Karen M. Drabenstott
Associate Professor
School of Information
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1092 USA
Voice: (734) 763-3581
Fax: (734) 764-2475
karen.drabenstott@umich.edu
Many thanks to Paul Gherman for introducing and leading our discussion on "Digital ILL, Why Give It Away, When They Can Buy It?" As technology continues its march across our desktops and thresholds, we truly need to address the issues Paul and CRISTAL-ED members raised about interlibrary loan. Thanks again to Paul for suggesting this topic and doing his best to elicit comments and ideas.
Let's now turn to our new topic, "Library Research: Wasting Time Productively?" When this topic emerged in open topics discussions, it had a life of its own in that it generated several reactions at the time. How pleased I was when both Paul Wiener and Uwe Jochum volunteered to lead the discussion. (Paul will tell you the reason why I have a special interest in this topic and have been waiting for sometime for its appearance on CRISTAL-ED.)
Let me introduce our two guest editors, Paul Wiener and Uwe Jochum.
Paul Wiener has been a librarian at SUNY, Stony Brook, since August 1979. His primary roles at Stony Brook are bibliographer of Anglo-American literature, head of gift books, head of microforms services, creator and head of audiovisual/video collections and services, and writer/designer/organizer of various public relations materials and events. Over the years, Paul has published many articles on collection development and media services, hundreds of film and book reviews, book chapters, letters, and too many ephemeral online messages to count. He created and ran a library film series for six years; worked the reference desk; organized used book sales; acquired and sold large film collections; participated in the Oxford (England) librarianship program and American Film Institute workshop (Hollywood, California); attended conferences and film festivals; managed recreational reading, newspaper, and poetry collections; designed Web pages; and prepared biblio-, film- and webliographies. He is a crack Web researcher. It's hard to believe he became computer literate only four years ago. His external interests are photography, film and literature, travel, music, natural and cultural history.
Uwe Jochum studied German literature and political science at the University of Heidelberg and received his Ph.D. from the University of Duesseldorf (north of Cologne). He began his career as an academic librarian at the University Library of Heidelberg and at the Fachhochschule fuer Bibliotheks- und Informationswesen at Cologne. Since 1989 he has worked as a subject specialist at the library of the University of Konstanz (Lake Constance, in the very south of Germany) where he is responsible for German and English literature and language and for pedagogy as well. Uwe is deeply interested in library history and theory and has written books and articles on these subjects (but, unfortunately, for our English speakers and readers, all in German).
Please welcome our guest editors who are coordinating their efforts despite being separated by an ocean and half a continent.
Paul B. Wiener
Special Services Librarian
SUNY at Stony Brook
pwiener@ccmail.sunysb.edu
Prefatory Comment, by Paul Wiener:
The first article in the Procrastinator's Creed on my wall says "I believe that if anything is worth doing, it has been done already." This is how I often feel about most research in librarianship. Setting aide for a moment the complex, overwhelming issues of electronic information delivery -- and you may NOT wish to set them aside -- which have fundamentally changed the nature of library service and, I believe, will replace it, is there anything about library work that has NOT been researched -- studied, surveyed, speculated, theorized, described, imagined -- to death? Is there anything we still need to know, and more importantly, if we learn something new, will it help matters any? These are some of the issues we'll be talking about in the next few weeks.
It is a measure of list owner Karen Drabenstott's open mind and large heart that she has let me and my German colleague Uwe Jochum take this cynical foray into library research, for Ms. Drabenstott, as most of us know, recently won a prestigious award for her illustrious career of contributing to library research -- research, moreover, that I'm unfamiliar with. What would be a nicer surprise than that she join our discussion? It would give me no greater pleasure than to discover, from our CRISTAL-ED community, that I am unduly cynical, that much important work remains to be done, and that there are a number of specific research efforts that have made a big difference to our profession.
First Introduction, by Paul B. Wiener, Melville Library, SUNY at Stony Brook:
For many years a major criterion for promotion and tenure in libraries, as well as for upward job mobility, has been publication. Publication has usually been considered the equivalent of research done by teaching faculty. Librarians have excelled in publication - of bibliographies, web pages, surveys, reviews, prophecies, and accounts of organizational, technical and reference procedures that have worked or not worked. But are these publications research? It is a question few ask and fewer want answered.
Is librarianship a science? If it isn't, can one do research in it? What are the great works in the canon of library research? Are there research guidelines all librarians can agree upon, refereed journals where submitted "research" is carefully evaluated according to such guidelines, as there are in the sciences? What are examples of research that has led to major changes in library philosophy, practice or organization? Has the information and communications explosion, which has overwhelmed us with speed and data, exceeded the speed of useable publication and verification, especially in a field traditionally slow to change and committed in its bones to a conservative drive -- archival storage?
