July 2, 2010
Thank you to everyone for their participation in the LIS Research Coalition conference on Monday.
Conference review
The analysis of the conference evaluation forms (49 returned from 81 participants) shows that the event was very well received as a valuable, stimulating and enjoyable day, particularly for making contact with other LIS researchers, learning about on-going projects, and inspiring individuals’ commitment to pursuing their own research objectives. From the LIS Research Coalition’s perspective, the event provided a great opportunity to address its aims related to bringing together information about LIS research in the UK and encouraging dialogue across the members of the LIS research community. Added to this, discussions during the day – particularly in the breakout sessions – have helped identify priority areas for investment of Coalition resources in the coming months.
The majority of delegates who completed the conference evaluation forms rated the conference as a whole as “excellent” or “very good”. The most popular sessions were Andrew Dillon’s opening keynote speech and the set of one minute madness presentations, both of which were rated “excellent” by the majority. Andrew’s presentation attracted comments such as “great keynote” and “excellent – really interesting and fascinating speaker”. There was much enthusiasm in the comments on the one minute madness session which, in a way, reflected the gusto with which the delegates participated in this activity: “One minute madness worked really well – enjoyed this very much. There should be one at every conference!” “One minute madness was brill. How amazing that it actually worked!” Michael Jubb’s introductory presentation was also well received, with the majority rating this session either “excellent” or “very good”. The most common rating for the breakout sessions was “very good”, and for Charles Oppenheim’s closing keynote, described as a “great finale” in a delegate tweet, it was “excellent”.
The choice of venue was also very popular with the delegates: the majority rated the convenience of the location, its comfort and facilities and the catering as “excellent”: “I was very impressed – plush, great air-con, gorgeous food and handy for King’s Cross. Perfect.”
Those who were involved in the conference administration were pleased that most delegates rated the arrangements as “excellent”, both prior to the conference and on the day itself. Particularly appreciated was the additional “social” information provided in advance of the conference which, it is believed, contributed to the friendly atmosphere of the event.
Feedback from our virtual participants, of which there were at least 29 actively following the conference by watching #lisrc10 on Twitter or interacting with the CoverItLive site, also showed enthusiasm for the proceedings of the day.
Conference thanks
Of course, an enormous amount of effort goes into planning a conference such as this, and we owe thanks to all involved. First we are very grateful to the conference sponsors. A special vote thanks is due to our speakers, facilitators, chairs, student rapporteurs, and the brave one minute madness speakers for their contributions on the day, as well as the hard work devoted to preparing for their roles. We should also recognise that without the commitment of the conference programme committee, we would not have enjoyed a range of sessions that was – as one delegate remarked – so “well-designed from the point of view of the flow of different events/formats and from the point of view of engagement/participation”. There are also two individuals whose work behind the scenes deserves special recognition. Stephanie Kenna, amongst other things, contributed much to the marketing of the event. Stella Wisdom managed communications between Event Logistics and the British Library. Stella also liaised with the AV team to ensure that all the speaker presentations were in order, and prepared the tailored handouts that helped guide us through the process of accessing the British Library’s wireless network.
Conference resources
We have spent the past couple of days writing up the conference sessions and posting materials to the Coalition web site. Our live blogger Kirsty Pitkin of T-Consult Ltd worked at amazing speed to edit the video footage and provide the drafts of session reports for Hazel Hall to edit. Those who have agreed to write their own reports of the event, for example for colleagues or for publication, will be particularly pleased to see the full list of resources now available below (also accessible from the conference web page). We will add links to other conference outputs, for example reviews in the professional press and individual participants’ blogs, as these are published.
All the PowerPoint presentations from the conference are also available from the LIS Research Coalition’s Slideshare site. Video footage from the day, including delegate interviews and the one minute madness session, is available from the LIS Research Coalition’s Vimeo site.
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Posted by Hazel Hall
June 1, 2010
Over the past few months the LIS Research Coalition has been involved in a number of conferences and meetings, as can be seen from the listings on the Events web page. Last week attention focused on the Librarian as Researcher event organised by the Yorkshire and Humberside branch of the University, College and Research (UC&R) group of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP). As well as those who attended in person, a number of people followed the day’s proceedings on Twitter by watching the hashtag #ucryhres and corresponding with those tweeting, including @LISResearch. Miggie Pickton, who presented at this event, kindly agreed to contribute a guest blog posting on the day for the LIS Research Coalition web site.
