Author Archives: vew908

Organizational Innovation: C-EBLIP Journal Club, August 20, 2015

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

The first C-EBLIP journal club meeting of the 2015/16 academic year took place on Thursday, August 20, 2015. Despite many librarians being in full-on holiday mode at the time, six participants discussed the following article:

Jantz, R.C. (2015). The Determinants of Organizational Innovation: An Interpretation and Implications of Research Libraries. College and Research Libraries, 76(4), 512-536. http://crl.acrl.org/content/76/4.toc

This article was chosen by me with the idea that innovation was a light and exciting topic and that the article would be perfect for an August journal club meeting. While the article did have some redeeming qualities, the club meeting had a bit of a rocky start: this article is long and slightly unwieldy! Jantz conducted a research study which focused on innovation as a specific type of change and he determined five factors that had a significant impact on how well libraries innovate. The research method consisted of a survey distributed to 50 member libraries of the Association of Research Libraries.

The discussion opened up with some problems around the methodology of the research. The details of how the research was conducted were sketchy. There was no word on how Jantz coded the data, no talk of analysis or collection methods in detail. The survey instrument was not included in the paper, nor were the raw survey results, which, one journal club member commented, would have been the interesting part! In terms of the instrument, it would have been helpful to have a look at it as club members wondered if the author defined the complex terms he used. How can we be sure that all the respondents were on the same page? The author also did not list the specific institutions surveyed, causing us to wonder if they were perhaps skewed to the sciences? Would liberal arts universities/libraries have R&D departments?

Club members found it problematic that the surveys were only administered to senior leadership teams, as views could be quite different down the organizational hierarchy. As well, as the responses were said to have come from senior leadership teams, members were interested in how this might have logistically happened. Did the teams get together to fill out the surveys? Did each team member fill out a survey and were the results of those collated? This is an example of insufficient detail around the methods employed for this research and the problems could have been alleviated with more attention to detail. It was a good takeaway for my own research: be detail oriented, especially when it comes to methodology! If the research is to be useful, it has to be seen as valid and reliable. That won’t happen if the reader is questioning the methods.

Another issue about the paper was that in several instances, the author stated things as established facts but did not cite them. Perhaps the author made assumptions but as we are attuned to the idea of providing evidence for claims, we weren’t buying it. Another take away: in terms of evidence, more is more! Or at the very least, some is vastly better than none. As well, in the conclusion of the paper, the author used the terms vision and mission interchangeably, which particularly irritated one journal club member and was another example of imprecision.

The discussion moved from the particulars of the article to innovation in general with some observations being made:
• Innovation is not dependent on age: people across the age spectrum can be innovative.
• We are overwhelmed by choice. The more choices we have makes making a choice more difficult. Decision-making is difficult.
• Is there a type of innovation on the other side of radical, i.e. useless? Change for change sake?
• One participant felt that innovation of all types can be useless. Innovation doesn’t necessarily create more viable choices.
• Libraries are always playing catch up…it may be innovative to us but not elsewhere [depending of course on the library].
• Difference between innovation and library innovation. Is there a difference between innovation and implementation?

At the very least, C-EBLIP Journal Club members felt that reading about innovation could be valuable when heading into a state of change. And let’s face it, we’re generally dealing with change more often than not these days. To conclude, although the article had some methodological gaps and members felt that the author could have been more selective when transforming his PhD dissertation into an article, the article did give us the basis for a fruitful discussion on innovation and the first meeting of 2015/16 was an hour well spent.

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.

There’s a New Research Support Group in Town (or at least in Canada)

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by Virginia Wilson, Director
Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (C-EBLIP)
University of Saskatchewan

It has been my experience as a librarian who has a mandate to conduct research (the tenure and promotion process as a faculty member at the University of Saskatchewan), who wants to conduct research (I’m curious, I want to learn!), and who has been at this for the past 10 years, that support for research endeavours is an important factor in the ability of librarian practitioner-researchers to move their research programs or projects forward. Organizational support and collegial, peer support are both valuable at every state of the research process. Some are lucky enough, like me, to work in an organization with a strong culture of research and the belief in the benefits of research for an academic career and for practice. Others perhaps do not have that kind of support readily available, working solo with no evident supports or working in an organization that does not support or value that type of work.