Changes in budgeting, staffing, task management and job performance issues can only heighten the pressure on academic librarians to publish research capable of withstanding review by their managers and tenure committees, in and out of the library, if they are to maintain their status and employment. The questions raised above need to be addressed so that academic librarians are not increasingly asked to do what may be impossible: produce research that is testable, demands attention and makes change the only alternative to irrelevance. It goes without saying that the same thing could be said of much research in the humanities and social sciences.
It is my contention that research in librarianship is no longer possible by the majority of academic librarians. (I take research to mean: establishing the facts of a select portion of reality, and subjecting one or more of these facts to known, controllable, measurable and verifiable forces for the purpose of uncovering new facts or new information about that reality that could change the way we manage it). I will argue that libraries can no longer respond practically or cost-effectively even to proven research findings about optimum operational design, for a variety of reasons. For example: information about information can no longer be shared or acted upon quickly enough to make such findings useful, due to the overriding power of bureaucratic funding, prioritizing, political forces and communication habits. The timing of grant application and approval can also throw wrenches into innovation. The commercial sector usually works faster, applies findings faster, and is not tied to the conventions that have developed out of our non-profit ethos.
Library behavioral studies (of patron, peer and supervisory interaction, performance evaluation, work flow, ergonomics), when focused on institutional change, not on moribund issues of burnout, morale, status, and the like, are almost never done by qualified specialists who are librarians, nor is most research and development in digital librarianship, perhaps the most active current arena. When advances are made, virtually no mechanisms exist for enforcing changes suggested by the findings of such studies. The most comprehensive and influential research on information, online activity, reading and learning, moreover, is done by non-library organizations - in government, business, academic think tanks -- whose funding, publishing and marketing practices either bury specialized library concerns, or make libraries wholly dependent -- financially and operationally -on their findings.
These issues should provoke a spirited discussion if a variety of library (and non-library) professionals address it from their various perspectives and experiences. I expect that some of you will disagree with my main premise, and that examples of high-quality published library research will surface and provide support for all sides of the argument.
Second Introduction, by Dr. Uwe Jochum, University of Konstanz, Germany:
Since the paradigm shift that began some 30 years ago alienated libraries from their former humanistic basis and led them to theorize themselves as information agencies, most of us think of the library as a kind of technical tool that manages information that is increasingly freed from its well-known print format. And most research that is done in the library field tries to convince us that that is the right way to go; supposedly it leads to a better reputation and secures funding for an institution that might otherwise become obsolete in the information age.
Social science-like library research provides us with an enormous amount of data, but it is questionable whether these data ever lead to better library management or to deeper insight into the functioning of the institution. And so it seems that most library research is done only because tenure track positions need a record of publication, though these publications might have value according to certain standards established in the sciences. But if we look back -- and we do so with a kind of nostalgia, it is true -- we find that library research has only for the last twenty or thirty years been confused with social science-like research. Before the paradigm shift, and even since that, there has been a constant stream of valuable historical research connecting libraries with their humanistic basis and with the humanistic component of the academic milieu. And from that point of view we suddenly see that some of the best and most interesting historical research has picked up the findings of library historians and transformed them into new research. I will give but one example:
In the 1950s Georg Leyh, at that time director of the University Library of Tuebingen, Germany, edited the "Handbuch der Bibliothekswissenschaft" (Handbook of Library Science). Volume III, part 1 is called "Geschichte der Bibliotheken "(History of Libraries), and in this volume there is an article by Carl Wendel on Greek and Roman libraries. This article was heavily used by the Italian scholar Luciano Canfora for his well-known book on "The Vanished Library" (London: Vintage, 1991). Of course this kind of research does not lead to immediate improvements in library management or funding. But is it worthless? I don't think so, and the reason is very simple.
Library research that connects the institution with the academic milieu solves the problem that the paradigm shift has provoked: if the library is but a technical tool, one needs a set of tools to close the gap between the academia and the library. The name for this set of tools is public relations. But this is a mere trick that never can do what needs to be done: present the library as an interesting reservoir for academic research, as a kind of natural resource that should be carefully used and not wasted. To do this, the library needs a staff capable doing this kind of research. That is the best public relations I can think of. Do we have this kind of research already? If you answer this question in the negative it doesn't mean that we shouldn't have this kind of research. What is, is always different from what should be.
We encourage all readers not only to comment and argue, but to cite specific library research you feel has been crucial to the development or future of our profession. Let the games begin!
Robert P. Holley
Director
Library and Information Science Program
106 Kresge Library
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI 48202
Voice: (313) 577-4021
Fax: (313) 577-7563
aa3805@wayne.edu
I disagree with the hypothesis that everything about traditional library work has been "researched -- studied, surveyed, speculated, theorized, described, imagined -- to death." I believe that much research remains to be done. The issue is perhaps that the major questions to be researched are beyond the reach of many librarians and library educators who pick more easily manageable projects that don't require years of work and lots of funding.
