Author Archives: vew908

Evidence for Big Deal Decisions: The Importance of Consultation

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by Kathleen Reed
Assessment and Data Librarian, Vancouver Island University

As the loonie tanks against the USD, my place of work finds itself in the same situation of many libraries – needing to make cuts to make up for the shortfall and/or beg admin for more money. Inevitably, this means talking about Big Deals, “an online aggregation of journals that publishers offer as a one-price, one size fits all package” (Frazier, 2001). Are they worth the cost? And if they’re worth it on a cost-per-title basis, are they still worth it when you factor in how much of our budget gets eaten up by them? Are they worth it when this is an unsustainable business model controlled by a handful of major publishers? These questions have been on the forefront of my mind as I run the numbers on Big Deal packages.

If you’re looking for a good introductory article to assessing Big Deals, I recommend “Deal or No Deal? Evaluating Big Deals and Their Journals” by Blecic et al. (or you can read the EBLIP Evidence Summary of the article). However, like much of the literature on the subject of evaluating Big Deals, it’s written from a quantitative perspective, and places great emphasis on cost-per-use data. Relying so heavily on one metric has always made me uncomfortable. How fortuitous, then, that a recent trip to the 2015 Canadian Library Assessment Workshop (CLAW) included a very interesting presentation on Big Deal – “Unbundling the Big Deal” by Dr. Vincent Larivière and Stéphanie Gagnon at the Université de Montréal, and Arnald Desrochers at Université du Québec à Montréal. Both institutions had recently undertaken large-scale analyses of their periodicals collections, led by Dr. Larivière.

In addition to quantitative analysis of COUNTER JR1 (Number of Successful Full-Text Article Requests) data and citations, there was a survey sent to faculty, post-docs, and grad students. This survey asked for a list of the 10 most important journal titles for the respondent’s research and teaching, and 5 most important to the field of study. At U. de M., 2,213 people responded to the survey, and what they said was the stunning part of this presentation: 50% of the journal titles listed by respondents as critical to their research and teaching, and their disciplines, didn’t show up as essential titles in the COUNTER reports and citation analyses. If librarians had simply relied on quantitative data to break up a Big Deal, they would have missed out on a significant number of titles the faculty, post-docs, and grad students deemed essential!

While there’s lots to unpack on the subject of why such a high number of journals are deemed essential but aren’t showing up above the “cut” threshold line in JR1 (i.e. they’re not being heavily used), this one finding should give librarians pause. A good deal of the research that’s been done on describing ways to best make evidence-based choices related to Big Deals off-handedly mention that faculty should be consulted, but Dr. Larivière’s research has me convinced that this consultation needs to be rigourous and not an after-thought.

The presentation also had me once again appreciating the value qualitative research brings to library assessment. The literature on Big Deals is mainly based on quantitative analysis of usage reports, and Dr. Larivière’s research makes it clear that librarians cannot rely solely on this type of data (especially simplistic cost-per-article data) for a thorough analysis of Big Deals. If we do, we risk misunderstanding the needs of faculty, post-docs, and grad students.

This article gives the views of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of the Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice or the University Library, University of Saskatchewan.

How Evidence Informed Practice Changed My Life… Or at least how I think about Twitter

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by Christine Neilson
Information Specialist, St. Michael’s Hospital
Toronto, Ontario

And now for something completely different. Well, not COMPLETELY different. I was inspired by the C-EBLIP Fall Symposium – all those library professionals talking about their research, what inspires them, the highs, the lows – and decided that even though I couldn’t attend in person, I have the perfect opportunity to share my thoughts with everyone right here. I give you, How Evidence Informed Practice changed my life… Or at least how I think about Twitter. In cartoon format.

Hopefully I’ll see you all in person at a future symposium!

This following video gives the views of the author and not necessarily the views of St. Michael’s Hospital, the Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, or the University Library, University of Saskatchewan.


Audio software: Audacity 2.1.1
Presentation software: Powtoon [http://www.powtoon.com/]

Digging Deeper: Decoding the Research Process

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by Margy MacMillan
Mount Royal University Library

Archaeological Dig
Ben Salter, CC-BY https://flic.kr/p/56obwm

Recently colleagues Brian Jackson and Madeleine Vanderwerff proposed a great article on Decoding the Disciplines as the basis for Mount Royal University (MRU) Library’s Instruction Roundtable discussion. ‘Decoding’ is an extension of the threshold concepts discussions in higher education, aimed at making tacit disciplinary knowledge and problem-solving processes more explicit and more teachable. The process might be described as an archaeological excavation of one’s automatic disciplinary ‘moves’, led by a questioner with the relentlessness of a two-year old. Question follows question to dig through layers of assumptions, bringing the almost subconscious decisions we make as part of everyday work into the light.

