Category Archives: Adjunct Member

Promoting Your Scholarship: A Post-publication Checklist

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by Lorie Kloda
Assessment Librarian, McGill University

As a researcher-practitioner, I spend a significant amount of time on scholarship – grant applications, research, journal editing, conference presentations and posters, journal articles, and everything else that comes with the territory. Like many people, I often consider the end result of this process to be the publication or presentation. And that’s true: the product of scholarship is typically a written report or verbal presentation delivered to an intended audience for consumption. But it’s not the last step in the cycle of scholarly communication. I’m not talking about other researchers referencing my work in their own publications (which – hopefully – comes much later), I’m talking about the promotion that comes post-publication that I have to do myself.

It’s no fun to have a paper published in a journal only to sit and wait for colleagues and peers to notice it. Over the years, I’ve developed a checklist of channels or venues in which to track and promote my scholarship. Some of these are institutional requirements, and I choose to tackle them immediately rather than update them all at once at the end of the year or before an important point in my career. Some of the items on the checklist are for promotional purposes, and vary depending on the accomplishment and who I think might be interested. Routinizing the documentation and promotion of my scholarship makes the process a little less of a chore, and ensures that I don’t accidentally forget something important.

What follows is a checklist, not meant to be exhaustive, of places to document and promote one’s scholarship. I have grouped the various options into categories that make sense to me, and included possible channels or venues that may be appropriate. I certainly don’t do all of these things every time I give a conference presentation or publish an article, although some of the items on the list are less optional than others. The items on the checklist are intended for traditional article or book publications, but can be adapted for presentations, workshops, grants awarded, or other achievements.

_________________________________________________________________________
1. Dossiers and curriculum vitae (cv)

  • Academic cv
  • Annual report or performance review (working copy)
  • Reappointment / tenure / promotion dossier (working copy)
  • Canadian Common cv

2. Repositories:

Make sure to check with your co-authors and author-publisher agreements before depositing a publication or presentation in an open access repository.

  • Subject repository (E-LiS)
  • Institutional repository

3. Professional Networking Websites:

4. Citation Managers:

5. Communications & Social Media:

Create a short URL (using Bit.ly or similar) to track clicks and use the altmetric bookmarklet to track social media engagement.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+

Contact your communications officer at the institution or department level to share the news. They may be able to help you promote your work.

_________________________________________________________________________

Having your article published is a cause for celebration! Taking an hour to go through a checklist can be a rewarding way to acknowledge it. For me, it is an enjoyable ritual to update my cv and let my colleagues know. What’s the first thing you do after getting published? What would you add to the post-publication checklist?

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 appropriation of evidence based terminology by vendors

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by Denise Koufogiannakis
University of Alberta Libraries

Over the past few years, I’ve noticed an increasing number of products being marketed to librarians as “evidence based” tools for improving our decision making. Vendors seem to be hooking onto the growth and acceptance of evidence based practice within librarianship and are marketing their products as such. They are wanting to appeal to those who see value in data as a driver for decision making.

I recently looked into this more formally (see my EBLIP8 presentation from July of this year) and found two different types of products being promoted as “evidence based”:

1. Data gathering tools for collections analysis – these products are aimed at both academic and public librarians, but there are different products for each. For public libraries, the products focus on information such as circulation and demographic data to aid with management of the collection and new acquisitions. Similar products being targeted to academic libraries focus on collections usage statistics for the purposes of making cancellation decisions, weeding, and showing return on investment. Examples include CollectionHQ for public libraries and Intota Assessment for academic libraries.

2. Evidence Based Acquisition approaches – aimed at academic librarians, “evidence based acquisition” (sometimes called usage-based acquisition) is a relatively new option being presented by publishers, similar to patron-driven or demand-driven approaches. In this model, a group of titles from a publisher (such as all the titles in a particular subject area) are enabled upon commitment from the library to spend an agreed upon amount of money. Following the agreed upon time period, the library chooses the titles they wish to keep, based upon usage of those titles (for more detail see the overview included in the NISO Recommended Practice for Demand Driven Acquisition of Monographs). Examples of this approach can be found with many of the major academic publishers including Elsevier, Cambridge, and SAGE.

The question I ask myself is whether these products are really evidence based? Can they deliver what they promise when they say that they will improve collection management, make librarians’ jobs easier, help with decision making, save time, and provide dependable, high quality service? I guess it is the evidence based, critical side of me that is doubtful.

EBLIP is a process that asks us to consider the whole of the evidence when making a decision. To try and determine what the best evidence is. To try and see a complete picture by bringing together different evidence sources when making a decision. EBLIP is an approach to practice that is considered and reflective. Conversely, these products are meant to convince us that because they are called evidence based they will magically take care of all this hard work for us!