My specific example for this post is from cataloging, one of the most traditional areas of library service. New research is possible precisely because we now have the tools to look at how users access our finding tools. The availability of online catalog transaction logs gives us raw data on how users actually approach the catalog rather than how we believe that they do so.
I have long held the belief that our current cataloging systems -- the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, Library of Congress Subject Headings, the Dewey Decimal Classification, and the Library of Congress Classification to name only the most commonly used tools in North America -- are based upon intuition. The best minds thought about matters and came up with the systems. I don't intend this as a criticism because I'm not sure that there was any other way to complete the process.
At least theoretically, researchers can now invisibly see how users of all types approach our online finding tools from transaction logs. What do patrons use as search terms? Can we tell what they expect to find? How soon do they give up? How many items will they scroll through? Researchers are already looking at some of the issues, but much more research is needed if librarians are ever going to propose a radical restructuring of how they make materials available.
The research is complicated by the fact that prior library use including our bibliographic instruction has already contaminated our potential research subjects. While the analogy limps, I don't like Microsoft software because one of its basic conventions goes against a principle that I learned from my first office suite.
I may be repeating the cliche in different words that speaks to using new technology first to replicate what you know before using the technology to do what it can do best. The first automobiles looked like carriages. But to get from here to there is going to take a lot of research.
The hypothesis for this discussion has the air of another oft quoted statement from the 1890's in which the head of the patent office proclaimed that he would soon lose his job since there was nothing left to invent.
I'd like to support Robert Holley's view that library research still has many areas to cover. What, for example, do we really know about how individuals use the information provided by libraries and information services? What do we know about how users choose a channle for satisfying an information need? Do we really have a model which explains what people do when searching an index or catalogue?
I am convinced that, in the southern tip of Africa at least, we know precious little about our communities and how we as "information professionals" should be planning, developing, and running services which really begin to meet community needs in our complex society. Is the community in the U.S. so homogeneous, so well-researched, that these questions have been answered for that community? If so, please divert some of your research funding to Southern Africa because we can use it!
Ellen McGrath
Head of Cataloging
Charles B. Sears Law Library
State University of New York at Buffalo
Buffalo, New York 14260-1110
Voice: (716) 645-2254
Fax: (716) 645-3860
emcgrath@acsu.buffalo.edu
I have to agree with Professor Holley that it has not all been done in terms of library research. It's true, a lot has been published, but we don't live in a static world, so things change due to the influence of the changing environment upon them. And capturing these changes in our library research and writing is very important in my opinion. Not to mention the fact that such research and writing provides individual librarians with an opportunity to reflect upon their work, profession, etc., and to perhaps inspire others to do so as well.
I'm afraid I don't have answers to the more difficult questions of whether all of what librarians publish is "research" in the true sense and whether librarianship is a "science." But I will say that one of the things that makes our profession, and therefore our writing, accessible -- in my opinion -- is that it constantly tries to bridge the gap between theory and practice. My bias as a practitioner is obvious, but what I have just stated is one of the things I like most about being a librarian. I do a lot of specific tasks each day as a cataloger, but I can also step back and examine those tasks, put them in perspective, research, and write about them.
Robert P. Holley
Director
Library and Information Science Program
106 Kresge Library
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI 48202
Voice: (313) 577-4021
Fax: (313) 577-7563
aa3805@wayne.edu
As an addendum to my comments from yesterday, the questions may have been answered; but are the answers still correct? What is the life of correct answers in our field? I like being the graduate school representative for doctoral defenses in diverse areas. One of my usual questions for social science dissertations is to ask the candidates when they believe that the question should be asked again because conditions have changed.
In our own field, I believe that the generation of users who grew up with computers will use libraries very differently. We may have to research the same questions all over again at regular intervals because the old questions will have new answers.
Craig A. Summerhill
Systems Coordinator and Program Officer
Coalition for Networked Information
21 Dupont Circle, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036
craig@cni.org
Robert P. Holley wrote: "I disagree with the hypothesis that everything about traditional library work has been 'researched -- studied, surveyed, speculated, theorized, described, imagined -- to death.'"
I do too.
I find the argument is absurd, as many of you may have surmised. Some of you may recall I was one of the people who, as Ms. Drabenstott observed, gave the topic "a life of its own" during the open discussion period.
Although there are several observations Paul Wiener makes in his introduction to this thread with which I agree, I find that his reasoning is filled with circular logic and a lot of anecdotal evidence, and I definitely disagree with his conclusions. Part of the difference in our points of view probably result from a definition of the boundaries of librarianship. I tend to view those boundaries as expanding to include newer disciplines and technologies as well as employment opportunities for educated librarians in non-traditional environments, while I read into Mr. Wiener's writing a rather more narrow boundary and definition around what constitutes librarianship (e.g. "The most comprehensive and influential research on ... is done by non-library organizations ...").