The approach seems promising for exploring library processes to make them clearer to students (how DO you know what terms to search with?) and/or new librarians (how DO you decide which materials to acquire? which committees to volunteer for? how severely to weed your filing cabinet?).

The same technique can be turned to digging into research processes. ‘Decoding’’ sessions are most commonly and much more productively led by someone outside the subject’s discipline with some experience in the technique. However no one who fit that bill was handy over the holidays, so I enlisted an internal cranial archaeologist:

How do you decide what to research?
I see something interesting going on.
Do you mean interesting to you or interesting to other people?
Both I hope. But it has to start as something I’m interested in.
What do you mean by interesting? Can you be more specific?
Sometimes it relates to something I’ve been thinking or reading about for a while, often it’s something counter to expectations. Sometimes it’s an idea to transfer something from one context to another.
What do you mean by ‘counter to expectations’?
If I observe students doing something that’s contrary to what the literature reports, or if the results in an article surprise me, or are different from what I’ve observed – or if something I expect to go well bombs completely, or something small I change in a class turns out to have big results…

At this point the conversation went in multiple, intranscribable directions, from how I know something contradicts the literature to how I know an activity has bombed or succeeded and almost every thought in between.

One of the insights that arose from doing just this brief exercise is how many of these ‘moves’ might be mysterious or difficult for first-year students when we ask them to “do some research”. How would they know what was ‘interesting’ and would they consider ‘interesting’ to themselves or their instructors? How could they build on, transfer or contradict ideas from the literature when they are just beginning to read it?

I encourage you as part of the New Year’s new beginnings to sift through automatic actions, dust off disciplinary assumptions, and get down to the foundational strata of your own processes.

The following questions all good starting points for solo pondering, but there may also be opportunities for deeper decoding with others on your campus. I’m hoping to join an MRU group this year.

How do YOU decide what to research?
How do you decide what questions to ask?
How do you decide what methods to use?
How do you decide what data to use?
How do you decide when to stop expanding the literature review to include one more small-but-extraordinarily-significant subconcept (if you know, please tell me)?
How do you choose what journal or conference to disseminate results in?
How do you decide which of the reviewers’ contradictory comments to address?

References
Middendorf, J., & Pace, D. (2004). Decoding the disciplines: A model for helping students learn disciplinary ways of thinking. New directions for teaching and learning, 2004(98), 1-12. (Available from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.499.4107&rep=rep1&type=pdf). This is an excellent entry point to the concept, but there’s quite a bit out there in the literature, spanning many disciplines.

Salter, B. (2008). Archaeological dig. Retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/56obwm CC-BY.

This article gives the views of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of the Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice or the University Library, University of Saskatchewan.

Peer Reviewing as a Foundation of Research Culture (Or, how not to be that peer reviewer)

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by Heidi LM Jacobs
Leddy Library, University of Windsor

When you talk to published scholars, everyone has a horror story to share about a bad peer reviewer. Stories can range from the amusing to the incredulous. Over the years, I’ve had some excellent peer reviewers: these are readers who take the time to read my work carefully, see what I’m trying to do, and then find ways to make my article better. My work is always better because of those reviewers and I am grateful for them. But I’ve also had reviewers who lean more toward hurtful or harmful rather than helpful. Here are some of the comments I’ve personally received in the past few years that would fall into that “less than helpful” category:
• “Maybe you could talk to a faculty member on your campus who could teach you how to do research.”
• “Writing down your own thoughts about teaching is not research. You can’t just make statements about what you think. You need to use surveys and data to make claims.”
• Entire review: “Uninteresting. Unpublishable. Reject.”
• “I know very little about this area and don’t work in the area writer is talking about. However, if the writer explored [an entirely different topic] it would be a much more interesting article.”
I should note that all of the responses above are from peer reviews of articles that went on to be published and well-received elsewhere; one even made a “best instruction article of the year” list. As someone who has been sending papers out for over twenty years, I’m able to shrug those awful reviews off, send my work out again, and move on. Increasingly, however, what bothers me most about getting these reviews is imagining what it would be like to be a brand new scholar sending her or his work out to reviewers and receiving feedback like the above. It takes courage and trust to send our work out and when we receive harmful or hurtful feedback, the will and courage to send it out again diminishes considerably.