I recently found out about a new group in Nova Scotia, Canada, the LibrariesNS Research Support Group. This group was founded in June 2015, and its ultimate goal is to “increase the amount and quality of library research in Nova Scotia.” This group is targeted to all the librarians, library workers/technicians, and LIS academics working in Nova Scotia who are interested in research. The impetus for the group, according to the proposal that you can find on their part of the Libraries Nova Scotia webpage, came from a talk given by C-EBLIP Adjunct Member and University of Western Ontario librarian Kristin Hoffmann that was held at the Halifax Public Library in April 2015 entitled “Academic Librarians as Successful Researchers.” During the talk and the ensuing discussion, attending Nova Scotian librarians talked about research in their library community – its challenges and successes. The idea for a “work in progress” support group came out of that discussion and after a proposal to Libraries Nova Scotia, the group found a home and is now rolling out various supports to librarians from all sectors in Nova Scotia.

What a fabulous idea! While librarians spend a lot of time supporting researchers who work in our various organizations, we too need support for our research endeavours. Initiatives such as the CARL Librarian Research Institute on a national level and the Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice at the local level help to create a supportive and engaging environment in which librarians as researchers can explore questions related to practice (and even not related to practice!), conduct rigorous and timely research, and disseminate that research in order to inform colleagues and to enhance the evidence base for librarianship.

I’m interested in various supports out there for librarians as researchers. If your group or organization is doing something formally or informally around supporting practicing librarians who also conduct research, I’d like to hear about it if you are willing to share. You can contact me at virginia.wilson@usask.ca.

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.

Thoughts on Conferencing

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by Vicki Williamson
Dean, University Library, University of Saskatchewan

As summer fades, a new academic year is set to begin, and conference season has come to an end for another year, I have been reflecting upon the value of professional meetings and conferences in the electronic age.

As a side note, all reports from the IFLA World Library and Information Congress 2015 in Cape Town, South Africa indicate a very active contingent of 50 Canadians in attendance with the conference highpoint being the announcement of IFLA’s highest honour of an Honorary Fellow Award to Ingrid Parent, University Librarian at the University of British Columbia.

But back to the topic of the conferencing… According to the Oxford English Dictionary Online, as a noun, ‘conference’ is defined as a formal meeting for discussion; and as a verb, to take part in a conference or conference call. Librarians have been conferencing as a major form of ongoing professional development for as long as I can remember. In the electronic age, however, are expectations around conferences changing? Sometimes these days I think some folks believe that if they come back from a conference with copies of PowerPoint slides and presentations then they must have learned something.

The business model for face-to-face conferencing has been with the Academy and the profession of librarianship for a long time. The rise of the internet, and new and emerging technologies and applications are challenging that business model, especially in terms of the cost to run a conference and the cost of ‘attendance’. Many professional associations, including the American Library Association (ALA), which runs not one, but two major conferences per year, are questioning the longer-term sustainability of the face-to-face conference model. Half way across the Pacific and well into my 27 hours of flying time to get to the 8th International Evidence Based Library and Information Practice Conference (EBLIP8) in Brisbane, Australia in July, I too began to question the value of the face-to-face conference.

I’m delighted to say that by the end of the EBLIP8 conference my faith in the value of the face-to-face conference model had been restored. There does seem to be a time and place for technology to enrich the conference experience, but nothing quite matches the networking and learning experiences of a ‘live’ conference. So what was it that made EBLIP8 such a great experience and one well worth the cost, time, and effort to attend in person? Was it the amazing conference venue on the grounds of the Gardens Point Campus of the Queensland University of Technology (QUT)? Was it the Queensland’s sub-tropical winter weather with daily maximum temperatures ranging between 22˚ C and 24˚ C? Maybe it was the amazing catering, or, perhaps it was the cultural experience of things Australian that I had forgotten about after almost a decade of working overseas. Maybe it was the program content, or the outstanding quality of the speakers and/or the diversity of the participants who came from countries all over the world. Was it the conference size – that is, small enough that you could move around and speak with most people over the course of the three days? Or, was it simply that the topic of evidence based library and information practice is so applicable in every type of library setting (school, public, academic, etc.) and for every type of library function or specialization (technical, public, and/or corporate services). I’m sure all these factors played a part. I do know for me, it wasn’t the dancing at the conference dinner! Looking back on the whole EBLIP8 experience, it was for me simply having the time and space to listen, engage, and reflect; experience my Ah Ha! Moment during Dr. Neil Carrington’s keynote address on Creating and Sustaining a High Performance Team Culture, and return to my workplace professionally “reset and refocussed” on what’s important to me.

