivered a panel on the journal publishing process.

It was a very fruitful day for me, and I got to have many engaging conversations with librarians about their research work. I was particularly excited to see their interests in qualitative research. For example, one librarian was planning a study to analyze comments posted to The Chronicle of the Higher Education, and she was interested in using a qualitative research paradigm to guide her analysis. I’m not a qualitative researcher by training, but over the years of teaching “Research Methods in LIS”, I have grown to appreciate the power of qualitative methods in capturing nuanced attitudes and behavior. I’m glad that the “Research Day” event offered me the opportunity to talk about qualitative research methods to a large audience of librarians.

A full day immersed in enthusiastic exchanges of research ideas left me wonder if there’s anything I can do to support librarians’ research efforts. Blog seems to be a good platform to continuously share with librarians and other LIS practitioners information they might find useful in consuming and conducting research. I named the blog “Formalized Curiosity” after this quote “Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose”, by one of my favorite authors, Zora Neale Hurston. I hope this blog will contribute to the enhancement of practitioner research in LIS, as we all know, research-based practice is key to the growth of the profession.