Our goal as reviewers should be—above all—to be helpful: helpful to the writer by giving him or her concrete strategies to make their work better and helpful to the profession by encouraging, nurturing, and mentoring our peers to publish top-notch work.

By being “helpful,” I want to underscore that I do not mean that reviewers can only say positive things and avoid anything that points out limitations of the work. Not pointing out, for example, that the literature review needs work or that a paper lacks focus might seem “nicer” but is not helpful either to the writer if she or he wants to continue to publish certain kinds of articles or to the profession in whose best interests it is for us to produce strong, rigorous, well-crafted scholarship. That said, we need to be cognizant of the ways in which we give feedback and the impact of that feedback.

In recent months, I’ve talked to colleagues about what makes a good peer review. Here are a few things we have come up with:
• Respond to the article that the writer submitted and respond to the piece in front of you. Do not try to get authors to rewrite their article into what you would have written, explore a different topic, or use a different methodology.
• Remember you are responding to a person who was as nervous, anxious, and vulnerable as you were when you sent out your first article. Don’t hide behind anonymity and blind reviews. Never say anything in a blind review that you wouldn’t say if your name were known or you were talking to this author in person.
• Peer reviewing is not only about evaluating, it is also about mentoring, nurturing and building a community of strong scholars.
• Think about the peer review process as a teachable moment. Give writers concrete, specific feedback they can use to make their articles better. If the article lacks focus, say something like, “Your article could be better focused around a central argument. On page four, you write _____. This strikes me as a solid summary of your piece, perhaps you could organize the article around this central idea.” No one ever wants to be told they need to do more work but giving someone concrete suggestions on how to make improvements makes revisions seem much more do-able.
• Understand that, increasingly, library research uses diverse methods and approaches. It is true that quantitative and qualitative research methods have traditionally been the dominant mode of scholarship in our field but there is a place in our scholarly literature for all kinds of methods. Don’t reject a piece simply because of its theoretical or methodological approach. Our profession will be stronger if we embrace the diversity of methods and approaches.
• Use criteria that are both appropriate to the journal and to the method the author employs. If the author submitted a quantitative paper, by all means, examine their statistical methods and their findings. If the author submitted a theoretical piece, consider their ideas fully and the logic of their argument.
• A peer reviewer is not a copy editor. If you notice the article is full of awkward sentences and typos, it is not your job to go through and fully edit and proofread the piece. Rather, you should note to the author and to the journal editor that there are a significant number of typos and/or awkward sentences and that these must be addressed.
• Have and maintain high standards but find ways to help authors reach those high standards.
• Finally: generosity is key. Always find something good to say about a piece. Be generous with your expertise and your understanding of what makes an article great. Help others achieve excellence.

As librarians become more active in scholarship, more and more of us will be taking on roles as peer reviewers. In this development, we have an opportunity to build a strong, supportive network of reviewers who can help us build a stronger body of published scholarship and a strong research culture.

This article gives the views of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of the Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice or the University Library, University of Saskatchewan.

Happy Holidays from C-EBLIP!

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by Virginia Wilson
Director, Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice

The Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (C-EBLIP) at the University Library, University of Saskatchewan would like to take this opportunity to wish you a very happy holiday season and all the best in 2016. Brain-Work will continue to feature stimulating blog posts from C-EBLIP members and adjunct members in the New Year.

Looking back on 2015, we were again pleased at the national response to the second C-EBLIP Fall Symposium: Librarians as Researchers, held on October 14, 2015. Librarians from across Canada gathered in Saskatoon to explore what it means to be librarians who are also researchers and to share research projects and experiences in a collaborative and collegial one-day event. This year, we were extremely pleased to have our Researcher in Residence, Selinda Berg from the University of Windsor, facilitate a pre-symposium workshop on the topic of turning an idea into a researchable question. Other activities in 2015 originating from C-EBLIP were the writing circle where U of S librarians meet for accountability and protected writing time and the C-EBLIP journal club, now into its second year.

2015 also saw the hiring of a full time Research Facilitator (RF). Previously, we had been sharing an RF with the College of Education, but the results of having such support (manifesting in successful grant applications, including a SSHRC!) led the University Library to commit resources to hire a full time RF. In addition to the grant and funding support for our librarian faculty members, the RF will provide assistance for sabbatical and ethics applications, coordinate the Research Mentorship Team program (new this year to C-EBLIP), and provide effective advice and assistance to librarians in many areas of the research enterprise including but not limited to: articulating and developing a program of scholarship; research project design; managing research projects; developing C.V.s; publishing and disseminating research. Carolyn Pytlyk was hired effective July 1, 2015 as the full time University Library Research Facilitator.