None of this is to say that the products are bad. In fact, they seem to offer potentially useful ways of drawing together data for collections and acquisitions librarians to use, or a model for acquisition that may actually prove to be a good one for many libraries. In short, what I see in these products are individual pieces of evidence that may be useful to aid with decisions, but certainly will not be a complete answer.

What we should all consider is the appropriation of evidence based terminology. This appropriation probably means that the EBLIP movement has become sufficiently recognized as integral to librarianship, to the point that its terminology is now selling vendors’ products to librarians, using the discourse of the movement. Referring to a product as evidence based lends credibility to it. If accepted as evidence based, the product’s profile is raised in comparison to other products, which may then be regarded as not being evidence based, even though they may certainly be just as evidence based as the products being marketed as such. This use of the term has been too easily allowed to be applied without question.

EBLIP as a way of approaching practice is far more complex than what these products can offer. If they hold some piece of information that helps you with the process, great! But don’t think your job ends there. Just like all products, the types of products I’ve described above need to be assessed and tested. To state the obvious, do not rely on the evidence based terminology used by the vendor. If it does something that makes your work easier, then by all means use it. But no product will be a magic solution. Above all, let’s test these these products and determine how evidence based they actually are. How much will they help us advance the goals and mission of our Library? Let’s make sure they live up to what they say they offer, and place whatever they do offer in the larger context of overall evidence based decision making within collections.

Let’s not rely on vendors to tell us what is evidence based – let’s figure it out ourselves. We need to do more testing and critically examine all these products, document and share what we learn with one another. Here are a couple of examples that may help you with your own examination:
• Buying by the bucket: A comparative study of e-book acquisitions strategies.
• Evidence based acquisitions: Does the evidence support this hybrid model?

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.

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.

Preparing for a Study/Research/Sabbatical Leave

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by Marjorie Mitchell
Librarian, Learning and Research Services
UBC Okanagan Library

Ah, sabbatical. The term can conjure up many images to many people. Maybe yours is a vision of a quiet office at home with the whole day ahead to read some scholarly articles, wrestle with the mound of data you’ve been meaning to get to for months, and, perhaps, to write. Maybe you have plans to travel and present at a number of conferences. Maybe you want to spend some quality time with your collaborator and put the finishing touches on a project you’ve worked on for the better part of the past two years. Whatever your ideal there is a certain amount of planning that needs to take place before it can happen.

I am on the cusp of my leave. At my institution, the University of British Columbia, it is called Study Leave and it “permits a member of faculty to pursue study or research, of benefit to the individual and the University…” (UBC/UBCFA, 2014). Planning has taken most of a year and had some unexpected twists and turns. I outline here some of the steps I took and hope it assists others planning their leaves. Different people will have different requirements and different goals. This only reflects my experience.

My first step to securing leave was a conversation with my supervisor. This discussion had the dual purpose of notifying my supervisor I was thinking seriously about this request, but also of testing the waters with them. Would they be supportive of my request? Was this a good time, institutionally, for me to take leave, or could we negotiate a time that would be better? Was the topic I wanted to investigate one that not only interested me but one that would have benefit to the University when I returned? This wasn’t the only conversation, but it started the process in a very systematic way. It also started to identify the long (much, much longer) list of questions I would work through over the year.

Planning covered the logistical requirements of being away from not only the workplace, but also leaving the country for a year, as well as beginning to develop the intended intellectual content of the leave (the real work of the leave). There were a few areas where these meld together, but, for the most part they occupied different streams of planning.

Many people work at institutions where librarians have a long and established history of taking sabbatical or study leaves, and, because of this, the procedure is, if not clearer and simpler, then at least documented and standardized. My institution is 10 years old, and I am only the second librarian to take a leave, and the first librarian to take a 12 month leave in a completely different location. Because of this institutional youthfulness, it took effort to find the required forms, to determine whether I was completing them thoroughly enough, to track down the written confirmation of my leave (verbal confirmation arrived quite speedily), and to gather all the information I needed for the academic visitor visa application.

On the intellectual content side of this equation my topic was clear to me right from the start: research data management. Here in Canada, libraries have been working on research data management supports for faculty and the intensity of the conversations on this topic have only been increasing. Libraries in the UK have been supporting their researchers systematically for some time because a number of their grant funding bodies have made research data management a condition to be met by researchers receiving funding. So not only did I have a topic (Research Data Management), but also a location (the UK).

