Tag Archives: research

Fish, Meet Water: The Importance of Context in Research Design and Writing

Posted on by

by Frank Winter, Librarian Emeritus
University Library, University of Saskatchewan

Introduction
Issues of context are relatively under-examined in discussions of the research process but context is, I believe, critical to understanding and evaluating the results of research. In this sense the lack of context seems like a case of “Fish, meet water.” There are perhaps assumptions of personal and mutual understanding on all levels that might not survive a more critical examination.

There have been, however, a few direct discussions. One that I found particularly helpful is contained in the Journal of Organizational Behavior. A 2001 editorial specifically flagged the importance of addressing issues of context that authors, in the opinion of the editors, often left unaddressed or inadequately addressed in articles. They provided this helpful overview:

The term ‘context’ comes from a Latin root meaning ‘to knit together’ or ‘to make a connection.’ Contextualizing entails linking observations to a set of relevant facts, events, or points of view that make possible research and theory that form part of a larger whole. Contextualization can occur in many stages of the research process, from question formulation, site selection, and measurement to data analysis, interpretation, and reporting.

They continue by noting that, “The need to contextualize is reinforced by the emergence of a world- wide community of organizational scholars adding ever-greater diversity in settings as well as perspectives.” (Rousseau and Fried, 2001, p.1) Unvoiced, shared understandings were no longer possible in such a widespread community. The same is true, I suggest, in librarianship.

When I read the literature of librarianship or think about my own research projects, I often have to remind myself to be explicitly mindful of context. Below, I briefly explore two aspects of context: how the researcher can think about the larger context of the design of the research question; and how the researcher can reflect issues of context in the report of the research.

Considerations in Research Design
“On or about December 1910, human character changed,” Virginia Wolff famously wrote (1924). She was writing about the emergence of the modernist movement in English literature but her formulation of “on or about… “has spawned a host of imitators. I contend the world of research libraries changed radically on or about January 2000. That was the date that many librarians realized that there was now a critical mass of full-text high quality digital scholarly journal literature easily accessible through various databases or via the open Web. This change meant that the workflows of scholars at all levels could now bypass the library, a process explored in detail by experts such as Lorcan Dempsey. The result of this is what I have described elsewhere as the Gone-Away World (Winter, 2014). When reading scholarly research about university libraries and librarians, I always assess whether the research reflects this new world. And of course, when reading research conducted prior to 2000, I have to be alert to the different context in which that research was conducted.

Issues of context at this level of research design involve consideration of innumerable historical, socio-economic, technological, legal, institutional, and other environmental factors that might affect the design. And implicitly underlying all of these factors is that of time. Widely used texts on research design such as Creswell’s Research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (2014) do not address the issue of context in these terms and provide little guidance on what should be included and what should be excluded.

Perhaps Flyvbjerg’s concise advice is as much as can be said: “The drawing of boundaries for the individual unit of study defines what gets to count as case as well as what becomes context to the case” (2011, p. 301).  Where the boundary is drawn is the responsibility of the researcher and should reflect expertise and familiarity with the field and the research method. At this stage, having a defined program of research will be very helpful in deciding what is relevant to context (Winter, 2015).

Considerations in Research Reporting
“Don’t try to write everything you know,” was helpful advice given to me by a colleague as I was struggling with a dissertation-length piece of writing. This advice is even more pertinent for shorter pieces of writing such as scholarly articles. Besides the word limits imposed by the journal itself there is the common sense need to shape a research report such that it is both coherent as well as interesting for its intended audience. Research reports that pack too much into their text are confused and confusing and, ultimately, irritating. How, then, can relevant issues of context be reflected in the text?

In the same issue of the Journal of Organizational Behavior cited above, one of their peer reviewers critiques one of the articles using the perspective advocated by the editors. He notes that,

“understanding both substantive and methodological context permits the reader to put the entire research report in context. Both forms of context do this when they provide information relevant to the theoretical approach being used or to the intersection between this theory and the chosen method. Context for its own sake is to be avoided as non-sequitur” (Johns, p. 32).

Reflecting a bit on this guidance, perhaps issues of context can be directly reflected in the literature review, methods, and limitations sections of an article as well, perhaps, indirectly in the introduction. Johns provides many different suggestions. They do not need to be elaborated but there should be some sense that the researcher is aware of the larger environment.