2016 will bring new challenges and new opportunities. The potential of a new year is always exciting. I hope to connect with many more librarians in the year ahead as C-EBLIP continues its mission of supporting librarians as researchers and promoting evidence based library and information practice. Happy New Year!

This article gives the views of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of the Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice or the University Library, University of Saskatchewan.

Publish or practice, never that simple: C-EBLIP Journal Club, November 17, 2015

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by Selinda Berg
Schulich School of Medicine – Windsor Program
Leddy Library, University of Windsor
University Library Researcher in Residence, University of Saskatchewan

As the Researcher-in-Residence, I was very eager to convene the November gathering of the University of Saskatchewan Library’s C-EBLIP Journal Club. I think that this initiative by the Centre (C-EBLIP) is incredibly valuable to librarians: It expands our understanding of the research landscape; increases are understanding our colleague’s research interests; and diversifies our perspectives and deepens our knowledge about research.

The article we discussed in November was:
Finlay, C. F., Ni, C. Tsou, A., Sugimoto, C. R. (2013). Publish or practice?: Examination of librarians’ contributions to research. portal: Libraries and the Academy, 134), 403-421.

In this article, the researchers share the results of their investigation into the authorship of LIS literature with an emphasis on understanding the contributions and attributes of practitioner scholarship. The article intersects well with my own research interests, as well as aligns with many of the ongoing conversations about the research outputs and the research productivity by academic librarians. The conversation was lively, informative, and thoughtful.

The article was well-received by those at journal club with members highlighting the article’s clear methods and style of writing. The discussion was diverse and lead us to many different conversation, but three themes did emerge.

Other possible interpretations and explanations:
The authors found that there was a decrease in the proportion of article published by practitioners between 2006 and 2011. The authors made a couple of suggestions as to why this may have occurred, including the increase in non-traditional publications and the decrease in expectations for research. In addition to these explanations, we discussed other possibilities including a movement away from LIS journals as librarians’ research interests become more diverse; a decrease in tenure-track/tenured librarian positions (resulting in more contract positions without research opportunities and perhaps more practice heavy positions); and/or a change in the nature of articles with a movement away from a focus on quantity of articles to a focus on quality research.

Application of method and findings to the development of institutional standards and a disciplinary research culture:
The discussion led to interesting conversation about how contributions to scholarship are measured, both in relation to our disciplinary research culture as well as institutional standards. As scholarly communications evolve, is the counting of articles in respected journals the only (or best) was to evaluate research contributions? This discussion led us to further consideration about how disciplinary differences in research culture make a difference in the interpretation of contributions, and in turn, the relatively young and immature research culture in academic libraries makes it difficult to name our disciplinary criteria and in turn develop institutional standards.

Related research questions:
The article was really well-received and from good research comes more questions. The article raised some interesting discussion about related research questions that were not within in the scope of the research article. There was an interest in knowing more about the qualities and attributes of the librarians who have been publishing (including their position, their length of service, their motivations for research, and the factors that determined where they publish). There was also questions as to whether these librarians who are contributing to scholarship through “traditional” scholarly venues are also contributing to the scholarly conversations though non-traditional formats (blogs, open publishing etc.). Lastly there was an underlying assumption that these two bodies of literature by two set of authors, LIS scholars and practitioner-scholars interact and impact each other; however, there was an interest in knowing how these two bodies literature, written by two groups of authors actually do interact- for example: are they citing each other, or do they cite their own communities?

Great discussion ensued at the meeting and some stimulating ideas were generated from the many interesting findings within the paper and beyond. Some very thoughtful discussion emerged during journal club—looking forward to Janurary!!

This article gives the views of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of the Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice or the University Library, University of Saskatchewan.

I am a Qualitative Researcher

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by Maha Kumaran
Leslie and Irene Dubé Health Sciences Library, University of Saskatchewan

Had I known that in my role as an academic librarian I would be required to research and publish I would have taken in-depth research methods classes in library school – famous last words?

Although I wanted to be in an academic library setting, I wasn’t sure I would end up in one given that most of my experience was in public libraries. I didn’t think of conducting research and I certainly did not consider publishing when I finished library school. But I managed to co-author and publish two peer reviewed papers – one with my best friend in library school and another with a library colleague at the public library where I started my first librarian position. The latter research project was on exploring diverse populations in Saskatchewan and whether public libraries in the province are prepared/equipped to cater to these groups. Before this went into publication I moved to the University of Saskatchewan, where for tenure-track positions publishing was a requirement. Using my first two publishing experiences, I embarked on other research projects sometimes with colleagues and other times alone. Through this learning process I realized I was very much a qualitative researcher.

