Author Archives: vew908

What I’ve Favourited on Twitter Lately, pt. 3

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

This is the third in my series (and I use that term loosely) of posts dedicated to what I’ve favourited on Twitter lately. Wow, that title up there is self-explanatory, isn’t it?! You can also check out part one and part two. I find Twitter to be one excellent way to keep up professionally while networking at the same time. And when I favourite a tweet it’s usually because I’d like to go back and read the link in more depth or I think it’s a brilliant small piece of narrative.

Here’s what spoke to me the last while:

@facetpublishing released a new book edited by @benshowers – Library Analytics and Metrics: Using Data to Drive Decisions and Services. That’s on my list for when ordering opens up again as I select for our LIS collection here at the University of Saskatchewan.

@ESRC, the UK’s main organization for funding research and training in economic and social sciences (from their Twitter bio) tweeted a link to their guidance for researchers which could help to build your Twitter presence: http://www.esrc.ac.uk/funding-and-guidance/impact-toolkit/tools/interactive-media/twitter/index.aspx

@Write4Research (an awesome Twitter account, btw), tweeted a blog post from the @LSEImpactBlog. Jenny Lewis writes about collaboration and how it “holds great promise for social science disciplines” but we must be wary of just doing what STEM does. An interesting read! http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2015/04/02/collaborate-or-die-disciplinary-differences-in-the-social-sciences/

@ThomsonPat has some timely advice as we head into conference season, linking to Mark Carrigan for how to live tweet effectively at academic conferences: http://markcarrigan.net/2015/04/24/how-to-live-tweet-effectively-at-academic-conferences/

@acrystelle: [@zaana and I are published!] Exploring the use of evidence in practice by Aust special librarians – http://www.informationr.net/ir/20-1/paper657.html#.VUE37Cezo7t #eblip #lis

Here are a few of my favourite tweets that don’t include links. They can be thought provoking and/or hilarious all on their own!

@kayla_hollatz: “Please stop waiting for a map. We reward those who draw maps, not those who follow them.” – Seth Godin

@thiagi: Have passion for your topic. Display this passion and conviction during your presentation.

@DonnaLanclos: Thinking about how vague I can be in the abstract so that what I produce in 4-6 months matches what I said it would be.

@USASKCOWS: There’s a tall man in the parking lot across College smoking cigarettes & watching Captain Kangaroo. Now don’t tell us there’s nothing to do.

@GreatestQuotes: Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, I will try again tomorrow. – MA Radmacher

And my absolute favourite tweet of the last while is this one from @Cmdr_Hadfield. I know he is travelling in the States, but I pretended he was greeting me: Hello Virginia! I am giving a talk and signing books tomorrow evening, 7PM at Tysons Corner Center in McLean http://chrishadfield.ca/events/

If you haven’t explored Twitter yet, I can personally recommend this particular bandwagon. I tweet as @VirginiaPrimary and I also tweet for the Centre for Evidence Based Library and Information Practice @CEBLIP.

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 8Rs Redux: How National Trends Can Inform Local Responses

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by Vicki Williamson
Dean, University Library, University of Saskatchewan

Last December, I blogged about the value of big picture library trend reports in the smaller context of your local library. In this blog, I continue that same theme.

Over a decade ago, ground-breaking research into the Canadian library workforce was published. The original study of the Canadian library workforce (The Future of Human Resources in Canadian Libraries, 2006, is also known as the “8Rs Study”) was widely disseminated; marked the first time that human resources issues were so thoroughly and widely examined across Canada; and, was always intended to be used as a baseline from which future research would be compared. Follow-up research for the research libraries sector across Canada is now a reality with the recently completed (and soon to be released) report from the 8Rs Redux CARL Libraries Human Resource Study, 2015.

The 8Rs Redux, for libraries that are members of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL), has delivered a quantitative mapping (within a 10-year timeframe) of the many ways in which CARL libraries and their staffing requirements have changed, as well as how they have responded to changes in their operating environment. I am very pleased to have been a co-investigator with the 8Rs Redux Study, led by Kathleen DeLong, Principal Investigator, and Marianne Sorensen, Co-Investigator, as it provides a strong body of evidence to inform future workforce planning locally and nationally.

The 8Rs Redux Study tells us many things, but overall it shows that: “Retirements, alongside the hiring of younger librarians and the restructuring of some roles and the attrition of others, has resulted in a noteworthy turnover of CARL library staff and a slightly larger and younger librarian workforce, many of whom are learning more new tasks in challenging and interesting roles that increasingly encompass specialised skills and that engender comparatively high levels of job satisfaction.”

The soon to be released final report will provide many other insights into the current make-up of the CARL workforce around the themes of staff characteristics; organizational context of change; recruitment; retirement; professional and paraprofessional population and role change; librarian competency and competency change; education and training; and, quality of work life and job satisfaction. The 2015 study shows that 8Rs have grown to be 9Rs, with role change joining the 2005 identified workforce themes of recruitment, retirement, retention, remuneration, repatriation, rejuvenation, re-accreditation, and restructuring.

But to get to that local library-specific context, what does this national longitudinal data have to do with workforce planning at the local level? Well for a start, it provides the opportunities to review whether our local cohort characteristics reflect those at the national level. If they do, then what does that mean in terms of workforce planning, recruitment, and training and development? If not, then what local factors impact our library, and why are those national trends not obvious in our environment?