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.

“Best Practices” …or “Good Practices”?

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by DeDe Dawson
Science Library, University of Saskatchewan

Much of evidence-based library research is focused on our professional practice. We want to improve our services, better streamline our processes, or be more effective instructors. We often look to other libraries to learn from their experiences, and commonly try to determine best practices.

I’m embarking on just such a research project right now. I’m interested in determining best practices in the provision of scholarly communications support services. I hadn’t thought much about the term “best practices” until I came upon the Jisc R & D Project page: “Open Access Good Practice.” Wait a minute… “good practice”? Is this just another way of saying “best practice”? Or is there an important nuance that I’m missing here? Hmmm… (This is one of the things I love about being on sabbatical so far: the time to explore these tangents!).

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines best practice as “commercial or professional procedures that are accepted or prescribed as being correct or most effective.” And the Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science (ODLIS) has a much wordier, but similar, definition:

“In the application of theory to real-life situations, procedures that, when properly applied, consistently yield superior results and are therefore used as reference points in evaluating the effectiveness of alternative methods of accomplishing the same task. Best practices are identified by examining empirical evidence of success.”

Interestingly though, neither the OED nor the ODLIS has a definition for “good practice.”

My random Internet searching seems to confirm that “best practices” is more commonly used, and in a wide variety of sectors. Some interesting insights from:

Finance: “Best practices are often set forth by an authority, such as a governing body or management…”

Technology: “A best practice is an industry-wide agreement that standardizes the most efficient and effective way to accomplish a desired outcome.”

The term “best practice” seems to imply that there is one known, empirically proven, or agreed-upon method/procedure that will work in every context… when properly applied (I enjoyed that caveat in the ODLIS definition. They may as well have said: “If it doesn’t work for you then you done it WRONG!”).

Best practice defined this way doesn’t fit very well with my experiences providing library services. So much depends on situation and culture and individual personalities of those involved. Context is everything. What works at one institution will not necessarily work well at another. Heck, it might not work well with another user group at the same institution!

When trying to find some discussion of “good practice” I came across this blog post, with this key sentence:

“Best Practice is what we aspire to but Good Practice is what we work with every day – today we do this activity this way but tomorrow we will adapt it to a new Good Practice on our way to a Best Practice if we ever get there.”

I think this is true. In much of our professional practice there may never be a “best practice.” But we can always strive to make our good practices better for the situations we find ourselves in.

By the way, the new title of my sabbatical research project is “Supporting Researchers in Complying with Funders’ Open Access Policies: Good Practices of Library Outreach and Awareness-Raising Programs.”

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.

Making Room for Surprise in Research

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by Margy MacMillan
Mount Royal University Library

Research results can often be like students – some do exactly what you want, and that’s great, but it’s the ones who surprise you that you remember the most. Staying open to surprise has been one of the most difficult aspects of research for me, and also one of the most rewarding. Think for a moment – when has your research surprised you?

Last year, I was interviewed as part of a study about the impact of conducting Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) research on the researcher. Among other things, we talked about how surprised I had been by the results of a recent project. It turns out, I was not the only subject who talked about this and my colleagues, Michelle Yeo, Karen Manarin, and Janice Miller-Young now have a paper in review on this as they found our surprise, well… surprising.

A bit about the project…I started a study of the connections students made while reading an academic article looking for patterns in what they connected to – personal, academic or professional knowledge. Digging deeper into the data, a much more interesting and entirely unexpected story emerged about what students were connecting from – surface or deep aspects of the text, and how that provided insight into how they were reading.