The fact that I am a qualitative researcher was once again confirmed after I enrolled in a qualitative research methods class at the College of Education, University of Saskatchewan. I don’t like numbers, I like stories. I like that I can talk to participants, interview them, survey them, observe them at work, gather information most relevant and important to them, and interpret all this for rest of the world.

There are various approaches to qualitative research such as narrative, phenomenology, case study, grounded theory, biographical, historical, ethnography, and numerous variations within them; the prospect of including poetry, pictures, photos, drawings, metaphors; the ability to be flexible with interview questions; the possibility of profound investigations into a situation based on conversations with participants especially when it is an interview are all exciting and seemingly endless. And then there is data analysis. Data can be in many forms and formats. It can be categorized, divided into themes, coded, concepts identified, refined, re-categorized, and authenticated conclusions arrived at. Personally, such data analysis is much more appealing than just quantifying information.

The whole process of qualitative research is as much an art as it is science, and contrary to assumptions that it allows for subjective interpretations, it is about consistencies and deeper meanings while allowing room for authors and/or participants to state their personal biases.

I am sure that I will explore quantitative research later in the future, but for now I have confirmed that my interests are slanted towards being a qualitative researcher. I have found my niche in evidence based practice.

If you are a qualitative researcher, I would love to hear what about it excites you.

This article gives the views of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of the Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice or the University Library, University of Saskatchewan.

Evidence Versus Intuition (Which is Really, de facto, Evidence)

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by Gwen Schmidt
Outreach Coordinator, Saskatoon Public Library

I have never been a really great researcher. When I was in library school, our Research Methods class brought me to tears more often that I would have liked. Surveys and statistics and research papers, bah humbug.

What I am good at is patterns. Patterns in nature, patterns in process, patterns in human behaviour. A really intricate visual pattern will actually make the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I will be entranced. I have always been this way.

Lots of librarians find their way to this career of librarianship because they love books. Don’t get me wrong; I read so many books as a kid that the library was my second home. I still read a lot of books. But what attracted me to the library most is the patterns. Call numbers. Classification schemes. Interlibrary loan processes.

In my 20 years as a professional, I have become a person who “is good at deliverables”, as my last Manager would say. I can build a process that is lean, sensible, efficient, and understandable. I have also become a connoisseur of human behaviour. I enjoy watching the patterns, and I can get a lot done by anticipating how people will behave in certain contexts.

So, when someone says the phrase ‘evidence-based library and information practice’ to me, two things happen: first, I get anxious and hyperventilate about research papers, and surveys, and statistics, and then I stop myself and start to wonder if ‘evidence’ means different things to different people.

I would like to posit that intuition is as important as evidence in decision-making, and that intuition is, in fact, a type of evidence. If you pay close attention every day to the work that you do, your brain starts to see patterns in workflow, in policy interpretation, and in how humans interact with your work. This is the ‘ten thousand hours’ of attention or practice that Malcolm Gladwell talks about in his book, Outliers – the attention and experience that make people really good at something.

Some libraries live by a self-imposed rule that all of their decisions need to be evidence-based, and this often means an environmental scan nation-wide, reading research papers, doing surveys, crunching statistics, and writing reports, all before that decision is made. I would suggest that sometimes there is not enough time to do all of this, and then intuition and years of paying attention need to come to the fore. Neither one is always a better approach, but both approaches need to be in your toolbox.

This is why you might do a bunch of quality formal research before you build a proposal, but you also need to run it past the people down on the ground who work with the processes every day. They can tell you whether or not your proposal is grounded in reality, and whether it will fly or not. They live and breathe where those processes will play out.

Do you need examples to know what I mean? Let’s get granular. At the public library, I have created a lot of programs that resonate with people, and a lot of these I developed using my gut instincts.

I have been programming for years, and, let me say, there have been a lot of duds. Every well-attended or poorly-attended program is a learning opportunity, though, I always say. An opportunity to pay attention. Why did it work? Why didn’t it work? Why do other librarians’ programs work? What are the goals I am trying to accomplish in the first place, and how did this program accomplish those goals or not? What did library patrons say they wanted for programs, but also what programs did they actually show up for? What little things annoy people? Make no mistake: the intuitive approach needs to be fairly rigorous if it is going to work.