In preparation to delve more deeply into this I took two steps that laid a solid groundwork for my leave. The first was to attend the Canadian Association of Research Libraries Librarians’ Research Institute in late June. The Institute gathers 28 participants and five mentors for a focused and intense look at doing the work of research from developing a research problem through methods, theory, data, writing and, finally, dissemination. I now have a set of great tools along with a supportive group of peers as I head into my leave. The second step I took was to contact librarians at my destination who have already been researching aspects of my topic to arrange for one-on-one meetings with them. All the people I approached responded positively and I am looking forward to some interesting and informed conversations after I get to the UK.

The kernels of wisdom I hope you take away are to start planning early, be persistent and patient in equal measures, and develop a network of people outside of your workplace to sustain your momentum. I’m looking forward to a wonderful research adventure this year.

References

University of British Columbia & The Faculty Association of the University of British Columbia. (2014). Collective agreement between the University of British Columbia and the Faculty Association of the University of British Columbia, July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2014. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia.

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.

Writing for Scholarly Publication: How I Learned to Relax and Accept the “Singular They”

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by David Fox
Librarian Emeritus, University of Saskatchewan

I’m old-fashioned. I was taught that pronouns and their antecedents should agree. Sentences like “James Keelaghan updated their Facebook status” drive me crazy. And so, until recently, I disdained the practice in the popular media and everyday speech of using the pronoun “they” (and its variants: their, them, themselves), to refer to a single individual, wherever that person’s sex is indeterminate. As an editor at Partnership, I assiduously stamped out any and all instances of this usage in the belief that it is not appropriate in academic writing. However, lately I’ve come to accept that use of the “singular they”, as it’s known in the grammatical literature, is okay in certain circumstances – mostly when there’s no other better option.

This year, Sweden officially adopted the pronoun “hen” as an alternative to “han” (he) or “hon” (she) for use in contexts where a person’s gender is unknown or immaterial (Sweden…). Unfortunately, there is no gender-neutral third person singular pronoun in English. Recognition of the need for such a pronoun is nothing new. Over the years, a multitude of alternative pronouns have been suggested (Gender…), but none have received widespread acceptance.

To our grandparents’ generation, the accepted generic singular pronoun was “he”. Also in our grandparents’ day, married women were often referred to by their husband’s name, e.g., Mrs. Edward Humdihoodle. Today both of these practices seem quaint and sexist – the feminist movement has rendered them obsolete. Adding to the pressure for a gender-neutral pronoun is the tricky question of how to refer to persons undergoing gender transition. Such individuals would likely appreciate the availability of a gender-neutral pronoun.

So what is the alternative to using “he” as the default third person singular pronoun? Using “he or she” is awkward. Some have suggested alternating between “he” and “she”. For librarianship, nursing, and other occupations where the large majority of practitioners are female, the argument could be made that, on purely statistical grounds, the default singular pronoun should be “she”. None of these solutions seems ideal. Consider also the following sentences where neither “his” nor “her” is appropriate:

I support the right of every mother or father to educate her children as she desires.

Is it your brother or your sister who can hold his breath for four minutes?
(adapted from Pinker 257)

This brings us to consideration of the singular they. Christine Neilson, in her February 2015 Brain-Work post, recommended Steven Pinker’s book: The Sense of Style: the Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century. It’s not the sort of book you can sit down and read from cover to cover, but it contains much common sense advice for the modern writer. Pinker challenges traditional thinking and practice on a number of grammatical issues, always with thoroughly reasoned and frequently witty arguments. Pinker points out that the singular they has a long history and was used by Shakespeare, Austen, Chaucer, the King James Bible, Swift, Byron, Thackery, Wharton, Shaw, and Auden (258).

The singular they seems most natural when used with non-specific antecedents such as “no ____”, “any ____”, someone, “anyone”, “everyone”, etc. Pinker gives an example from a 2013 press release by U.S. President Obama: “No American should ever live under a cloud of suspicion just because of what they look like” (255).

A singular they/their would also resolve the gender conflict in the sentences quoted above:

I support the right of every mother or father to educate their children as they desire.

Is it your brother or your sister who can hold their breath for four minutes?

Achieving Pronoun/Antecedent Agreement
If you know the subject’s gender, then use the appropriate pronoun. Write “The bride addressed her wedding party” rather than “The bride addressed their wedding party.”

If you can make the pronoun and its antecedent agree by making the antecedent plural, without significantly altering the meaning of the sentence, then do so:

While the chief librarian advocates for the library, they can also often see more clearly, and with less bias, the larger university picture.

would become:

While chief librarians advocate for the library, they can also often see more clearly, and with less bias, the larger university picture.

