Reflection Log 1

Aaaahhh, Research Methods - I've been looking forward to this class. Not only because it's my last class in the program but also because I will need to know how to properly conduct research when I'm an academic librarian on the tenure track, which I hope to be SOON (hint to anyone hiring out there...) This is my first of several reflection logs I will write over the course of this summer class.

What first struck me as I read through the articles and chapters for this week is what I've noticed some on my own, working in an academic library - the state of research in library and information science. I've seen both sides of it, I guess. On one hand, I see the research efforts of librarians with whom I work every day. On the other hand, being in grad school, I read current research by information professionals from around the world. It's pretty interesting to see the dichotomy between the two. I'm not saying I know every bit of research that every librarian is doing where I work but what I do know of is nothing like the articles we have read in the MLIS program. Then again, most of the librarians here at the university aren't PhDs and are merely satisfying tenure requirements. Maybe that's why their research (at least, the research of which I am aware) is of a more practical or bibliographic, rather than scholarly or scientific nature. That's not to say that one is better than the other; just that most of what I read in the MLIS program was more scholarly.

Now on to the readings. I tend to agree with Hernon and Schwartz's editorial. Then again, the article is 14 years old and a lot has changed in library and information science since then. I would think that with the advances in technology, it would be easier to collect scientific data now than it was before. For example, I would think it would be easier to collect circulation data and search terms input into catalogs now that it's all electronic. But this is just the first week of class; I could be way off...

I completely agree with O'Connor and Park's plea for the "perfect librarian." I agree that ALA should be involved in the MLIS cirriculum and that it should always require a research methods course, especially for students on the academic track.

I also agree with everything that Van Fleet and Wallace had to say, not because one of them is the professor for this course, ha ha. I find the notion of anti-research quite fascinating, actually. Why anyone would be against research, for any reason, really mystifies me. Near the end of the article, the authors state, "The call in Ms. Paietta's letter is to 'combine all our energies in eradicating illiteracy.' As laudible and as forceful as this charge is, however, it is fraught with dangers" (304). This would be, to me, like blindly going along with the "War on Drugs" or "War on Terror" campaigns, as opposed to getting to the real root of the perceived problem(s) to find out why things like illiteracy, drug abuse and terrorism exist in the first place. What's funny is that, without the continued funding of library programs, there would very likely be much more illiteracy as more and more library users would be further displaced by the digital divide. Ugh. Anyway.

Well, those are my thoughts thus far. I actually enjoyed reading the textbook. I get kind of excited when I enjoy a textbook. It is very well written and easy to understand and I like that it is specifically for librarians. I'm looking forward to learning how to become a real researcher. I've got a lot of ideas for future research...

REFERENCES

Hernon, Peter and Candy Schwartz. 1993. Library and information science research: Is it misunderstood? Library & Information Science Research 15: 215-17.

O'Connor, Dan and Soyeon Park. 2002. On my mind: Research methods as essential knowledge. American Libraries 33 (January): 50.

Powell, Ronald R. and Lynn Silipigni Connaway. 2004. Basic Research Methods for Librarians, Fourth Ed., Chapters 1-3.

Van Fleet, Connie and Danny P. Wallace. 1992. Beals revisited: Sad tidings, lamentation, and anti-research. RQ 31 (Spring): 301-05.