If people come to a program, I call that ‘voting with their feet’. After a few years of paying close attention to human behaviour related to programming, and also paying close attention to the things that annoy all of us, the patterns started to emerge for me. Here’s what I know.

Teens are way more engaged in a program if you give them lots of responsibility and make them do all the work. This sounds kind of unbelievable, but it’s true. They do not need us to deliver them fully-formed content to enjoy passively – they can get that from TV or the Internet, and it will always be better than anything we can do. What they need is a challenge or an invitation to create. Since we started to program for teens on this concept, my library has had amazing success with the “Teen Poetry Celebration” (teens write poems), the “We Dare You Teen Summer Challenge” (a literacy scavenger hunt and activity challenge), “Teen Advisory Councils” (teen library club), and most recently the “Book Trailer Contest” (teens make video trailers for books). We get good attendance numbers, and the teens build amazing things.

Other groups of people have patterns too. Most people are too busy to get to a program on a particular date, but they will start to trust you if the program happens repeatedly in a predictable fashion and they don’t have to register. I used to run one-off programs, and sometimes people would come and sometimes they would not. At the same time, a weekly drop-in armchair travel program and weekly drop-in children’s storytimes across the system would attract 20-90 people each time. Why wouldn’t I set up important programs in a weekly, drop-in (no registration hurdles) format? So that’s what we did. We built a weekly drop-in program called “BabyTalk”. Weekly drop-in works for moms and babies, because there is no stress if they miss it, and they can choose to attend at the last minute. I currently run a weekly drop-in program called “iPad Drop-In”, for seniors. The seniors tend to come over and over again, and start to get to know each other. They will also let us teach them things that they would never come to a one-off to learn (e.g. How to Search the Library Catalogue). We get about sixteen people each week with very little effort. It is lean, sensible, efficient, and understandable. The only other thing we need to do is to make sure that we deliver a great program.

These are only a few of the intuitive rules that I live by in my job. Intuition based on watching seniors vote with their feet, watching moms and babies get in the class or not get in the class, teens participate or not participate.

With current developments in neuroplasticity research and the explosion in social media use, there are a ton of popular psychology books out about paying attention, mental focusing, and intuitive decision-making. So, is intuitive decision making a form of evidence-based librarianship? I think so, based on all the patterns I’ve seen.

(I am currently reading “Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence” by Daniel Goleman.)

This article gives the views of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of the Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice or the University Library, University of Saskatchewan.

The Historical Connections Among Academic Status for Canadian University Librarians, Academic Freedom, and the Requirement for Research and Scholarly Work

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by Frank Winter, Librarian Emeritus
University of Saskatchewan

You know how the oddest things start to niggle in your mind? As I followed from afar the revision of the University of Saskatchewan Library’s Standards for Promotion and Tenure triggered by changes in the most recent collective agreement to a system of three ranks from four, I began to obsess about the “and” in the core requirement for an appropriate body of “research and scholarly work.” Grammatically, “and” is a coordinate conjunction used to join two equal things. Does the “and” mean that research and scholarly work are somehow different, not the same? If they are not different, why do we keep using both? Perhaps it is nothing to worry about because we share an unvoiced understanding of what research and scholarly work mean and how they are used in promotion and tenure cases?

I began re-reading the literature of research and scholarly work in Canadian university librarianship to determine how these words were used. It appears to me that the words “research” and “scholarship” or “scholarly work” have been used interchangeably in seminal work by, for example, Fox (2007) and Schrader, Shiri, and Williamson (2012). Broadening my reading to include work by scholars in other disciplines I noticed the same lack of distinction. The terms were used in a manner that was, it seemed to me, more stylistically than semantically meaningful.

A useful discussion is contained in an article published by Ruth Neumann (1993). Her work describes findings from interviews of a group of senior Australian academic administrators from a wide variety of disciplinary backgrounds on their perceptions of “research and “scholarship.” The paper’s abstract reports that,

‘Research’ has three major attributes: new knowledge, enquiry and publication of results and views. ‘Scholarship’ was perceived to be part of the research process, providing the context for good research by adding the element of breadth to the depth of ‘research’. In addition, ‘scholarship’ describes the manner of pursuing a serious, sustained line of enquiry as well as the dissemination process. (Neumann, 97)