However, rather than pick Mr. Wiener's introduction apart, I wanted to comment and expand upon something Mr. Holley wrote in response:
"I have long held the belief that our current cataloging systems -- the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, Library of Congress Subject Headings, the Dewey Decimal Classification, and the Library of Congress Classification to name only the most commonly used tools in North America -- are based upon intuition. The best minds thought about matters and came up with the systems."
I really think this is a valid observation, and lends itself well toward my overall philosophy on this topic.
Mr. Wiener expends a fair amount of energy and text in his introduction describing what can be fundamentally defined as "the scientific method":
"I take research to mean: establishing the facts of a select portion of reality, and subjecting one or more of these facts to known, controllable, measurable and verifiable forces for the purpose of uncovering new facts or new information about that reality that could change the way we manage it."
This empirical view of the scientific method (developing a hypothesis, isolating variables, introducing a new force, and making detailed observations of the subject) was first proposed by Francis Bacon, in New Organon (1620). Prior to that time, however, the generally accepted method of scientific inquiry was rationalism (the deduction of truth and true facts through introspection). Most history of science scholars seem to believe that rationalism was introduced into western society by the Greek and Roman civilizations, but it reached its apex in Discourse on Method (1637) by Rene Descartes.
I agree with Robert Holley. I believe a large part of the existing operating environment within libraries is based upon a set of rational assumptions made by professionals and other staff members within the institutions in which we work.
Furthermore, I suspect most among us would agree a large part of the domain of librarianship does not lend itself well to the rigors of empirical scientific method. It is often costly and time consuming to setup studies and gather data to test our hypotheses, and even more difficult to analyze the data we gather. And the fact that most of the traditional venues of employment for the MLS are publicly funded institutions with little money to budget toward research only confounds the situation.
So, the solution is to bury our heads in the sand, telling ourselves that everything would be fine if we could only eliminate those nagging research and publication requirements in our job descriptions, and believing that there is nothing left to study?
In the modern world, I believe most educated researchers would state that good research requires elements of both empiricism and rationalism. There are many examples of "science" throughout history based solely or largely on rationalism which have resulted in widely held misconceptions, just as there are similar examples of how misconceptions arise from misinterpretations of the data gathered in empirical research. (e.g., flat earth vs. global earth; heliocentric solar system vs. terran system; elements of earth, air, fire, and water vs. atomic theory; blood letting; etc.) Those misconceptions have all been overturned by researchers who continued to ask questions and seek answers rather than passively sit on their hands in the belief that all was well in the world.
Is our work a science or an art? Maybe both. But I feel our professional domain is much more a science than it is an art, and frankly I don't understand people who can't see that. The only people who find MARC records aesthetically pleasing are catalogers, as far as I can tell. We're not talking Van Gogh or Beethoven here, people. On the other hand, for all the failings of the empirical scientific method in terms of meeting our profession's research needs, it still applies one hell of a lot better in our field than it does in a wide range of other disciplines commonly referred to as the humanities (music, art, literature, etc.).
In my mind, the chief difference with research in fields such as medicine, physics, chemistry, and astronomy -- as opposed to library science -- is not so much that scientific method lends itself so much better to those fields than ours. The difference lies in the fact that researchers within those fields have been able to develop tangible and meaningful byproducts from their research which have enhanced the quality of life for other people. When people believe that there is a miracle drug on the horizon, they hold telethons and 10K races in order to raise money to fund research. When people believe the nation's security is at stake, they fund projects and create agencies designed to send people to the moon. Someday, when people really believe their quality of life is being enhanced by a meaningful product born from our professional research, they will develop creative methods of assuring that funding exists to more adequately promote the research we are now barely eeking out on our modest publicly-funded budgets.
In the meantime, dismissing the applications of emerging information technologies as the byproducts of research in other fields only sets our profession up to lose. As long as people believe the myth that all the information they could possibly need is available immediately at their fingertips, and that it comes to them directly as a result of the fairly insignificant research contributions of a company headed by a businessman who just happened to be in the right place 20 years ago when IBM needed an 8-bit operating system for one of their new computers, our profession is doomed to a future downward spiral of decreasing significance and applicability to modern life. If you want librarianship to be part of the future, you have to situate the profession to be part of that future. Because by the a researcher in some other field discovers the world is not really flat, it will be too late.
Robert Bauchspies
Washington, D.C.
robert.bauchspies@exim.gov
Greetings:
I am fond of saying that those who look through tunnels get a tunnel vision. I find application of such a comment as I scrutinize the "Prefatory Comment" presented by Mr. Wiener and Dr. Jochum. The two intros cannot be lumped together, however, as they clearly exhibit different views on library research; hence, I will address them in their respective order.