A welcome addition to the 8Rs Redux Report (2015) is the inclusion of a strategic human resources planning implication section for each of the major report categories. This section should be helpful to deans/directors, human resource managers, and others involved with library human resources planning. For example, the section within the retirement theme poses questions about succession planning that may need action both the local and national levels.

Overall, the final report from the 8Rs Redux CARL Libraries Human Resources Study (2015) contains a wealth of evidence-based data and information to help inform the ongoing development of the CARL workforce.

Co-authoring: Shared Work ≠ Less Work

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by Shannon Lucky
Library Systems & Information Technology, University of Saskatchewan

Writing is hard.
Collaborative writing is really hard.
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image by nicmcphee https://flic.kr/p/5czKHV

I recently co-authored a paper with two colleagues based on a library project we had worked on together. It made perfect sense to collaborate on a paper about the project. We brought our different roles and perspectives to the writing process and were each able to contribute in our area of expertise while letting the others complete the full picture. Personally, I couldn’t imagine writing about the project alone. It doesn’t belong to me and I felt would have been presumptuous to speak for the group. Because we had successfully worked on the project as a group I imagined it would be a breeze to write it up.

I was wrong.

I wasn’t wrong because any of us were controlling, egotistic, lazy, or unwilling to compromise. Far from it. I was wrong because we were all intellectually (and perhaps a bit emotionally) invested in the work. We each had our own clear (in our own minds) interpretation of what the article should look like, but we didn’t want to dictate it to the group.

In the end, I learned a lot and I am proud of our project. It isn’t the article that I would have written on my own, and that is a good thing. It’s about a collaborative project and the article benefited from the diverse perspectives of the team. However, there are some things I will do differently the next time I work on a co-authored project.

  1. Communicate early, communicate often. Having discussions about author order, citation managers, file naming standards, sharing notes or drafts, and timelines are not my favourite parts of researching on a team. However, making assumptions about these basic issues can create tension if you don’t talk about it early on. It might seem obvious, but it’s worth it to spell this stuff out – particularly if one person isn’t taking on the task of pulling everything together into a final draft.
    If your paper is being written by consensus, have these discussions right away.
    If your paper isn’t being written by consensus, have these discussions right away. Maybe we should develop a checklist for co-authors (like a pre-marital counselling checklist)?
  2. Writing styles are like snowflakes – no two are alike and too many piled up will make you miserable.
    SONY DSC
    image by timo https://flic.kr/p/8ZDM8n
    Disciplinary differences in style are to be expected in library groups. Most of us come from another academic discipline prior to librarianship or serve users in a particular academic discipline as a liaison. We all use different citations styles, vocabularies, and writing styles depending on our own areas of expertise, and an interdisciplinary team is almost certain to have some stylistic conflict. Writing style is subjective but it can really slow down a project if there are big differences of opinion. If you and your co-authors don’t have compatible styles it might be easier to pick one person to put the paper together. Have everyone write sections but hand it over to the editor to make it flow. Swallow your pride and pick the person with the most appropriate writing style for the journal you are targeting.
  3. Realize that technology will (probably) cause trouble. Decide on how you are going to write and share your work (Google Docs, spreadsheets, Dropbox, a shared drive, emailing drafts, telekinesis, whatever) and if you want to use a citation manager. Make sure everyone has access to whatever technology you pick and is comfortable with it. There are so many options out there, but using a bunch of non-compatible systems is a recipe for disaster and data loss. Also, back up your work and use a versioning system – good advice for life.
  4. Meet face-to-face. This is something we did right from the beginning and I think it helped us deal with the issues that did come up before they became serious problems. Meeting every other week, even just to check in briefly, gave us the opportunity to talk through ideas we had, change the flow of the paper when necessary, and keep everyone on the same page. It also helped to hold us to our timeline because we knew we needed to do something for the next meeting, even if it was the night before. It was during these in person meetings that we addressed the problems we had and worked out our best solutions.
  5. Get an independent and impartial third party to read your final draft. You likely have a lot of eyes on the paper, which is great, but having someone unfamiliar with the material read it is important. After working over the content repeatedly it can take a fresh perspective to see that you accidentally edited out some critical information somewhere between version 12 and 13.

In the weeks since we submitted the article I have had many conversations with people about their experiences co-authoring (good and bad) and read some entertaining articles about co-authoring gone wrong. I am curious to see if the Brain-Work readers have advice, success stories, or cautionary tales to share.

Writing for Scholarly Publication: an Editor’s Perspective

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by David Fox Librarian Emeritus
University of Saskatchewan

Not every manuscript submitted to a scholarly journal is a well-constructed, cogently written, polished work of prose. As Editor-in-Chief of Partnership: the Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research from 2011 to 2014, this writer evaluated more than 150 manuscripts of varying quality, and all of them required some editing or revision. This includes some of my own pieces for Partnership. I’m painfully aware that, as a writer, I’m just as inclined to slip-ups and omissions as anyone else. We sometimes seem to be blind to our own mistakes. That’s why we need editors. It takes many passes and many different eyeballs on a page to make it as clean as it should be.

When it comes to editing manuscripts, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but with a bit of effort you can usually produce a pretty serviceable pigskin wallet – and that’s often good enough for publication. Manuscripts from first-time authors, authors with a limited command of English, and authors not familiar with the conventions of academic writing need more than the average amount of editorial work, but I’m proud to say that at Partnership we rarely rejected a manuscript due to deficiencies in the writing alone. If the author had something interesting and important to say, we worked with that author to make the article publishable. Faulty methodology is another matter. Editors can fix bad writing, but we can’t fix bad research.