Neumann’s paper was published after Boyer’s widely discussed reframing the discourse of scholarship and research in his report entitled Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate (1990). Boyer’s report briefly documents the rise of research in the evolving mission of the American university and the effects of this rise on the system of American higher education. As is well known, he suggests reframing scholarship into four “separate but overlapping functions… the scholarship of discovery; the scholarship of integration; the scholarship of application; and the scholarship of teaching.” The scholarship of discovery is what is traditionally known as research. For Boyer, faculty must “first establish their credentials as researchers.” (Boyer, 16)

I began to investigate if I could determine how research and scholarly work came to enter the standards for promotion and tenure for Canadian university librarians. I was greatly assisted by papers by Leona Jacobs and Jennifer Dekker in a recently published collection entitled, In solidarity: Academic librarian labour activism and union participation in Canada (2014). It turns that that there is a long and interesting history that is intimately connected to Canadian university librarians’ quest for academic status.

The Canadian Association of College and Research Libraries, predecessor of the Canadian Association of College and Universities Libraries (CACUL) flagged research as an essential component of academic status for librarians at least as early as 1969. CACUL continued to advocate for academic status throughout the 1970s. During this time the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) became university librarians’ most effective advocate and ally (Dekker, 2014). This work came to fruition with the joint CAUT/CACUL Guidelines on academic status for university librarians (1976). The Guidelines use the phrase “research and scholarly work.”

CAUT/CACUL Guidelines Part I Appointments, Section F: Criteria for Permanent Appointment and Promotion Section 3: Other criteria to be included should include: (a) Research and scholarly work. (20)

Part IV Salaries and Benefits, Section C: Research and Travel Funds, 1 Librarians should have access to research and travel funds on the same basis as other academic staff, 2 Librarians should have access to released time for research projects mutually agreed upon by the librarian and the library administration. (21)

Propogated by the CAUT/CAUCUL Guidelines and CAUT’s model clauses, “research and scholarly work” starting appearing as a category in Canadian collective agreements and standards for promotion and permanent status (or tenure) from the 1970s onwards. This formulation, with the later addition of “creative work,” continues to the present day.

Even after considering the discussion above, does that “and” matter all that much? In a bracing paper entitled “Librarians as teachers, researchers and community members,” Meg Raven, Francesca Holyoke, and Karen Jensen write in their discussion of librarians as researchers,

The [CAUT] Model Clause [on Scholarly Activities of Academic Librarians] serves two purposes. The first is the inclusive understanding of ‘research, study, educational and other scholarly activities’ which ‘brings benefits to and enhances the reputation of the University, the profession and the individual librarian.’ This understanding permits setting aside the discourse on research as a type of scholarly activity: here the assumptions will be that scholarly activity and research are synonymous. (2014, 133)

Well, this position is certainly arguable but I would be concerned if it muddies the fact that some original published research is going to be required of individual librarians as one of the components of their promotion or tenure cases. Research and scholarly work have a long and important place in the history of the struggle for academic status for Canadian university librarians. Academic status and academic freedom have, over a much longer period of time, been understood to involve published research. For librarians, academic status, academic freedom, and research (and thus publication) have been inextricably connected for decades. You cannot have one without the other two.

Discussions such as those by Boyer and Neumann make it clear that, although they are intimately related, there is a meaningful distinction between how research and scholarship are understood and how they are used in promotion and tenure documents. And I know that there is also a growing grey literature of other documents associated with existing collective agreements and promotion and tenure standards explaining what is meant by each category and giving examples of what would be considered research and what would be considered scholarship.

It is clear also from the discussion above and reflected powerfully in an editorial by Scott Walter (2013) that university librarians are only one component of a dynamic university environment. Research and scholarly work in their overarching meanings, how they are understood for the varied disciplines on each campus, and the specific language of collective agreements and tenure and promotion standards have evolved over time and continue to evolve. There is, however, a bedrock understanding of the place of and the consequent requirement for research and scholarly work in the academy. In conclusion, then, I would argue that the “and” is meaningful. Both are required although they serve both overlapping yet distinctive functions.

References

Boyer, Ernest. (1990). Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Canadian Association of College and Research Libraries/ Association canadienne des bibliotheques des college et d’universitie. (1969). Position classification and principles of academic status in Canadian university libraries. (Ottawa: Canadian Library Association).

Canadian Association of College and University Libraries and Canadian Association of University Teachers. 1976. Guidelines on academic status for university librarians. CAUT Bulletin ACPU 24(5) (March 1976) 19 – 22.

Dekker, Jennifer. (2014). Out of the “library ghetto:” An exploration of CAUT’s contributions to the achievements of academic librarians. In Jennifer Dekker and Mary Kandiuk, eds., In solidarity: Academic librarian labour activism and union participation in Canada. (Sacramento, CA.: Library Juice Press), 39 – 60.