If all else fails, it’s acceptable to use a singular they now and then, but don’t overdo it. While not ideal, until the English equivalent of “hen” emerges, I suspect that use of the singular they will become increasingly widespread and may eventually become more common in academic writing. Pinker says, “The main danger in using these forms [of the singular they] is that a more-grammatical-than-thou reader may falsely accuse you of making an error. If they do, tell them that Jane Austen and I think it’s fine” (261).

Works Cited
Pinker, Steven. The Sense of Style: the Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century. New York: Viking, 2014. Print.

“Gender-specific and gender-neutral pronouns.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-specific_and_gender-neutral_pronouns

“Sweden adds gender-neutral pronoun to dictionary.” Theguardian 24 March 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/24/sweden-adds-gender-neutral-pronoun-to-dictionary

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.

Assessment and evidence based library and information practice

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by Lorie Kloda
Assessment Librarian, McGill University

I have held the position of Assessment Librarian for almost three years, and been involved in the evidence-based library and information practice (EBLIP) movement for over a decade. Since taking on this position, I have been trying to make sense of EBLIP in my job – trying to understand how these two concepts complement each other, overlap, or even contradict one another.

In a 2006 article, “EBL and Library Assessment: Two Solitudes?” Pam Ryan, then the Assessment Librarian at the University of Alberta, asked the question regarding assessment and EBLIP, “Are these separate movements within librarianship forming theoretical bridges? Is some sort of merger, fusion, or takeover in the future?” It’s almost 10 years later, and I think this question still remains unanswered. I think that part of the answer lies in the way in which assessment and EBLIP relate to one another, not just on a theoretical level, but on a practical level.

In my work, I see assessment as having two (not mutually exclusive) goals: one, to inform decision-making for quality improvement to anticipate and meet users’ needs, and two, to demonstrate impact or value. There are, however, some occasions (OK, there are a lot of occasions) when one cannot conduct assessment. Hurdles to assessment include a lack of time, data, resource, experience, and skills. In cases where one cannot conduct assessment, whatever the reason, one can make use of evidence: credible, transferable findings from published research, to inform decision making.

One of the roles of an assessment librarian, or really, any librarian working in assessment and evaluation, is to foster a culture of assessment in the organization in which they work. According to Lakos and Phipps,

“A culture of assessment is an organizational environment in which decisions are based on facts, research, and analysis, and where services are planned and delivered in ways that maximize positive outcomes for customers and stakeholders.”

I understand the above quote to mean that librarians need research, analysis of local data, and facts in order to plan and make decisions to best serve library users. A culture of assessment, then, is also one that is evidence-based. I find this idea encouraging and I plan to spend some time thinking more about how the steps in EBLIP and assessment overlap. While I think the realm of library and information practice is still far from a takeover or merger when it comes to assessment and EBLIP, I think the two will continue to mingle and hopefully foster a culture which leads to increasingly improved services.

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.

MOOCs as Professional Development

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by Kathleen Reed
Assessment and Data Librarian, Vancouver Island University

With bright sun and shorts weather arriving on the BC coast, my thoughts have turned to summer plans. With fall and winter terms being way too hectic to put much sustained attention to professional development (PD), spring and summer is the time to take a few days and learn new skills.

Aside from the conference circuit and catching up on recent publications, one of my favourite ways to spend PD time is doing massive open online courses (MOOCs). I love MOOCs because 1) they allow me to learn about a wide range of topics, 2) they’re free, and 3) they’re low commitment – if I don’t like the course I just drop it and find another, or only take the part of the course I’m interested in.

For this blog entry, I thought I’d review some free courses relevant to librarians engaged in evidence-based practice.

I Heart Stats: Learning to Love Statistics
edX (Notre Dame)

I’ve searched far and wide for a stats course that doesn’t scare the hell out of me, and this one is it. It’s a very gentle introduction (or refresher) to basic statistical concepts: inferential stats, chi squares, T-tests, ANOVA, regression, and correlation. If any of those words strike fear into your heart, this is the course for you! Taught by a sociology prof, the emphasis is on helping non-math majors get comfortable with basic stats. The only prior knowledge required is how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. This was the first course I ever took where I thought “wow, stats can be fun!”

Social Psychology
Coursera (Wesleyan University)

A psychology course might seem an odd choice for librarian PD at first, but I found this one particularly useful to understand why people do what they do, which has implications for everything from library space design to designing effective assessment activities. Taught by Dr. Scott Plous, this is an engaging introduction to social psych.