Below are some tips on writing for submission to a scholarly journal based on my experience reading manuscripts at Partnership. A lot of this advice may seem obvious to readers of this blog, but many of the papers I reviewed overlooked some of these points. Journals are typically juggling a number of manuscripts simultaneously under tight timelines. Anything that interrupts or slows down work on a manuscript may delay its publication. Attention to the following suggestions may expedite acceptance and processing of a submission.

What to write and where to submit?
• Pick an appropriate topic. To justify publication, a manuscript must have something new and interesting to say to the target readership of the journal. At Partnership in recent years, the most frequently cited articles have dealt with the adaptation of new technologies, particularly social media applications, to library functions; development of new services, including services to specific communities or user populations; new scholarship and publishing models; and new approaches to traditional library competencies.
• Pick an appropriate journal for your topic. What audience are you trying to reach? Is your topic of wide, general interest or narrow and specialized? Read the “purpose and scope” notes associated with potential journals to determine whether your submission will be a good fit for the readership.
• Where possible (and it’s almost always possible), choose an open access journal. Remember that every time you publish behind a paywall, a kitten dies!
• Work must be original, not previously published, and not simultaneously submitted to another publication. If you are considering submitting something to a scholarly journal, don’t pre-post it to an open access repository or conference Web site. If an identical or similar version of your paper can be located via a Google search, then it has essentially already been published and will probably be rejected.

Pay attention to publisher’s guidelines
Journal publishers tend to be fairly strict about adherence to style guidelines. This is in order to promote consistency of presentation from article to article.
• Pay attention to your publication’s instructions for authors re. manuscript length, spacing, etc.
• Follow your publication’s guidelines for bibliographic style and citation format. If the publisher’s instructions call for APA style and you submit your paper in MLA, Chicago, or some other format, it will likely be sent back to you for revision, and you will lose time.

Writing
• Write with the reader in mind. Avoid jargon, colloquialisms, and unexplained acronyms (unless you’re sure the audience will understand the reference).
• Adhere to the conventions for scholarly writing:

-Cite your sources. Every fact, idea, opinion, or quotation borrowed from another author needs to be documented (MLA 165). The editor cannot do this for you.
-Write clear, precise, simple, and straightforward prose.
-Use formal English (What is Academic English?). Avoid conversational language, e.g., “great”. “Fun” is not an adjective!
-Write in the third person. Avoid the use of personal pronouns: I, my, you, your. Refer to yourself as “the author”, “this researcher”, etc.
-Avoid using contractions: won’t, doesn’t.
-Exercise caution when expressing opinions and outcomes: use “may”, rather than “is” unless completely certain of your claims.
-Unlike creative writing, the passive voice is often appropriate in academic prose.

• Master basic punctuation and grammar. Poor grammar and punctuation, although fixable, conveys a negative impression to the editor and will require more time and effort by the copyeditor. In reading manuscripts at Partnership, it was astonishing to find that many librarian authors do not seem to have a good grasp of the rudiments of punctuation. In future blog posts I will discuss the most common punctuation mistakes and how to avoid them. It’s important for librarian authors to master these basic skills. Insistence on following standard punctuation rules is not just pedantry. Good punctuation helps to convey meaning, to avoid confusion, and allows a manuscript to be read more quickly and efficiently.
• Avoid word repetition. Use a thesaurus!

Prior to submitting your manuscript…
• While working towards a submission deadline, make sure to leave time for quality control.
• Have one or more trusted colleagues read your paper for clarity and comprehension before submission. This is especially advisable if English is not the author’s first language. If your closest colleagues don’t understand what you’re trying to say, then the average reader certainly won’t.
• Have another colleague with a good eye for detail proofread your work for spelling accuracy, typos, and word omissions. Sometimes it’s difficult to see one’s own mistakes.
• Leave time for revisions based on your colleagues’ suggestions.

Revision
• Assume that you will be asked to revise your manuscript. Editors rarely accept a manuscript without asking for changes, and peer-reviewers almost always suggest revisions. Don’t be discouraged by constructive criticism.
• Do take seriously the comments of peer-reviewers as peer-review usually results in substantial improvements to a manuscript; however, reviewers of the same paper can sometimes have conflicting opinions, and some advice they give may be off the mark (Soule 14). A good editor will evaluate the fairness of reviews and decide which comments to share with the author, or recommend which comments the author should particularly focus on. Remember that ultimately you are responsible for the integrity and coherence of your own work. Make those recommended changes that seem appropriate and sensible, and let the editor decide whether your revisions are acceptable.

A writer’s best friends are a thesaurus, style guide, and punctuation and grammar manuals. Keep them within easy reach on your desktop (either physical or virtual) and consult them frequently!

Works Cited
MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Writing. 3rd ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2008. Print.

Soule, Daniel P. J. , Lucy Whiteley, and Shona McIntosh, eds. Writing for Scholarly Journals: Publishing in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. Glasgow: eSharp, 2007. Web. 6 March 2015. http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_41223_en.pdf

What is Academic English? The Open University, 2015. Web. 6 March 2015.
http://www2.open.ac.uk/students/skillsforstudy/what-is-academic-english.php

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.

Librarians as Practitioner-Researchers: Constructive Concept

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by Kristin Hoffmann
Associate Librarian, University of Western Ontario

Librarians as practitioner-researchers: constructive concept or limiting label? Last summer, my colleague Selinda Berg and I had an invigorating conversation about this question. We presented our reflections at the 2014 C-EBLIP Fall Symposium, and this post is my part of that presentation. Selinda’s part will be published here later this spring.