Regarding Paul's comments, a "let the games begin" wrap to his self admitted cynicism re library research does add some humor to the challenge and moreso sheds light into the tunnel I refer to above.
Chiefly I consider the following statements erroneous:
"Issues of electronic information delivery ... have fundamentally changed the nature of library service and ... will replace it."
Tools have impacted time, access and volume, the basic premise of librarianship remains the same.
"No mechanisms exist for enforcing changes suggested by the findings of such studies (library behavioral studies)."
Contradicted by the very notion of tools, training, BI, and the much-loved library committee meeting or "task force." Glacial at times, perhaps, given the sensitivities of such environments, but hardly inconsequential.
"Information about information can no longer be shared or acted upon quickly enough to make such findings useful due to..."
Ironically, information is already there often ahead of a decision which needs to be made. Leadership by consensus is an oxymoron. Democratic processes for decision making surely, leadership to argue the issues, present the options, educate the masses, and then... set to vote. Or, if you have the capacity, decree by mandate. Or as my father would say, "Because I said so..."
Paul does raise some very important questions however regarding the fragmenting retread of the legitimacy of library research, who the qualified are, what constitutes it's very definition and so on. None of these questions are new yet they remain in the limelight in part because of the following.
More fundamentally, however, Paul's comments, if taken in total, dismiss doctoral programs en masse in the LIS disciplines. And there are many, including the regularly silent on this list, that would disagree with his assertions. His comments also present his clearly positivistic definition of science again dismissing what if any merit there may be in the qualitative methods camp.
One place to look for some highly relevant and well-funded research would be to look in Paul's own backyard, namely Syracuse University. Another would be to look at what Dr. Deanna Marcum and her group is doing here in Washington. Influential studies like Dr. Elia's "The Role of the Public Library" or the more recent Benton Foundation abound. One just must have the open mind to consider that there is indeed merited research in the LIS arena and then have the effort to go look for it (how library like:) Library science is not quantum physics and any attempt to draw parity between the two is foolish.
Regarding Uwe's plug for historical research: Library Quarterly regularly demonstrates articles which, although descriptive in nature, possess the seeds for further or even contemporary research as Uwe demonstrates through his mention of "repeat studies."
And lastly may I add, that research comes in all kinds of flavors, where placebos and controlled environments do not always permit. A question one might ask given the Janus face of library and information studies as pragmatic practice of profession and arena for scholarly inquiry is ... is investigative reporting research? If the effect is to expand our understanding, apply the results and so forth, then even CRISTAL-ED serves as a research tool, environment and experiment in progress. Our opportunities to debate issues, extend their understandings, and propose new modes of thinking surely would have made the Gymnasia crowd happy (roll over Socrates) -- so much for my plug for discourse analysis as a method of qualitative research.
Michael Harris where are you?
Paul B. Wiener
Special Services Librarian
SUNY at Stony Brook
pwiener@ccmail.sunysb.edu
I'm very encouraged by the discussion that has arisen so far about our topic. Some of our best minds are addressing the matter, and although I'm not yet convinced, they're leading me to re-examine some of my prejudices.
If there's a need for research in cataloguing and classification, as Robert Holley suggests, it must be a very undramatic one. Cataloguing schemes as I see them are tools chiefly for locating physical resources by type, and the proliferation of computerized search engines, whether proprietary or free, and of new markup languages, has already made most of them irrelevant -- or at least finally manageable -- or soon will. Cataloguing schemes have done their job and have inspired much present work in digital information management. It deserves our gratitude and a place of honor. Just as transportation was an early phase of communication, library buildings are an early phase of information retrieval, and library-based cataloguing schemes are an early tool of access.
To Peter Underwood I say: all power to your efforts to improve library service in South Africa! Similar efforts have been going on in many socioeconomic venues for many decades; I hadn't thought of them as "research" but as a part of a natural process of social and cultural development. If calling it "research" makes it more effective, excellent. In the USA, many such efforts are directed at "non-users" of various kinds, and my skepticism toward such efforts here, based on my general opinion of American educational and political priorities, is too well-entrenched at present to be seriously shaken.
Craig Summerhill's impassioned essay really impressed me. Passion is good, even when it misleads people like myself. It often leads to the unexpected and gets to the heart of things. Though his remarks do not address any specific library concerns that merit research, he tries to deconstruct my hypothesis with history and semantics and doesn't do a half bad job! I'm not against observing, investigating, reporting, thinking, intuiting or soul-searching -- I only wonder if most of it is "research." I didn't realize I sounded like an empiricist and, now that you mention it, I must say: I'm really not. Whether research is undertaken by empiricists or rationalists, mystics or skeptics -- I'm still looking for something that is not a positivistic re-examination of everything libraries could do and should do but can't do. I'm not sure librarians do not provide "tangible and meaningful" byproducts by doing their jobs, but it is true, much of our effectiveness and valuation depends upon the good faith of our users, who must choose to believe we're often helping absent tangible proof.