Conclusion
The reader’s understanding of the context of the research is essential to an informed reception of the author’s work. Attention paid to issues of context at the design and the reporting stages will address this need.

References
Creswell, J.W. (2014). Research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. 4th ed. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2014.

Flyvbjerg, B. (2011). Case study. In N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln, (Eds.), SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research. (4th ed., pp. 301 – 316). Thousand Oaks: SAGE.

Johns, G. (2001). In praise of context. Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Feb., 2001), pp. 31-42. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3649605.

Rousseau, D. M. and Fried, Y.  (2001). Location, location, location: Contextualizing organizational research. Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Feb., 2001), pp. 1-13. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3649603.

Winter, F. (2014). Traditionalists, progressives and the Gone-Away World.” Retrieved from http://words.usask.ca/ceblipblog/2014/10/14/traditionalists-progressives-and-the-gone-away-world/.

Winter, F. (2015). Forest, trees, and underbrush: Becoming the arborist of your own research. Retrieved from http://words.usask.ca/ceblipblog/2015/07/28/forest-trees-and-underbrush-becoming-the-arborist-of-your-own-research/.

Wolff, Virginia. (1924). Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown. London: Hogarth Press.

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.

Is there value in absent results?

Posted on by

by Angie Gerrard
Murray Library, University of Saskatchewan

There is a movement in the academic literature regarding the value of publishing negative research results. While the most accepted research tends to favour positive results, there is a growing call for a more holistic picture of the realities of research. This just makes sense. As a researcher and practitioner, I want to know what worked, for whom, in what context, but I also want to know what did not work, why it did not work, and what lessons can be drawn from that. There is obvious value in learning from other people’s so-called ‘failures’.

But what about those research findings that never see the light of day because they are not truly results, but rather the first few steps of the research process that simply failed? It is one thing to complete a research project and share the negative results but quite another when the research is stalled and there is nothing to share. Is there value in reporting a research experience that produced nothing in the most tangible sense?

This is my reality at the moment; a liminal state along the research journey. I am currently on sabbatical and part of my research program is dedicated to information literacy instruction; more specifically, trying to better understand faculty’s perceptions and practices of information literacy. My hypothesis is that while faculty are not likely consciously adopting information literacy in the curriculum, they are in fact incorporating many of the underlying principles encompassed within information literacy. Therefore, if librarians want to continue to play a key teaching and learning role on campus, we need to better understand what is being taught in the classroom. To begin to understand this, I proposed getting faculty together in focus groups to discuss how they perceive their undergraduate students’ abilities to access, use, and evaluate information and how, if at all, they teach these constructs and if so, is this is done in any scaffolded manner throughout the curriculum.

Thus began the design of my research project. A grant application was written and was successfully granted (yikes, this was getting real). A literature review was conducted and many, many articles were read and annotated. Focus group methodology was studied and a focus group question guide developed. Ethics documentation was written. A research assistant was hired. Ethics documentation was re-written and re-submitted. Focus group dates were set and a moderator was booked. Contact information was gathered for more than 500 faculty. Many, many Excel spreadsheets were developed. Six focus groups were created using stratified data from potential participants. Email protocols and procedures were written and finally, drum roll please, the initial call for participants was emailed in early March with a deadline to respond by mid-month.

And then I waited.

Crickets.

And then I “failed”.

Of the 180 potential randomized participants contacted, two people agreed to sit on our focus groups; a response rate too embarrassingly low to even report. In all reality, we received six total responses: two who agreed to participate (bless their hearts), one said thank-you but count me out, two reporting the time of year wasn’t good for them, and another reporting that he did not meet the eligibility requirements but offered some interesting input. We had planned for six focus groups, each with five to eight participants, where three groups were stratified by subject disciplines and the other three represented mixed disciplines. In the end, we had a total of two willing participants; not near enough for one focus group, let alone six.

So this a snapshot at where I am at the moment, with the most important part of my research project missing. I have carefully planned and budgeted for the next steps of my project, i.e., data collection, data analysis, dissemination and knowledge translation, but none of this can go forward. I have nothing if I have no data.