We want to share our conversation about librarians as practitioner-researchers because we see a link between researcher identity and research culture. Academic librarians, particularly in Canada, are in the process of establishing and shaping a research culture for ourselves. Part of establishing a research culture is having a clear sense of who we are as researchers and what it means to us to be researchers. We hope that our conversation can spark similar conversations for others.

Peter Jarvis developed the concept of practitioner-researcher in his 1999 book The practitioner-researcher: developing theory from practice. Rebecca Watson-Boone (2000) and Virginia Wilson (2013) have examined the concept specifically for librarianship.

I want to share two reasons why I believe that “practitioner-researcher” is a constructive concept for librarians.

1. We are both practitioners and researchers and so we need an identity that encompasses both of those roles, rather than trying to manage or embody two distinct identities.

The practitioner-researcher concept is a truer and better representation of who we are and what we do as academic librarians than either practitioner or researcher on their own. We often talk about the challenge of how to “fit” research into our workdays, and I think part of that is because we are separating our researcher selves from our practitioner selves and trying to create a separate place for each of those identities. Embracing the identity of practitioner-researcher can help us truly affirm the importance of both roles and the interplay between them.

2. Embracing the practitioner-researcher identity can bring us to a fuller, and unique, understanding of both practice and research.

Previous discussions of practitioner-researchers first emphasize the practitioner role, and research is seen as something that informs practice: we are practitioners who also happen to be researchers, therefore we are practitioner-researchers.

However, our knowledge and understanding of our practice can also inform and enlighten our research. This may be a much more powerful and constructive concept for librarians. To illustrate this, I offer an example from my own research.

In a recent project, I worked with the sociological theory of strategic action fields. Very briefly, this is a theory that provides a framework for thinking about stability and change in social institutions. Since libraries are a social institution, applying this theory to librarianship can help us come to a deeper understanding of change in librarianship. Why do some things change in library-land, why do other things never seem to change even though we wish they would, and what might it take for those changes to happen?

My research looked at librarian-vendor relations and why there seems to be so much enthusiasm for librarians to stand up to vendors and yet so little apparent meaningful change in this aspect of collections. The theory of fields was the tool I used to analyze this situation in an objective, systematic way.

It was through the process of applying the theory of fields to this collections-related example that I really came to see myself as a practitioner-researcher. My research with this theory was deeply informed and influenced by my practice as a librarian. Because I’m an “insider”, intimately familiar with librarianship, I could see aspects of the theory that a so-called “pure” researcher couldn’t – I had unique insight from practice that informed my research.

The theory of fields sociologists came to their theory as researchers; their book (Fligstein and McAdam 2012) makes no mention of practice or how their ideas might shape or be shaped by real-life situations. Librarians who talk about implementing change management might have approached my topic as practitioners. I was seeing it as a practitioner-researcher.

My practice directly informed my approach to this research project. And, yes, my research also informed my practice: having a rigorous and systematic theoretical framework to apply to my practice gave me new insight that has influenced how I understand my profession.

In summary, therefore, practitioner-research is a constructive concept because:
• embracing the practitioner-researcher identity can bring us to a fuller understanding of and a unique perspective on both practice and research; and
• we are both practitioners and researchers and need an identity that encompasses both of those roles.

References

Fligstein, N. and McAdam, D. (2012). Theory of fields. Oxford: Oxford U Press.

Jarvis, P. (1999). The practitioner-researcher: developing theory from practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Watson-Boone, R. (2000). Academic librarians as practitioner-researchers. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 26(2), 85-93. DOI:10.1016/S0099-1333(99)00144-5

Wilson, V. (2013). Formalized curiosity: reflecting on the librarian practitioner-researcher. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, 8(1), 111-117. http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/18901

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.

Serendipity, Algorithms, and Managing Down the Collective Print Collection

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by Frank Winter, Librarian Emeritus
University of Saskatchewan

My first contribution to Brain-Work introduced the conceit of the Gone-Away World, and explored the mindset exhibited by Traditionalist librarians who believe that the traditional rationale for developing a local collection and the traditional collection-based services of reference, information literacy and so on are still in existence (Winter, 2014). The core belief of this mindset is the overarching importance of the local print collection. I asked, “[i]f the local collection of printed scholarly books by-and-large just Goes-Away as a useful and important service, what choice will we have as university libraries and university librarians but to adapt? Evidence-based solutions will be increasingly necessary for good decisions in this environment.” In the paragraphs below I explore in a bit more detail the use of serendipity by Traditionalist librarians as one specific example of resistance against any evidence-based reduction of the local collection.

The concept of the collective print collection (where print = books, rather than journals which have long-since migrated almost completely to digital format) has been a very significant development in the options available to research libraries as they consider how they might allocate their resources to meet the existing, evolving, and competing demands of their users within the overarching expectations of what the library must contribute to the mission of the university. Specifically, this concept offers options to “manage down” local print collections so that some of the substantial resources required to maintain them can be reallocated to address other priorities.