Fox, David. (2007). The scholarship of Canadian research university librarians. Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, 2 (2). Available at https://journal.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.php/perj/article/view/305.

Jacobs, Leona. (2014). Academic status for Canadian academic librarians: a brief history. In Jennifer Dekker and Mary Kandiuk, eds., In solidarity: Academic librarian labour activism and union participation in Canada. (Sacramento, CA.: Library Juice Press), 9 – 37.

Neumann, Ruth. (1993). Research and scholarship: Perceptions of senior academic administrators. Higher Education, 25, (2), 97-110; doi:0.1007/BF01384743.

Raven, Meg, Holyoke, Francesca, and Jensen, Karen. Librarians as teachers, researchers and community members. In Jennifer Dekker and Mary Kandiuk, eds., In solidarity: Academic librarian labour activism and union participation in Canada. (Sacramento, CA.: Library Juice Press), 127 – 149.

Schrader, Alvin M., Shiri, Ali, and Williamson, Vicki. (2012). Assessment of the research learning needs of University of Saskatchewan librarians: a case study. College & Research Libraries 73(2) 147-16;, doi: 10.5860/crl-235.

Walter, Scott. (2013) The “multihued palette” of academic librarianship. College and Research Libraries 74, 223-226; doi:10.5860/0740223.

This article gives the views of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of the Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice or the University Library, University of Saskatchewan.

All a-Twitter: #librarian #discovery

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by Tasha Maddison
Saskatchewan Polytechnic

I recently started as a #copyrightlibrarian @saskpolytechlib. With a new job comes change; from organizational culture to strategic direction to the educational mandate. What I had not anticipated was that the methods used to communicate with colleagues would be so dramatically different nor how I would learn about my new field and the ever evolving world of copyright.

In my past life, I lived and breathed by email. You might say it bordered on addiction as I was constantly checking my email; sick days, evenings, weekends, vacations, whenever. My experience @saskpolytechlib is that my colleagues don’t rely on email in the same manner. The communication options vary, perhaps because the campuses are distributed across the province. We use email, phone (seriously, people call one another), Microsoft Lync and Twitter. Lync was new to me, but so was the fact that others use Twitter to post their whereabouts, note meetings and conferences they are attending.

I have been on Twitter since participating in @CPD23 (the ’23 Things’ program). I was originally a reflective tweeter, completely defeating the purpose by tweeting several days after an event. At times, I just didn’t see the point. Too concise, too cryptic; anyone can follow you and you can follow anyone – that all seemed wrong, #notfacebook.

My experience with Twitter changed upon arriving @saskpolytech. I discovered individuals like @mgeist, @relkatz, @copyrightlaws, @howardknopf, among others who tweeted almost daily about important copyright issues like #TPP, @googlebooks #fairdealing, #happybirthday, #beatlemania, to name but a few.

My information seeking behaviour has also changed in regards to conferences, including those that I am not even attending. The University of Toronto recently hosted a one day conference on copyright. I followed the conference with great interest, #CopyCon2015. I then started following pretty much everyone who shared their thoughts throughout the day. Later in October, I attended #ceblip2015 and totally broke out of my shell. I always take comprehensive notes during conference presentations, #keener. Since attending my first library conference as a librarian, I have shared those notes on my blog, #lessonslearned. I occasionally tweeted about a conference but it was either reflective (see above) or it was to note my general excitement about an upcoming event. At #ceblip2015, I took notes on my iPad and tweeted about each presentation on my iPhone simultaneously. This enabled me to file away information for future review. I found like-minded librarians in the audience who I didn’t necessarily speak with in person, but started following on Twitter. I expanded my knowledge and my #social network.

As a presenter, I have always felt apprehensive at the thought of real-time comments via Twitter. I was always slightly scared to later check the audience’s reaction (or lack of) to my presentation. Recently, I have used Twitter to see what resonates with listeners. I am curious and delighted to see what the audience believes are my key takeaways. Twitter is useful at conferences to start a dialogue with presenters or audience members as they share their experiences. You can clarify points, share thoughts and impressions, as well as seek further information.

Three months into the job I don’t check my email as often outside of work hours. I do however frequent Twitter. I retweet quite a bit. I follow with great interest the evolving trends in scholarly communications, open access and the wonderful world of copyright.

This article gives the views of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of the Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice or the University Library, University of Saskatchewan.