Greetings to Robert Bauchspies, with whom I sparred pleasantly a year or so ago. It's almost impossible to disagree with anything he says. Yes, CRISTAL-ED CAN be thought of as a research tool -- what a nice idea. And I'm grateful also for pointing me to the Benton Foundation studies, although they're aimed chiefly at public library service. I didn't know this group and look forward to reading its work. I wouldn't call BI or library committee work, as I've seen it, responding to research findings. Maybe it is, and maybe they're only efforts to keep up with the world outside libraryland. It's been discouraging to have to watch libraries play catch-up with technology for the past 50 years -- and much research is devoted to how best and how quickly we can do so, if only -- if only we can implement our findings and intuitions, if only our users (rarely patrons anymore) do what they won't, if only we can claim our potential value is our actual value.
I repeat: I love libraries and I believe they'll be around at least for another half century. It is no discredit to our history and to librarians that the world will virtualize us out of existence, and that we will gladly help it to do. Even more than helping users, our job is to help ideas and information find its safest heaven.
Dr. Uwe Jochum
Fachreferent/Subject Specialist
Universitaet Konstanz
Bibliothek
78457 Konstanz
Germany
uwe.jochum@uni-konstanz.de
Robert P. Holley's statement is a very interesting one. He clearly points out that much research remains to be done, and his example is cataloguing. Fine. But then he makes clear that the kind of research needed for better cataloguing systems is a kind of empirical research and statistics: "New research is possible precisely because we now have the tools to look at how users access our finding tools. The availability of online catalog transaction logs gives us raw data on how users actually approach the catalog rather than how we believe that they do so." (Holley) Is this the only way we should think of library research? What if an empirical survey would tell us that our patrons never use first names when searching for an author's name? Does that mean to delete all the first names in our databases because they are useless? Can empirical research provide the means to avoid sheer intuition that is, for Robert P. Holley, the basis of our cataloguing systems? I don't think so. And cataloguing is a good example to explain why I don't think so. There is a vast amount of research done in philosophy and in linguistics that deals with names and the problems of references. But do we use this kind of research to reflect our catalogues, to determine the use of references, of author entries and so one? I can hardly see that. And as long as that is the state of affairs in library and information science we won't have better catalogues, no matter how many statistics we produce.
Martin J. Cohen
Academic Resources Technologies
Saint Mary's College of California
Voice: (925) 631-4229
Fax: (925) 376-6097
Moraga CA 94575
mcohen@stmarys-ca.edu
I'm impelled to join the discussion both because it has some relevance to the next topic and because it is one that has long perplexed me.
It is a given that much of what passes for library research is reporting on local activities and weak both in theoretical basis and in methodological foundation. That is not to say that research is un-needed, or that good research would not lead to useful findings. On the contrary. However, much good research is done outside the library community and is published elsewhere than in library journals. It is done by economists (and published in economics journals), information scientists (and published e.g. in JASIS). The history of the removal of both empiricists and theoreticians from library science into the study of documentation in the 1930s is not as well understood as it might be by most library practitioners.
I believe that we do need better cataloging. Work is being done toward that end. For example, the Dublin Core work is an attempt to make cataloging more comprehensive and flexible, and to reduce the complexities of AACR II.
Another challenge to cataloging is inclusion of the many resources, both print and electronic, of use to teachers and students at all levels. Dewey and LC cataloging has little to say about the usefulness to particular audiences of e.g. a work on algebra (is this for 12-year-olds first encountering the topic or a theoretical treatise for graduate students? on what pedagogical and learning models is it based?). Work is currently being done to improve access to these resources.
Both Dublin Core and pedagogical cataloging research is being done under the general rubric of "metadata". It's still cataloging in essence.
Perhaps much of the work of cataloging the growing terabytes of data that comprise the Web (and much that is not on the Web) can be done by automated tools. One would certainly hope so.
What rules would the automated tools follow? On what basis -- intuitive, theoretical, or empirical -- would these rules be constructed? It seems to me that here are many opportunities for research.
Christian M. Boissonnas
Director
Central Technical Services
Cornell University Library
107A Olin Library
Ithaca, NY 14853-5301
Voice: (607) 255-1569
Fax: (607) 255-6110
cmb3@cornell.edu
The interesting questions, for me, are not whether library research still has areas to cover, or whether librarianship is a science. I believe that these questions were presented merely to get the discussion going. My interest was piqued by Paul Wiener's contention "that research in librarianship is no longer possible by the majority of academic librarians."