Originating with Lorcan Dempsey, the concept has been developed by OCLC as it investigates how and why some library services might now be more efficiently and effectively organized and delivered at supra-institutional or network levels (Dempsey, 2013). As part of its research, OCLC began to more systematically investigate the characteristics of the print holdings of its members with respect to overlap, uniqueness, and geographical distribution. What has emerged is a deeper and more nuanced understanding of how non-local print book collections could be organized and managed including the importance of proximity as it relates to delivery options. OCLC has identified as many as twelve North American mega-regions as well as other, smaller regions. One of the smaller regions has been named Canada Extra-Regional, which includes libraries in the prairie provinces (Demspey and Malpas, 2015). Careful reading of the research reveals many caveats such as the awareness that implementing various actions that might work in larger mega-regions might not work as well in smaller ones such as the Canadian prairies, which have smaller aggregate print collections distributed across relatively larger geographic areas.[1]

Proposals to manage down the local collection – even ones to shift materials to an on-campus repository let alone into a regional print storage facility – typically encounter resistance from local users and librarians based on any number of factors. One factor that is often invoked is that removing materials from the open stacks will reduce opportunities for serendipitous discovery by users. Preserving the opportunity for serendipity is advanced by some librarians and some users as a positive value to be privileged when making decisions with respect to how and where collections are housed.

Although I once heard a very senior and accomplished professor tartly dismiss serendipity as “the tool of the lazy scholar,” we all have our serendipity stories. The most amusing serendipity story I ever heard was told by Dan Cohen, Founding Executive Director of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). A colleague went into the stacks and reached up to the top shelf to pull off his desired book. The book beside it dropped on his head and led to a lifelong program of research (Cohen, 2014). Well, who among us would not want to preserve the conditions for such fruitful accidents? In the same blog posting, Cohen described some interesting work at the DPLA to determine whether they could “engineer serendipity” into its user interface although, regrettably, without any capacity for virtual book bonking.

It always has struck me how contingent serendipity is, depending as it does on a chain of events such as a physical book being published, being collected, being on the shelf in a particular spot, having a user actually go into the stacks and coming across the item, as well as the innumerable, unknowable factors taking place inside the mind of the user.[2] The deliberate incorporation into the local collection of hundreds of thousands of e-books let alone hundreds of thousands of other digital objects over the past decade seems to me to only further attenuate serendipity in the stacks as a factor to be given much weight.[3]

Librarians mask the complexity that underlies their operations so that their users can get their hands on the desired object in as friction-free a manner as possible. The invocation of serendipity when making decisions about the disposition of local collections in research libraries conceals and even, in some cases, denies the decades- and even centuries-long application of a long chain of information labour and expertise that brought about these local collections in the first place. Those books did not just happen to be there. The librarian-related actions that got them there such as collection building, describing, organizing, and preserving, have been termed “epistemological engineering” (Guédon, 2001).

It is but a short step from engineering to algorithms if one considers the algorithm to be a codification of the innumerable operations involved in such engineering. Currently there is considerable discussion concerned the algorithms that permeate our lives, from Google’s 200+ “signals,” through Facebook, Amazon, and eHarmony, to the relevance ranking in online catalogs and discovery systems. I have found the work of Tarleton Gillespie especially helpful here with his careful unpacking of the many parts of algorithmic culture (Gillespie, 2014). And Ian Bogost has written recently that, “Concepts like ‘algorithm’ have become sloppy shorthands, slang terms for the act of mistaking multipart complex systems for simple, singular ones. Of treating computation theologically rather than scientifically or culturally.” (Bogost, 2015). For him, it is imperative to recognize all the other inputs (even preceding data and many of them human) that are required in order for an algorithm to produce its answer. One of these multipart complex systems is the library collection and the services that surround it.

I have contrasted serendipity, a somewhat Latinish neologism originating in the 18th Century, with the Arabic-derived algorithm as a way of foregrounding the information labour that is often concealed in the order of books on the shelves and their discovery by users. For me, however, the word fluke, a pithy 19th century, vaguely Anglo-Saxonish neologism, more accurately describes what happens in cases of serendipity in the stacks of the local print book collection. There are so many variables that determine whether a user stumbles across something relevant that they are almost impossible to identify. It is far less impressive defending flukiness than invoking serendipity as an operating principle when deciding how to manage down print collections

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[1] It is important to acknowledge the caution with which university librarians have approached any “managing down” of the local physical collection as a result of the existence of digital surrogates. It took at least ten years for most librarians to become comfortable that appropriate institutional arrangements were place before acting to discard some local print runs of e-journals. It will take at least as long and probably much longer for equivalent actions to take place with respect to print books. And although some commentators invoke initiatives such as Google Books, the Internet Archive, and Project Gutenberg as replacements and supplements for print book collections, these resources are clearly not library collections in any sense recognized by librarians and not acceptable as long term solutions.

[2] Frederick Kilgour’s study examining the sources of user failure incurred in obtaining the desired item in the stacks included factors such as a book never being acquired, being in on order, awaiting cataloguing and processing, circulation, awaiting reshelving, or misshelved, as well as user error (Kilgour, 1989). One could add any number of other contingencies such as being allowed into the stacks in the first place, books that disappeared into in-library graduate study carrels and faculty offices, and so on. Kilgour’s interest was estimating the impact that an automated library information system would have on these factors. It would be interesting to update Kilgour’s work and the literature of user failure generally to determine what effect the incorporation of e-books into the collection would have on those factors.

[3] See, for example, a recent article by David Woolwine (2014). Woolwine writes from the perspective of supporting undergraduate learning in a small to medium size academic library and includes references to studies involving serendipity. I wonder about the relevance of these earlier studies in an age of digital abundance, scholarly e-books, and changing user practices.

References

Bogost, Ian. 2015. Cathedral of computation. The Atlantic. January 15, 2015. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/01/the-cathedral-of-computation/384300/

Cohen, Dan. 2014. Planning for Serendipity. http://dp.la/info/2014/02/07/planning-for-serendipity/.

