Back to the Future – results from a strategic planning exercise

One of the complaints many librarians have is that they don’t have time to do research or read research articles. This is certainly understandable given their busy work schedule.  I once joked with them that we need a robot that could automatically scan the published research and identify the articles relevant and useful to us. Now I think maybe in a small way I can function like such a robot. As an educator and researcher, I read journal articles on a regular basis – why don’t I pick out the interesting ones and share them on this blog?

In Journal of Academic Librarianship (Volume 38, Issue 1), I read an article titled “Futuring, Strategic Planning and Shared Awareness: An Ohio University Libraries’ Case Study”, which sought to create a shared awareness of possible library futures and guide Ohio University’s strategic thinking. Librarians and staff at Ohio University Library were presented with a series of future scenarios, and for each scenario, they were asked two questions: first, to objectively rank the probability of the scenario occurring from “unlikely” to “very likely”; and second, to rank the impact that the scenario will have on the library from “no impact” to “high impact.”

As a result, two possible, interrelated, futures that were ranked “high-impact” and “highly likely” by the librarians and staff. First was the “Increasing Threat of Cyberwar, Cybercrime and Cyberterrorism”, and the second was “Out-of-Business”. It’s interesting to see that cyber security has become a top concern for librarians. A new faculty member in the area of cyber security will be joining us at SLIS SJSU, and I will be sure to talk to her about this article and hear her ideas about data security in libraries.

As for the “out-of-business” scenario, I can’t say I was surprised. A couple of weeks ago, when I had lunch with my librarian friends from King Library, we talked about the transformative nature of the LIS field and how librarians will be impacted. The increasing awareness of this issue sends a signal to us educators that we need to prepare future LIS professionals with the skill sets to function well in the evolving information environment, particularly the non-traditional settings.

These two scenarios, taken together, represent a rather bleak view of the future. It surely gives us a lot to think about. I don’t think anyone will have any solutions soon, but it is important to be proactive, and recognize and understand the threats in the future. If more libraries could engage in such a discussion of the future, we would be one step closer to finding out how to respond when future becomes present.

Books about Research Methods (1)

Some LIS practitioners may not get a chance to take the Research Methods course in their degree program, and to help with this issue, Professor Sharon Weiner from Purdue University Libraries created self-directed online professional development program, “Practice into Research, Research into Practice,” to try.  The program is openly available at no cost.  It consists of a slide orientation; a pre-assessment; a syllabus that details the assignments and activities; and a program assessment.

Sharon’s program is an inspiring idea, and I would like to follow her lead and introduce some books about research methods that I find useful for practitioner researchers. If a librarian doesn’t have formal education or training about research methods (or doesn’t have time for it), reading a book is probably the easiest way to gain the basic knowledge about how to conduct and evaluate research.

The first book I would like to introduce is the textbook I use in my own class “Research Methods in LIS” – The Practice of Social Research, 13th ed., by Earl Babbie. Babbie wrote this book for all social science students, so it’s not specific to the LIS field. But I like how he explains the concepts, terminology and techniques involved in research. In my class, some students love the book because of its clarity and readability, but some others find it difficult to digest the content without the LIS context. I try to compensate for that by giving students additional readings of LIS research articles so that they can see how the research methods discussed in Babbie’s book are applied by LIS researchers.

Babbie’s book starts with an introduction to what social research is, and then explains the research design process (conceptualizing and operationalizing the variables under study), which I appreciate most because it lays a solid foundation to understanding the following chapters of data collection and analysis methods. The focus of the book is entirely on practical techniques that researchers use to carry out their observations and analysis. It touches little on research paradigms and theories, and I guess that’s why the book is called “The practice of social research”. For practitioners who wish to develop a well-rounded view on social research and recognize the elements of valid and reliable research, this book would be a good place to start.

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.