I sit on the editorial boards of three library publications and I can attest to a general decline in the quantity of manuscripts submitted, especially of manuscripts reporting research. I do not know whether this decline is general or specific to technical services journals. I would be happy to discover through this discussion that I am wrong and that research activity in areas other than collection development or technical services is vibrant and of high quality.
I am not persuaded that the decline which I observe necessarily correlates with practitioners' old refrains about having too much to do, and not being supported for extra curricular activities. I have been hearing those for the past twenty years and the decline I am talking about is more recent. I would like to present three hypotheses to begin to explain it and, perhaps, Wiener's statement.
I. Library science-specific information, like much scholarly information, is increasingly communicated through other channels than journals. Most of the information that I use comes to me through e-mail messages, electronic newsletters, and professional meetings. I dare say that this is true for most practitioners. I try to stay on top of the journal literature but I read precious little of it. When I use the literature most is when I am doing research of my own, and that rarely involves information that I acquire from day to day.
I can remember the days when I looked in journals for practical answers to problems that I had at the time. But I cannot really say categorically that I no longer do that because the communication of library information has changed. I suspect it, but it could be simply that I am better connected in my profession than I was, and this is sufficient to explain the development of different information-gathering pathways. It could be, but I don't believe it. The fact is that communication pathways in librarianship have increased dramatically in the past ten years, to the point that we probably have too many of them and, particularly, too many journals.
II. There are too many journals for the market. Covering collection development and technical services are: Library Resources and Technical Services, Library Collection, Acquisitions and Technical Services (formerly Library Acquisitions: Practice and Theory), Acquisitions Librarian, Serials Review, Serials Librarian, Cataloging and Classification Quarterly, Collection Building, Collection Management, Technical Services Quarterly, just to name the main ones. To this list we must add others which deal with technical services from a more or less specific perspective, such as the Journal for Academic Librarianship (general) or the Journal of Internet Cataloging (specific). All overlap to varying degrees, are of vastly differing quality, and compete, at least in part, for the same pool of manuscripts. What happens in librarianship often mirrors what happens in academia, and it does here too. Librarians under the promotional gun publish anywhere they can. And with such a menu of choices available to them the odds are that they will be published somewhere.
This hypothesis is testable in two ways: By examining individual journals rejection rates or by doing a survey of ALCTS members to identify authors and asking them how many times they submitted their last two or three manuscripts and if they were eventually published.
The point here, of course, is that this proliferation of journals does not encourage quality research submissions. But even if we did not have too many journals, we still have an important problem to consider.
III. Librarians continue to be inadequately trained in research methods. Consequently they produce research that is not very useful. Most of the research manuscripts that I review are deficient in one or two important respects: The research question is often poorly articulated and/or the methodology inadequate to yield supporting data. Unfortunately I have seen this in manuscripts submitted by library educators as well as practitioners.
Many of these authors genuinely do not seem to know what constitutes good research, and it sometimes seem to come as a surprise to them to find that out. After all, they are drawing on the existing literature for patterns to follow. The popularity of programs and workshops at ALA geared to potential authors and researchers, I think, supports the hypothesis of an overall lack of expertise in the library profession in this area. I am not sure who is to blame and how to solve it. On one hand, I believe that a Information Science graduate should have taken at least one course in basic research methods. On the other, I am a veteran mentor, both on my own and through ALA-sponsored programs for people who want to go into research, and I have often found an unwillingness on the part of the mentees to do the amount of work required to do good research.
When Paul Wiener said that "research in librarianship no longer possible by the majority of academic librarians" he did not qualify it with the word "good". I do not know whether he is right. For all I know academic librarians could be doing more research and reporting less of it. But, assuming, as I do, that his statement is worth thinking about and discussing, the hypotheses which I have advanced attempt to provide a somewhat narrower context for it.
Rebecca Watson-Boone, Ph.D.
President
Center for the Study of Information Professionals, Inc.
4721 W. Parkview Drive
Mequon, WI, USA 53092-2022
Voice: (414) 512-1317
rawatson@facstaff.wisc.edu
Among the various questions found in his introduction to this topic, Paul Wiener asks, "Is there anything about library work that has NOT been researched -- studied, surveyed, speculated, theorized, described, imagined -- to death?" He then constrains answers in at least two ways. First, he defines "research" to mean only that form of study-analysis-interpretation where one can "subject one or more...facts to known, controllable, measurable and verifiable forces" which will allow us to "change" something. Second, he rules out "behavioral studies" that focus on what he considers "moribund issues" like burnout, morale, status, etc. He prefers research to be of an action nature that, "If we learn something new, will...help matters." Uwe Jochum likewise seeks from research data that will "lead to better library management or to deeper insight into the functioning of the institution", although he acknowledges the value of historical studies that would not meet Paul Wiener's research definition.