Dempsey, Lorcan. 2013. The Emergence of the Collective Collection: Analyzing Aggregate Print Library Holdings. http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/research/publications/library/2013/2013-09intro.pdf. In: Dempsey, Lorcan, Brian Lavoie, Constance Malpas, Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Roger C. Schonfeld, JD Shipengrover, and Günter Waibel. 2013. Understanding the Collective Collection: Towards a System-wide Perspective on Library Print Collections. Dublin, Ohio: OCLC Research. http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/research/publications/library/2013/2013-09.pdf.

Dempsey, Lorcan and Malpas, Constance. 2015. Evolving Collection Directions. Collection Development Strategies in an Evolving Marketplace: An ALCTS Symposium. Chicago, 30 January 2015. http://www.slideshare.net/lisld/alctssymposium.

Gillespie, Tarleton. 2014. The relevance of algorithms, in Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society, ed. Tarleton Gillespie, Pablo Boczkowski and Kirsten Foot. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Guédon, Jean-Claude. 2001. In Oldenburg’s Long Shadow: Librarians, Research Scientists, Publishers, and the Control of Scientific Publishing. Washington, D.C., Association of Research Libraries. http://www.arl.org/storage/documents/publications/in-oldenburgs-long-shadow.pdf.

Kilgour, Frederick G. 1989. Toward 100 percent availability. Library Journal, 11450-53.

Winter, Frank. 2014. Traditionalists, Progressives and the Gone-Away World. Brain-Work. http://words.usask.ca/ceblipblog/2014/10/14/traditionalistsprogressives-and-the-gone-away-world/.

Woolwine, David E. 2014. Collection development in the humanities and social sciences in a transitional age: Deaccession of print items. Library Philosophy and Practice. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/1173/.

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.

EBLIP + IL = SoTL

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by Margy MacMillan
Mount Royal University Library

I practiced SoTL for at least 5 years in blissful ignorance of its existence. You too may be a SoTList or have SoTList leanings and not even know it; it may well be time to explore the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

The research projects I’m currently involved in occur at the intersection of information literacy (IL) and SoTL, and like all intersections it’s an exciting, slightly unsettling place to be. There’s a lot of movement in many directions, a lot of choices on where to go next, and some things just have to wait until there’s a break in the traffic to get going. Standing at this intersection I`ve had some time to think about the links between SoTL and evidence based library and information practice (EBLIP)…
MargyHanoi
Hanoi, 2013. By D. MacMillan

EBLIP and SoTL

SoTL might be described as evidence-based practice in teaching. It is focused, like EBLIP on gathering evidence to understand different situations and/or the impact of different interventions. It uses a range of methodologies and works both within and across discipline boundaries. While it is most obviously akin to evidence-based research in IL, branches of SoTL concerned with technology or institutional cultures may resonate with other library researchers. Much like EBLIP conferences where those who work with bioinformatics data discover common ground with public librarians working with citizen science initiatives, SoTL fosters conversations between people who might not otherwise meet. Academics working in SoTL don’t always get much support for their research at their own institutions (sound familiar?) or within their own disciplines and they value conferences both for finding kindred spirits and for the interdisciplinarity that brings fresh ideas and approaches. Since arriving in this welcoming SoTLsphere, I have enjoyed exploring further – attending conferences, getting involved in SoTL on my campus and currently supporting the SoTL work of colleagues through Mount Royal`s Institute for SoTL.

3 ways SoTL has helped me EBLIP

Methodologies – SoTL work rests on applying disciplinary research methods to understanding teaching and learning. I’ve encountered a really broad range of methods in SoTL work that also apply to EBLIP.

Understanding Threshold Concepts (TCs) – While I had first heard of TC’s at a library conference, this way of looking at learning is a major focus in SoTL and I have been able to bring knowledge from SoTL folks into discussions around the new TC-informed Framework for IL.

Focus on building a community – Some SoTLers are involved with building communities on campuses by expanding relationships, providing support, and developing policy. There are many useful insights here for library initiatives and I have benefited from becoming part of a very supportive, cross disciplinary group of scholars.

3 ways EBLIP has helped me SoTL

Better understanding of diverse literatures and how to search them – This has helped me enter a new field, but also allows me to contribute back to the SoTL community on campus as I am aware of resources and tools for searching outside their disciplines.

Longer experience with evaluating usefulness of small steps and interventions – IL is often assessed at micro levels: the use of a particular tool, or the effectiveness of a teaching strategy, often within a single class. We have developed a number of strategies to examine teaching and learning at this atomized level useful for instructors accustomed to thinking in course-sized chunks.

Understanding how dissemination works – Work like Cara Bradley`s is informing my work with SoTLers in identifying venues for publication, and my next project on studying dissemination patterns in SoTL.

Interest in SoTL among librarians is growing, as evidenced by increasing numbers at conferences and a colleague in the UK who is writing a book about SoTL and librarians (many thanks to Emma Coonan for a great conversation that clarified many of these thoughts and if you aren’t reading her The Mongoose Librarian blog on a regular basis … .well, you should be!). Explore a little, dip into their literature, maybe go to a conference or talk to the teaching and learning folks on your campus… they can use our help and we might be able to borrow a few things from them. Maybe we’re overdue for a change.

3 good reads about SoTL

Felten, P. (2013). Principles of good practice in SoTL. Teaching and Learning Inquiry: The ISSOTL Journal, 1(1), 121-125. http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/teaching_and_learning_inquiry__the_issotl_journal/v001/1.1.felten.html

Huber, Mary Taylor and Sherwyn P. Morreale, eds. Disciplinary Styles in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Exploring Common Ground. Menlo Park, CA: Carnegie Foundation, 2002.