Since the interview my thoughts have returned to the idea of surprise many times, wondering what factors allowed me to see beyond the expected, and make the most of it. While I went into the project with a fairly open question, I definitely had an idea of the connections students might make and I saw those in the data. Research done and dusted, right? But there was a niggle, a suspicion I was missing something. As I spent more time with the data, reading beyond the answers to my questions, and really paying attention to what students wrote, different patterns emerged and their story was much more compelling. I had some uncertainty about whether what I was seeing was actually there because it was so totally unanticipated (this is where critical research buddies come in handy). I was excited by the new, deeper understanding in a way I hadn’t been by the original analysis – and I think it’s worth paying attention to that excitement too. Another factor in accepting the surprise may have been that I was writing outside my ‘home field’ of information literacy and so felt less bound by disciplinary discussions and my own ‘expertise’. That might have made it ok to be surprised by unanticipated directions and new insights, without a discouraging ‘well, I should have expected that’ voice in my head. So maybe I need to find a way to turn off that voice…

Coincidentally, I’m currently reading an older work by Marcia B. Baxter-Magolda, Knowing and Reasoning in College: Gender-related patterns in students’ intellectual development. In the opening chapter, she speaks eloquently and frankly about transformations in her way of knowing, her research process, and her questions, including the impact of not finding what she was expecting. The book raises intriguing ideas about students and the research process, and it is also as a terrific model of scholarly prose, with personality and wit that often seem edited out of much current academic writing (this might be why I prefer writing blogs now!).

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 Sound of Music: What do you listen to when you write?

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by Jaclyn McLean
Collection Services, University Library
University of Saskatchewan

Creating the right environment when you need to fully engage your brain, whether you’re reading some difficult theory, writing a research article, or learning something new, is important, and different for everyone. As a new tenure-track librarian embarking on the adventure of conducting research and writing about what I learn, I am interested in how others shape their audio environment for success. So I threw the question out to my social media networks and colleagues the last couple of weeks, and was surprised by some of the results.

First, the data:

  • 24 respondents
  • 18 of them librarians

Some people gave multiple responses, as their preferences are changeable. Here’s how the responses broke down:

  • 12 – Instrumental/classical/jazz
  • 8 – Silence
  • 6 – Music with words
  • 5 – Ambient
  • 1 – Cars, the movie

As I expected, ambient background noise or music with no words (classical, jazz, nature sounds with orchestra) were near the top, but as someone who almost constantly has some kind of music playing, I was surprised by how many people say their ideal state is silence. Clearly, this is a very personal choice, and you, dear reader, probably have your own preferences.

If you’re interested in reading more about the link between music and productivity, this (http://www.sparringmind.com/music-productivity/) is worth a read (and also has some great online playlists if you want to try something different). If you want to know what the New York Times thinks about listening to music while you’re working, then check this out (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/jobs/how-music-can-improve-worker-productivity-workstation.html). If you want to see some of the research that’s been done, then this is the one for you (http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/665048). In a very timely coincidence, this article about musical preferences and cognitive styles (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0131151) was published on July 22 in PLOS ONE, and the national media is already picking it up (http://music.cbc.ca/#!/blogs/2015/7/Your-musical-tastes-reveal-how-you-think-a-new-study).

My best takeaway from this informal survey is some new music to listen to as I try to find my own preferences in this new kind of work. I know what I prefer when I’m at my desk, librarianing at my usual tasks, but am not sure what my sweet spot will be during those research activities. If you, too, are looking for some new suggestions, why not try these artists/playlists recommended by some of the interesting folks I know:

Instrumental/Classical:

Ambient

And, of course, you can always try putting on the movie Cars, and seeing if it works for you too, especially if you have a toddler running around who needs distraction. What do you listen to while you’re writing or otherwise engaged in deep concentration tasks?

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.