When I reflect back on all the work and time invested in this project to date, did I actually fail? Is there value in nothing? The jury is still out of this. While this process has taught me much about undertaking a large research project (or at least the beginning stages of such a project) and the joys of qualitative research involving human participants, this is not the kind of value you can take to the bank or in my case, represent in a promotional case file.

Reporting positive results remains king. It has rightfully earned its place at the head chair at the big table. Slowly but surely, negative results are now being invited to take a seat at this table. Is there a place for absent results? Well, for the time being, these research experiences may be best relegated to the kids’ table.

On a more positive note; I have drowned my sorrows and moved on to Plan B. With the sabbatical clock ticking, I have simplified both my recruitment approach and focus group compositions and plan to hold the discussions at a less busy time. Fingers crossed there will have tangible and valuable data to share.

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.

It’s a horse, of course! Expanding Your Research Output by Curating an Exhibition

Posted on by

by Jill Crawley-Low
Science Library, University of Saskatchewan

While working in University Archives & Special Collections at the University of Saskatchewan and being exposed daily to a wealth of published and unpublished materials from diverse subject areas, I felt challenged to volunteer to curate a display for the library’s exhibition program. At the University of Saskatchewan, curation is a form of artistic research which is reportable on faculty CVs. This was an opportunity to try out a new form of research while combining a professional interest in library collections with my personal passion for horses. The result was an exhibit called It’s a horse, of course! celebrating the enduring bond between humans and horses through the collections of the University Library shown from August – October, 2015.

Academic libraries typically use exhibitions and displays to showcase their collections to the campus community and outreach to the larger community. At the U of S, the exhibition program serves this purpose and also creates opportunities for librarians to link their professional practice to the subject of an exhibit. To support this form of research on behalf of librarians, the University Library has a purpose-built exhibition space in a high traffic area in a busy branch. Materials in a variety of formats are selected from general and archival collections. While displays of print materials are fleeting, published supporting materials such as exhibition catalogues and digital projects provide a long-term record. The Exhibitions Committee is chaired by the Special Collections Librarian and technical support for guest curators is provided by employees from the University Archives & Special Collections unit. The Committee’s terms of reference include periodic calls of interest to potential guest curators to participate in the exhibits calendar.

In curating exhibits, a useful rule of thumb is “less is often more.” A narrow topic with carefully selected items allows a focussed story to unfold, which may appeal to a wider audience than a broader topic. The collection itself determines the scope of the exhibit unless additional materials are borrowed and displayed. Although the curator determines the overarching theme of the exhibit, it is in the process of carefully selecting items that context and linkages among items appear and begin to shape the storyline. Being open to these possibilities increases the creativity and effectiveness of the exhibit.

At some point during the curation process I discovered that parts of the exhibit were evolving spontaneously; this may be analogous to collecting data using other research methodologies and following where the data lead. Two display cases organized themselves, one with materials about the heavy horse industry in Saskatchewan and the second to showcase horse breeds in general.

It is well known on campus that the university has several animal herds on a variety of farm sites for research and teaching. In the past, heavy horses in particular routinely worked on the university campus farm. While browsing the archival fonds from the College of Agriculture for materials relating to heavy horses, I came across the story of a young stallion whose history eclipsed all other potential stories. The story of Bonnie Fyvie emerged through a series of letters written and exchanged by parties interested in reinvigorating the heavy horse industry in Saskatchewan. The correspondents included William Rutherford, the first dean of Agriculture; Walter Murray, the first president of the university; representatives of the Saskatchewan government and horse breeders in the province; and the American Clydesdale Association.

Bonnie Fyvie was a two-year old purchased with government funds from an established Scottish Clydesdale stud farm to reside at the U of S. He had the potential to create a herd of prize-winning Clydesdales at the U of S and to offer stud services to approved mares within the province. Disaster struck when Bonnie Fyvie developed a neurological condition called stringhalt that precluded all but limited breeding. Bonnie Fyvie’s story played out in letters that ranged from hopeful optimism to sadness and finally acceptance. Although he would not sire generations of Clydesdales in Saskatchewan, the university purchased a ready-made Clydesdale herd from an American businessman, and some of those horses went on to win prizes at agricultural fairs on behalf of the university and province.