Hutchings, P. (2010). The scholarship of teaching and learning: From idea to integration. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2010(123), 63-72. http://fresnostate.edu/academics/csalt/documents/Hutchings2010.pdf

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.

Reflections from the C-EBLIP Journal Club, Feb 23, 2015

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by Carolyn Doi
Education and Music Library, University of Saskatchewan

For this iteration of the C-EBLIP Journal Club, I decided to feature an article from outside the LIS literature that deals with the topic of reflection, creative processes and digital technologies in the classroom:

Kirk, Carole, and Jonathan Pitches. “Digital Reflection: Using Digital Technologies to Enhance and Embed Creative Processes.” Technology, Pedagogy and Education 22, no. 2 (July 1, 2013): 213–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1475939X.2013.768390

This paper caught my attention for several reason. The discussion of creative processes and incorporation of technology in the classroom is particularly interesting to me and these are topics that often come up when I discuss teaching strategies with other librarians. I was also looking forward to exploring the idea of reflection, both in the classroom and as part of the research process. This is something we have discussed in our institution and in particular through our own Library Leadership Development Program.

The authors of this paper are both scholars at the School of Performance and Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds who have shared the results from a teaching and learning project called Digitalis (http://www.digitalis.leeds.ac.uk/), which “investigates ways in which digital technologies can be used by teaching staff to facilitate reflection on creative practices within performing and creative arts disciplines” (p. 213). The study used action research methodology led by members of a cooperative inquiry group who incorporated reflection and digital technologies into their own teaching practice. They took this a step further and also incorporated reflection as one of the four project phases (planning, action, collection and reflection).

The study featured modules in five areas of study: performance design, dance, music, theatre & performance and museum studies. In each module, students were asked to reflect on their learning and experience, assisted by different types of digital technology. In one example, students in a second year compulsory Dance Choreography course were asked to use a flip camera to capture thoughts, ideas and observations, which were used in combination with written reflection and posted to a private blog. The other modules used varying types of reflective processes. Methods of digital capture included flip cameras, audio recorders and digital still cameras. Digital reflection mechanisms included blogs (on Blackboard), PowerPoint and Photo Story 3.

In some cases, the technology may have interfered with the process of critical reflection as some students ended up “concentrating too much on slick production values to the detriment of critical thinking” (p. 224). The paper mentioned that ease of use was an important factor in getting students to feel engaged in the reflection activities. One recommendation that came out of the paper was that digital reflection technologies should be introduced incrementally, as opposed to all at once.

We discussed the value of incorporating technology into the classroom, and also of the importance of not letting the technology ‘get in the way’ of the learning process. Some in our group remarked that they were still surprised that the incorporation of technology in the classroom still might be a barrier for some students.

The paper reports that students found digital reflection to be advantageous when ‘looking again’ at material which would otherwise have been lost in the creative practice. The digital capturing acted as a way they could benchmark their own impressions of the event, and allowed the performer to experience being an audience member of their own performance.

We discussed the benefits of reflection in two veins: 1) for integration into the classroom and 2) for integration into our own practice. Some questioned the viability of incorporating reflection (especially non-written reflection) into library instruction as we are often faced with the challenge of limited classroom time where it would be difficult to follow up with students. Librarians who teach in disciplines outside of the arts felt that they might just not be able to get their students to try a less conventional reflection method such as video capture. The article prompted some to think about video capture as a means to document and reflect on one’s own teaching practice. Others were thinking about incorporating reflection into other aspects of practice or research, or are currently embarking on projects that do incorporate an element of planned reflection.

The journal club is always an engaging gathering and it’s been interesting to see the various opinions and perspectives that emerge out of the group discussions. I look forward to many more discussions around the journal club table in the coming months!

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.

On Becoming a Learning Organization

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by Jill Crawley-Low
Leslie and Irene Dubé Health Sciences Library and Veterinary Medicine Library, University of Saskatchewan

The concept of a learning organization is a model for dealing with complex systems and that is the environment in which most organizations, including libraries, operate these days. It is a model consisting of five disciplines, one of which is systems thinking. First, the individual is empowered and this positive energy flows on to become collective self-awareness which, in turn, profoundly affects the organizational culture. As management theorist Peter Senge explains, the people who contribute most to the organization are those who “… practice the disciplines for themselves – expanding their own capacity to seek and hold a vision, to reflect and inquire, to build collective capabilities, and to understand systems.”

The turbulent times in which we work in libraries are of a magnitude of complexity that requires not only individual action, but also collective action. The employees in a learning organization develop the ability to collectively learn and create new knowledge in the present and in the future to adapt and apply that knowledge to unforeseen conditions.

The University Library at the University of Saskatchewan has articulated in its vision statement the benefits it believes will be derived from becoming a learning organization. The vision remains a powerful statement that was first written in 2006 as part of the library’s strategic plan. The benefits of fostering a learning organization (with quotes from the library’s vision) include:

• an engaged and committed cohort of employees – “leaders and innovators”
• effectively operating in a complex environment – “a dynamic information environment”
• contributing skills and knowledge to the community – “collaborate with our community”
• effectively manage change – “create a positive experience”
• providing quality in a client-centred environment – “success in learning, scholarship and practice”
• looking to the future proactively.