Tips on How to Give a Good Presentation

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by Virginia Wilson, Director
Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (C-EBLIP)
University of Saskatchewan

I’ve seen a fair number of conference presentations over the past 11 years and I’ve given my share of presentations as well. I’ve been thinking lately about sessions that I’ve really enjoyed and times where I feel I’ve really nailed it in terms of my own sessions. So, based on this bit of reflection, I’ve put together some ideas on what makes a good presentation. Hopefully, you’ll find a nugget or two that might speak to you, so to speak!

Content is only half the battle

Content is the solid foundation upon which your presentation must necessarily rest. If you don’t have something interesting or important to say, why are you up there? But content alone is not enough. A good presentation is equal parts content and the ability to convey that content in a way that’s thought-provoking, comprehensible, and meaningful. The best content in the world is worthless if your audience zones out during delivery.

What do I mean by a “good presentation”? I mean a presentation where people walk away with a useful understanding of what it is you were trying to tell them. A good presentation has three components:
1. Strong content
2. Purposeful roadmap
3. Engaging delivery

Strong Content

The underpinning of the presentation is the substance that you have to convey. Why might you present a session? You might have done some research and have new knowledge to share. Perhaps you want to share something that has worked in your organization and others might find it useful, too. You might have gone through a complex thought process and come out with a profound realization. As you approach, as well as during, the creation of a session, ask yourself the question “so what?” You can be sure your audience will implicitly ask this and answering it for yourself at many steps along the way will serve to strengthen the impact of your content.

Purposeful Roadmap

Your audience will want to know where you are taking them. In fact, if they are unsure of where you are going or if they get lost along the way, you’ll lose them altogether. A clear outline at the beginning of the session and clearly marked signposts as you move through your presentation will help to keep everyone together during the session and will stop people from wondering “are we there yet?” or worse “are we never going to get there?!” Such thoughts can distract audience members from your message.

Engaging Delivery

Not everyone is a born public speaker, but luckily, such skills can be learned, practiced, and enhanced. Beginning the session with an anecdote, cartoon, or image is a good way to let your audience see who you are before diving straight into the main points. If you feel a bit shaky with humour, you can still begin with a thought-provoking or attention-grabbing vignette. When you grab your audience early on, they’ll want to find out what happens next. Talk to the audience, not at them. Even if you’re reading from a prepared script, make sure to look up, look around the room, and make eye contact.

Presenting can be nerve-wracking but try to keep in mind that your audience wants to be there to hear what you have to say. Don’t forget about them while you’re dealing with other aspects of the presentation. Some preliminary thought about all the pieces of a good presentation can help to make the experience meaningful and memorable for the audience and for 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.

Forest, Trees, and Underbrush: Becoming the Arborist of Your Own Research

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by Frank Winter, Librarian Emeritus
University of Saskatchewan

The phrase “can’t see the forest for the trees” is a common expression describing someone so sunk in minutiae that the big picture eludes them. I have, however, occasionally worked with colleagues who, to my way of thinking, cannot even see the trees for the underbrush. In the area of research, they are so mired in the details of producing that first published paper and then, somehow, the next, that the context in which they are researching eludes them. This leads to frustration, resentment, and resistance, often expressed in complaints such as, “Why do I do publish research? Because the Standards say I have to.” I have come to think of this as an issue of forest, trees, and underbrush. In this metaphor, the underbrush is the specific research project. The trees are how the specific studies are combined into a program of research. The forest is the broad area or field of interest at the highest level.

New faculty members or even prospective faculty members in the job market typically face the challenge of describing their research program, or research agenda, to hiring committees, granting bodies, and tenure committees. Librarians with tenure-track appointments face the same requirement. For example, the University of Saskatchewan’s Standards for Promotion and Tenure state that, for tenure or promotion, “there must also be evidence of the promise of future development as a scholar, including the presence of a defined program of research or scholarship.” The University of Saskatchewan’s Library Standards require that the candidate’s case file include, “a statement on the nature of the candidate’s research and future research plans.” In my experience, this requirement for a defined program of research causes some new librarians – often, but not exclusively, those who have not completed a subject level master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation – some anxiety. For an inexperienced researcher, as many librarians tend to be, struggling to find a researchable topic and publish that first article looms as a significant barrier to stepping back and thinking in broader terms of a program or an agenda. Typically, by the time a statement is necessary for a case file, colleagues are consulted and eventually something is cobbled together. But for some, even after this statement is written, uncertainty remains. It seems difficult to fit all the pieces together into a broadly coherent – and helpful – whole.