One area that relates to library work, but which has not been researched "to death," focuses on the information professional him- or herself. It is the contention of the Center for the Study of Information Professionals, Inc. that we have a scant knowledge-base about such people? We know more about libraries in terms of books, budgets, and buildings than we do about the people who do the work and who represent "the library" in the minds of the public. (Indeed, one question in need of study is just who [or what groups] qualifies for inclusion in the phrase "information professional." You could first define the phrase and then see who meets it; you could study various groups that seem to meet some assumed core characteristic and then seek to identify a set of true shared characteristics that would develop into a definition.)
We have scattered bits of data about librarians. From those bits we make sweeping assumptions and assertions. We generally assume that it is legitimate to talk about "librarians" as though differences between public and special, or between catalogers and database managers, were insignificant. Do public and academic librarians share the same values? What are the values of "librarians," anyway? Do librarians who program library computers share more values, beliefs, behaviors, etc. with non-librarian IT programmers than they do with other librarians? In what ways do differences affect programmer-librarians' relationships with other librarians? What are the advantages and disadvantages of employing a librarian who can "talk programming" to non-librarian programmers versus a programming nonlibrarian who can "talk librarian" to librarians?
How does telecommuting affect a librarian's productivity? Does it alter communication patterns and knowledge sharing between those telecommuting and those in the same department who do not telecommute, or between telecommuters and librarians in other departments -- in what ways does telecommuting alter those patterns and what sharing? What kinds of librarians make "good" telecommuters; why?
If you want quantitative results, how about these questions: Do librarians vote? Do more school library media specialists vote in general elections than do academic librarians? If so, why? Do academic librarians use public libraries -- for what -- how frequently? How many non-public librarians serve on their local public library's board of trustees? In what ways do librarians participate in society?
Are there fundamental differences between librarians by type of library in which they work? This has implications for a LIS program's decisions about whether to keep or to develop a type-of-library specialty, and an employer's decision about hiring a librarian who has been working in a different type of library. Are there fundamental differences by type of work? That is an old question, but it needs study now because the tasks involved in various kinds of library work have changed significantly with adoption of electronic technology. For academic librarians, having autonomy over their job-related tasks is of extremely high importance. What value do public librarians give to autonomy? Both library types have organizational hierarchies: how do librarians function in each setting when the issue is task autonomy?
Are the career paths of some special librarians markedly different from those of other special librarians? Why? Is it something about the nature of the particular kind of special library, or something about the state of the industry or organization; perhaps it is something about the prior experiences some special librarians bring to their work. We have data on career paths of male and female librarians, although it focuses on those who ultimately become directors. How similar are the career paths of minority librarians? What about those who have mixed careers than have taken them in and out of other fields of work? What differences are there between school library media specialists who were and who were not teachers first?
How like other professionals are librarians? Here you pick the profession of comparison and decide what kind of librarian (by library type, by type of work, by age, gender, ethnicity, etc.). Do librarians becomes like (accountants? private detectives? engineers? reporters? database designers? IT workers? etc.) only after X number of years of experience? Do the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of librarians change over their career lives? How many careers do librarians have, anyway -- and do we know that from assumptions or data? What longitudinal data is there on any group of librarians? If we had such data, we might be able to make some statements about things that matter over time: productivity, job satisfaction, transference of skills, effects of (re)training, as well as the librarian's view of the profession, of his/her initial master's education in LIS, etc. We would be able to do cohort analysis on various issues. How are a public librarian and a bookstore "librarian" similar and different -- think of the large bookstores that encourage high school students to study in the store when their local public library is closed.
How knowledgeable are librarians (of X type) about intellectual property issues? What are the political, economic, and social roles of school library media specialists? How does the reference effectiveness of public librarians compare with that of academic Iibrarians -- does size of library or geographic locale make a difference? How many librarians work for Yahoo, etc.; what do they do; for what reasons were they hired; etc.? Where are the (auto)biographies of librarians that would allow us both to present the profession to potential recruits and to understand our past in light of the fast paced present?
Research findings on each of these questions have implications for the staffing and management of libraries, as well as our ability to intelligently explain and present the LIS profession to the general public.
In LIS programs, we educate and train students in technical and sociological basics needed to "be librarians." We send them forth; then what? It is hard to demonstrate success and provide measures for accountability when the knowledge base about our graduates is so limited. Coming up with research questions to ask about information professionals is easy in part because the database of findings is so limited.
I think that my old friend Christian Boissonnas is fundamentally right: the key question is not whether research is possible, but why more good research is not being done.
Christian mentions three factors contributing to the problem:
I'd like to add:
My hope is that library schools will provide more rigorous research training, especially for those in the academic library track where research is ordinarily required. Some, I know, have introduced some serious social science training into the core courses. As for the rest of us who have already graduated -- I, at least, am often tempted to take a course here and there. I do work at a university, after all!
You may join the discussion and look over the list of past and future topics.
 |
|