The University Library has made a long term and continuing commitment and investment in its employees through leadership development. There is quantitative evidence that leadership learning has led to increased employee engagement scores. Qualitatively, library employees have identified the changes that they have observed in themselves and others as a result of being exposed to leadership learning. These observations include increased:

• self-awareness that leads to more open feedback and collaboration
• sense of accountability and freedom to ask questions and share opinions
• knowledge of self that is rooted in reality with a deeper understanding of the behaviour of colleagues
• independence in their work decisions

The library’s focus on leadership learning has created a culture of continuous learning that rewards engaged employees. The organization is moving towards the vision of a learning organization by:

• accurately responding to or anticipating environmental changes
• developing simpler processes and showing transparency in decision-making
• building on the self-leadership that employees show in times of transition
• examining its culture in a realistic way and making it easier for employees to understand the shared vision and values

The ideal of becoming a learning organization with a culture of continuous learning and developing applied knowledge is deeply embedded in the library’s vision as a way to meet present and future challenges.

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.

Reflecting on Our Biases

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by Denise Koufogiannakis
University of Alberta Libraries

Reflection is an important part of evidence based practice. The principle has been embraced by those who aim to practice in an evidence-based manner because being an evidence based practitioner is not just about the evidence itself, but about the process of how and why we use that evidence. To date, reflection has generally been inserted into the evidence based process towards the end of the cycle, prompting one to look reflectively back on what was done in order to reach a decision. One reflects on such questions as: what evidence did I find and use; what evidence was lacking; what happened during the decision making process; did the chosen implementation work; what did I personally learn; what would I change next time? Reflection has also largely been considered an individual and private act that a professional undertakes for self-improvement.

I’d like to propose that we begin the process of reflection earlier in the process, specifically as it pertains to the biases we have in relation to a particular question or problem at hand. And, since library decisions are frequently made in groups, we should make reflection on our biases a shared act with colleagues who are also engaged in finding a solution to the problem. As we strive to incorporate evidence into our decision making, it is important to be aware of the biases that we all bring to finding, interpreting, weighing, and using evidence. We work in organizations, large or small, with others – we all have different perspectives, motivations, and desires. Decision making as part of a group is not easy! We need to be conscious of how the biases of each group member and the collective dynamic might influence the process. Through reflection and openness, we may be able to limit our biases and therefore make better decisions.

In practical terms, what this means is being upfront with our colleagues, and where a group has been tasked to make a decision or put forward recommendations on a specific new initiative or review of an existing area, that we have conversations about our biases from the very start. This requires that each person reflect on how they are considering and approaching the problem or question, what their initial reaction was, what they hope will be the outcome, and any other preconceived notions they have related to the issue. It also means that collectively, the group discusses and acknowledges the various biases, and consciously moves forward with the intent to address all biases so that they do not adversely affect the final decision. Doing this may be a bit risky for each individual, but it creates a climate in which trust can be built, and the group can proceed with an open and transparent approach to their decision making. It means that in all likelihood, more sources of evidence will be sought and considered, potential solutions will not be dismissed out of hand, and a sound approach will be chosen.

Here are some common biases people have, and without being aware of them, they may adversely affect our decision making:
• overconfidence bias – when people think they know more than they actually do
• confirmation bias – when people gather information selectively in order to confirm what they already think
• framing bias – when people make different decisions depending upon how information is presented
• representative bias – when people rely on stereotypes and predict outcomes based on past situations
• anchoring bias – when people rely too heavily on one piece of information
(Robbins, 2005; Greenberg and Baron, 2008)

For more on biases within the workplace, I recommend this brief overview by Rykersmith (2013) who provides a list of 5 biases in decision making, based on the research of Lovallo and Sibony (2010). While taken from business, the advice soundly applies to decision making within libraries, and provides ways for us to spot these biases and overcome them.

Recognizing your own biases or those within your group is important. Here are some questions to ask yourself and your group, in order to identify possible biases and discuss them.
• What is my natural inclination with respect to this problem? Do I already think I know the answer for what is best?
• Am I picking and choosing evidence that only suits my predetermined notion?
• If I have passionate feelings about this topic, why is that? Is there an important ethical or professional principle that needs to be considered within the decision?
• Are there other people with opposing views that I find difficult to discuss the problem with, and this is clouding my judgement?
• Am I reacting due to my own motivations/desires? Is a potential change going to impact me personally and therefore I am afraid of it?
• Am I easily influenced by one particular piece of evidence? Why might that be? Why did that piece of evidence impress me?
• Do I stand to gain or lose based on the outcome of this decision? Is this potential change influencing me?
• Have I gathered the types of evidence that would help, or just what was easy? Have all possibilities been considered? Have all perspectives been represented?
• Is the evidence sound or just based on anecdote and sentiment?

Once a bias has been brought to light, it is much easier to deal with and proceed with a higher level of consciousness. Such reflection is sure to bring us closer to better decision making.

References

Greenberg, J., & Baron, R. A. (2008). Behavior in organizations (9th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Lovallo, D., & Sibony, O. (2010). The case for behavioral strategy. McKinsey Quarterly. Accessed 15 Feb. 2015
http://www.i3-invest.com/uploads/pdf_file/c850526fa6f572915c3645199db25297.pdf

Robbins, S. P. (2005). Essentials of organisational behavior (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Rykrsmith, E. (2013). 5 biases in decision making – Part 2. The Fast Track Blog. Accessed 15 Feb. 2015
http://quickbase.intuit.com/blog/2013/06/07/5-biases-in-decision-making-part-2/

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.