As noted above, this challenge is by no means unique to new university librarians as the sheer quantity of resources and programs aimed at helping new faculty members get started on an academic career suggests. Googling “research agenda” or similar phrases produces some helpful links, such as one entitled Developing Your Research Statement. Although this particular resource was developed to assist new geoscience faculty members in the development of their careers, its contents and links are broadly applicable to new researchers in all fields. Janet Brennan Croft at the University of Oklahoma has written a helpful paper entitled Library Faculty and the Research Agenda: A Building Block for the Successful Academic Career, including some interesting thoughts on pursuing a program of research in popular culture (JRR Tolkien in her case), not librarianship – a useful reminder that scholarship and research can be very broadly deployed by librarian researchers.

Another resource that I have felt to be underutilized when new librarians are struggling to find a topic are the research agendas that top level scholars in a field sometimes produce, such as those which appear from time to time in journals such as Library and Information Science Research. Professional associations are another source of research agendas. These documents are statements of the big questions and issues currently facing the field. They can be used to suggest how specific studies might be placed in context. Googling “research agenda for…” returns potentially helpful results as well. Examples specific to librarianship include suggested research agendas for leadership in library and information science, information literacy, law librarianship, and medical librarianship. Such high level research agendas are extraordinarily helpful in enabling a beginning researcher to see how a particular study can be part of a much larger set of questions or issues. Clarity with respect to an individual research agenda provides not only a sense of direction, but also a sense of why and how and where and who and what. This clarity enables the researcher to approach a topic from top down or bottom up and not lose track of where he or she is. This clarity also enables a researcher to participate in the ongoing and evolving conversation that is research.* It helps other researchers to understand where you are coming from and what you are trying to achieve.

And, finally, a research agenda is helpful in understanding when a particular program of research has reached an end. Research programs change for everyone over time and it is perfectly normal for one to end and another to open. A research program does not need to be a seamless whole – the parts can be loosely coupled as it evolves as a librarian’s interests and the environment evolve and as opportunities present themselves. There should, however, be some demonstrable underlying logic so that research projects do not appear to be random.

* To a degree this post was shaped by a conversation with my son, several years after he had completed a MSc in Computer Science. He said that he wished he had fully understood at the time he was a student that he was a participant in a broad field called, simply, “AI and Learning.” It would, he said, have provided some overall clarity and sense of direction that got lost in the day to day activities of working on his thesis, writing and delivering conference papers, participating in the activities of his advisor’s research group, TAing, and so on. That something so seemingly obvious eluded a bright graduate student seems unusual but this sort of after-the-fact insight into the big picture is, I believe, very common.,

References:

American Association of Law Libraries. 2013. AALL Research Agenda 2013-2016. http://www.aallnet.org/mm/Member-Resources/grants/research-grants/research-agenda.htm

Association of College and Research Libraries. IS Research and Scholarship Committee. Research Agenda for Library Instruction and Information Literacy. http://www.ala.org/acrl/aboutacrl/directoryofleadership/sections/is/iswebsite/projpubs/researchagendalibrary.

Argow, Britt, and Beane, Rachel. 2009. Developing your Research Statement. http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/careerprep/jobsearch/research_statement.html.

Croft, Janet. 2012. Library Faculty and the Research Agenda: A Building Block for the Successful Academic Career. http://www.academia.edu/1416295/Library_Faculty_and_the_Research_Agenda.

Harris, Martha “Molly” R., Homes, Heather N., Ascher, Marie T., and Eldredge Jonathan D. 2013. “Inventory of Research Questions Identified by the 2011
MLA Research Agenda Delphi Study.” Hypothesis 24 (2), 5 – 16. http://research.mlanet.org/wp/wp-content/hypothesis/Hypothesis_Winter2012-2013.pdf.

Hernon, Peter, and Schwartz, Candy. 2008. “Leadership: Developing a research agenda for academic libraries.” Library & Information Science Research, 30, no. 4: 243-249. doi:10.1016/j.lisr.2008.08.001.