The other case that organized itself focussed on the topic of horse breeding. Preserved in the pages of a personal diary from the collection, the story was told from the perspective of two Victorian adventurers. The author, Lady Anne Blunt, was an aristocrat who travelled with her husband, Wilfrid, four times to the Middle East to negotiate with Arabian horse breeders. This was an age when the world that was safe and acceptable for tourist travel was relatively small. It did not include the deserts of Arabia where the Blunts travelled to meet Bedouin tribesmen and sheiks who bred Arabian stock. The Blunts used their knowledge of horse confirmation and breeding to select only the finest specimens of the Arabian breed, which they shipped back to their stud farm in Sussex, England. Lady Anne’s careful recordkeeping and the preservation of her story in the published diary means that 90% of all purebred Arabians alive today trace their lineage back to the horses that the Blunts exported from Arabia to England. I found this to be a more personal and interesting depiction of a horse breed than a case full of images of breeds.

I would heartily recommend a stint as a guest curator in order to experience a new form of research and the creative and, often, unpredictable result. Curation as a form of artistic research is an occasion for librarians to apply their subject knowledge and professional practice to develop an exhibit that reflects and promotes the library’s varied collections. Developing an exhibit is an opportunity to unearth the “hidden” treasures in the collections and a way to educate audiences about the more practical functions of preservation and accessibility in libraries.

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

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

Posted on by

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

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

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

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


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

Digging Deeper: Decoding the Research Process

Posted on by

by Margy MacMillan
Mount Royal University Library

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am a Qualitative Researcher

Posted on by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on by

by Frank Winter, Librarian Emeritus
University of Saskatchewan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

References

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jumping into the Deep End: Reflections of a Librarian Practitioner-Researcher

Posted on by

by Charlene Sorensen
Services to Libraries, University of Saskatchewan

I am always curious as to how people find their way to librarianship. I myself didn’t plan on becoming a librarian. But suddenly after I completed my undergrad a friend was going to this thing called “library school” and I was intrigued. A couple of years later I decided to obtain my Library Technician diploma as a way to ease into library work and find out if I liked it. I worked as a library technician for three years and then decided it was time to get my MLIS. I can’t exactly remember why or how I made that decision but I knew it was the next step for me. I quit my job, moved away, and hoped to find work when I was done. I enjoyed library school – though I’m glad I chose a 12-month program – and did get a job right away. I worked some contracts and my first longer term job was as a serials cataloguer and I have thoroughly enjoyed where this fairly accidental career path has taken me.
CSlibrary_SanAntonio
San Antonio Public Library (Central) – San Antonio, Texas

I find that being a librarian permeates my life and defines me in many ways, even though I didn’t plan for this to happen. It affects what I read, some of my activities, who I spend time with, and many of my values and beliefs. Being a cataloguer also colours some of my day-to-day activities, probably in fairly stereotypical ways such as wondering why the KD isn’t beside the rest of the pasta in my grocery store – should they not be classified together?
CSlibrary_classification
Public library classification system – Albufeira, Portugal

When I came to the University of Saskatchewan, I was following this path of working with serials but I had now started along another track that I had never imagined – I was now a researcher. Even though I love being a librarian – and even find myself seeking out and taking pictures of libraries when I travel – I didn’t know much about librarians as researchers until recently. When I accepted a position at the UofS, I suddenly had standards for tenure to fulfill and not a lot of time to fulfill them. It really was a matter of jumping into the deep end and discovering that I COULD swim.
CSlibrary_Nice
Bibliothèque Louis Nucéra – Nice, France

I have, however, been thinking more about what it means to be a practitioner-researcher librarian. I have an on and off relationship with this definition of myself and feel the need to embrace it more fully. Now that some time has passed, I’m hoping I can think more clearly about what I would like to do in this area of my work, and less about what I need to do to get tenure. I have the urge to wade more carefully into these waters and discover what’s there. And on a lighter note, I’m thinking about how this aspect of my career could/should be affecting my life like “librarian” and “cataloguer” already do.

And so I have questions for you, dear reader. How comfortable are you with defining yourself as a researcher? Do you see this aspect of your career come out in your personal life? Do we yet have stereotypical behaviours for librarian researchers, much like we have for other librarian roles?
CSlibrary_Tavira
Biblioteca Municipal Álvaro de Campos – Tavira, Portugal

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

Posted on by

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.