Project Management: The Basics for Success
Coursera (University of California, Irvine)

Project management skills are seriously helpful in a library environment. If you’ve never taken a course in project management, consider this one. It’s free and available on-demand (i.e. no start/end dates, no deadlines).

Introduction to Marketing
Coursera (Wharton School of Business, U. of Pennsylvania)

Once you’ve got evidence of good stuff happening in your library, the next step is to communicate your awesomeness to your stakeholders. Good marketing skills really help. Wharton is known for their marketing expertise, so why not learn from the best? This course started June 1.

Psychological First Aid
Coursera (John Hopkins)

Lots of people have training in giving First Aid for physical injuries, but what about people who need immediate psychological assistance? This course doesn’t qualify you as a psychological first responder, but it does give an introduction to the subject.

The five courses above are ones I see a direct, useful connection to my job as an Assessment Librarian. There are plenty of MOOCs out there for people who want to learn about a whole variety of subjects. If you’re looking for a PD opportunity this summer, why not check out a MOOC? My favourite MOOC sites are Coursera, FutureLearn, and edX.

Have you found a great MOOC? Have you tried MOOCs before? What do you do for PD? Please share in the comments below.

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: Limiting Label

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by Selinda Berg
Schulich School of Medicine – Windsor Program
Leddy Library, University of Windsor

This is a complementary post to Kristin Hoffmann’s post, Librarians as Practitioner-Researchers: Constructive Concept. Kristin and I are both deeply interested in the development of research culture in academic libraries, and together we have discussed the possibilities of framing academic librarians as practitioner-researchers. We have taken diverging approaches in our posts, but we have many points of convergence as well.

I would like to suggest that the term “practitioner-researcher” has the potential to also be a limiting label. I agree with much of Kristin’s argument: We are both researchers and practitioners and we want to embrace the distinctive knowledge about research and practice that can only come from our unique vantage point. My concern is that this label will not only inform our identity as researchers, but also dictate our image as researchers. It is not only about the way we view ourselves from the inside, but also how we are viewed from the outside. Ultimately, naming is a not only a personal issue, but also a political one.

One of the primary texts on the practitioner-researcher identity is Peter Jarvis’s The Practitioner-Researcher published in 1999. There are multiple examples in Jarvis’s book where the research of professionals and practitioners is presented as second class. One such example is:

[Practitioners] often are not recognized a researchers. They certainly do not have the traditional image of the researcher, and they may not always be in a position to conduct their research in a most satisfactory way, nor do they necessarily meet the stringent demands of some members of the traditional research community. Nevertheless this does not mean that they should not be viewed as practitioner-researchers, because that is what they are. (Jarvis, 1999, p.9)

This description of practitioner research as low quality and sub-standard is disheartening, but not necessarily rare. The library community of researchers to which I belong strives to produce high quality and valuable research. (At the same time, we recognize that there is always lots to learn and ways to grow as a researcher). No researcher wants their output to be viewed as unsatisfactory or low quality, but this may be the reality of how the practitioner-researcher’s work is perceived. It has been suggested that we need to reclaim and redefine the term practitioner-researcher and make it into what we desire. It is likely, however, that we can only reclaim and redefine this term for ourselves. The ways those on the “outside” view the practitioner-researcher will likely be quite different, and I fear that their perceptions will be more aligned with Jarvis than what we desire. This image of practitioner-researcher is limiting and will continue to limit where we, as librarians, are able to take our research.

I would like to provide one concrete example of how this inaccurate view of our research could be limiting—funding. I have heard on three occasions about academic librarians applying for SSHRC[1] grants, and being told (either from within the formal feedback process or from outside of the formal process) that academic librarians should not be applying for these grants, because these grants are “not for them, but for faculty researchers.” I do understand the magnitude and significance of the SSHRC grant. However, if it is not our research itself, but rather our image or even identity, that is precluding us from such opportunities, I see this as deeply problematic. In the future more and more librarians will have the credentials, supports, and research programs that meet SSHRC’s criteria: They should not be limited by their image. While a SSHRC grant may not be of interest to all, these same kinds of limitations may play out in the type of journals we publish in; the conferences we are comfortable at; the institutional funding we have access to; and our overall position in the research community.

I recognize the importance of the interplay between our professional work and our research; yet I also believe that before we embrace the term ‘practitioner-researcher,’ there must be acknowledgement and recognition that labels and naming are not only personal issues, they are also political issues.

Jarvis, P. (1999). The practitioner-researcher: Developing theory from practice. Josey-Bass: San Francisco.
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1. SSHRC: Social Science and Humanities Research Council is Canada’s federal research funding agency that promotes and supports postsecondary-based research and training in the humanities and social sciences.

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.