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.

Christine’s folder of self-esteem

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

In my desk drawer, there is a bright yellow file folder that is labeled “Christine’s folder of self esteem”. Whenever I receive an e-mail from a client of the thank-you-so-much-you-are-awesome or I’m-so-glad-I-attended-your-session variety, I like to print it out and stash it in my folder so I can look at it later. It’s not a vanity thing; it’s a self-preservation thing.

I say it’s about self-preservation because there are times, and we all have them, when a project isn’t going well; the people on that committee are driving you insane; you’re doing the job of two people; and any number of other things make you question yourself and your career choices. I think most of us don’t get messages that make us feel warm and fuzzy every day, so we need to get the most out of the ones we do get. My folder is a way to remind myself that despite what I might be feeling at the moment, I’m good at what I do and people appreciate me.

My folder of self-esteem recently came up in a conversation with some colleagues. They said that they want a folder of self-esteem too: And why not? My colleagues are awesome and they shouldn’t forget it.

Do you have a folder of self-esteem? If not, I think you should.

Self-Esteem Folder

This article 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.

Conducting Research on Instructional Practices: C-EBLIP Journal Club, May 14, 2015

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by Tasha Maddison
University Library, University of Saskatchewan

Journal club article:
Dhawan, A., & Chen, C.J.J. (2014). Library instruction for first-year students. Reference Services Review, 42(3), 414-432.

I was sent this article through an active Scopus alert that I have running on the topic of flipped classrooms. I had not received an article that met my particular search criteria in a long while, so I was excited to read this offering. The authors had included flipped classrooms as one of their recommended keywords for the article; yet the term does not make an appearance until page 426 in a section entitled ‘thoughts for improving library instruction’ and makes up just over a paragraph of content. It was interesting to me to witness firsthand how the use of an inappropriate keyword caused further exposure to research that I probably would not have read otherwise, which is both good and bad. I chose this article for C-EBLIP Journal Club for this reason, as I believed it would generate a spirited debate on the use of keywords, and that it did. Immediately there was a strong reaction from the membership on how dangerous it can be to use deceptive descriptions and/or keywords in the promotion of your work, as you will likely end up frustrating your audience.

I found the scope of the literature review in this article to be overly ambitious as it focuses on librarian/faculty collaboration and best practices for instruction in addition to information on the first year college experience (pg. 415). I wondered if the reader would have been better served with a more specific review of the literature on ‘for-credit’ first year library instruction. Another point worthy of noting is the significant examination of the assessment process throughout the article including information about the rubric that was used as well as evidence from the ACRL framework and the work of Megan Oakleaf; yet the only quantiative data provided in the case study was briefly summarized on page 423.

The group had a lively discussion on the worth of communicating research on instructional practices in scholarly literature. Members questioned whether or not there is value in the ‘how we done it good’ type article and the validity of reporting observations and details of your approach without providing assessment findings or quantitative data. I would argue that there is a need for this type of information within library literature. Librarians with teaching as part of their assigned duties require practical information about course content, samples of rubrics, and details of innovative pedagogy, as well as best practices when using a certain methodology which ideally outlines both the successes and failures. Despite the advantages to the practitioner in the field, we postulated on how such information could be used within evidence based practice, as the findings from these types of articles are typically not generalizable and often suffer from inconsistent use of research methodology.

We wondered if there is a need to create a new category for scholarly output. If so, do these articles need to be peer reviewed or should they be simply presented as a commentary? There is merit in practitioner journals that describe knowledge and advice from individuals in the field, detailing what they do. This type of scholarly output has the potential to validate professional practice and help librarians in these types of positions develop a reputation by publishing the results of their integration of innovative teaching practices into their information literacy instruction.

In spite of the fact that this article had little to do with flipped classrooms, I did find a lot of interesting take-a-ways including: details of student learning services within the library and learning communities on their campus, as well as the merit of providing for-credit mandatory information literacy courses.

Suggested further reading: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2015/05/13/reincarnating-the-research-article-into-a-living-document/

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.