Miggie is Research Support Specialist at the University of Northampton. She has been a great supporter of the LIS Research Coalition in the first year of its implementation. Miggie has served on the programme committee for the conference which takes place later in the month on Monday 28th June at the British Library, and is the one behind the organisation of the one minute madness session at this event.
Over to Miggie…
We all enjoyed a fun-filled day on practitioner research in York last Thursday, participating in the ‘Librarians as researchers’ event hosted by UC&R Yorkshire and Humberside. In the morning Jean McNiff of York St John University put us all through our paces as action researchers (yes, we actually did a piece of action research there and then) and then Sheila Corrall from the University of Sheffield’s i-School presented a set of convincing arguments for embarking on a higher degree in LIS. Professional doctorates appeal – a structured programme with lots of relevance to the day job – but, as yet, there not many professional doctorates available for LIS professionals in the UK.
Slightly awed by this exalted company, I was there banging the drum for practitioner research. But why would practitioners want to do research? The group came up with lots of reasons….
Research is good for the individual:
- It is interesting – an opportunity to explore something in more depth, learn something new, satisfy your curiosity
- It encourages you to challenge yourself, to move out of that comfort zone, develop new skills, become reflective, stretch yourself
- It adds variety to the job – research involves a change from routine, an opportunity to do something different, work with new people
- It involves making a personal connection with work
- It increases job satisfaction
- It enables you to do your job better
- It supports professional development
- It enhances personal profile and improves career prospects
Research is good for the service and the organisation:
- It provides evidence of value and demonstrates impact
- It underpins strategic improvement and other decision-making… and on the way research can help to solve problems and improve service
- It leads to greater engagement with service users through:
- Understanding their perspective
- Showing that you’re interested in their needs
- Doing what they do (promote the library as ‘academic’ department and the librarian as credible researcher)
- It increases staff motivation and dynamism
- It enhances organisational reputation and achieve recognition (within and beyond the institution)
- It brings financial benefit – by generating income or discovering ways to reduce costs
Research is good for the profession:
- It provokes conversation and debate (and not just within LIS – with other disciplines too)
- It creates and disseminates new knowledge and good practice – furthering professional excellence (as CILIP would have us do)
- It provokes positive change
- It develops an engaged and vibrant professional community
- It enhances the profession’s reputation and profile
- It defines our professional future
And with all that is going for practitioner research, we’d better get on with it, taking advantage of continuing the conversation at other professional events that provide research support and opportunities to consider its context in LIS practice, such as the LIS Research Coalition conference at the end of this month.
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Posted by Hazel Hall
April 28, 2010
Kirsty McGill
The LIS Research Coalition Conference 2010 will be “amplified” online by Kirsty McGill, Creative Director of training and communications firm TConsult. We asked Kirsty to introduce herself and explain what she will be doing at the event…
I suppose I can best be described as a live blogger or event amplifier – I help to capture the conversations going on inside the conference room, and help those outside to actively participate from far and wide. I’ve previously helped to amplify various UKOLN events including the Institutional Web Management Workshop (IWMW 09) and the 5th International Digital Curation Conference. I am a digital writer by background and currently contribute to the Transliteracy Research Group.
During the conference, I will be tweeting and blogging to provide you with tweeted highlights and summaries of each session so you can keep up to speed with what is being discussed. I will also be looking for volunteers to interview with my trusty flip cam – so let me know if you are attending and would be happy to share your thoughts and reflections on the event with the world!
This blog will form the centre of the action, so if you are already subscribed the the RSS feed, you just need to sit back and wait for the updates to come to you. I will also be launching a Netvibes page for the conference, where you will be able to follow and participate in the conversation on Twitter (don’t be put off if you don’t use Twitter – you will still be able to join in!) You will also be able to see pictures from the event and find out what others are blogging about the conference.
I have to say that the part of this event that I am most looking forward to is the One Minute Madness, partly because I am interested to find out more about current research projects, but also because this looks like it will be the most challenging session to amplify!
More details about my amplification activities, including links, will be released in the run up to the event, so watch this space!
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Posted by Hazel Hall
March 25, 2010
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Posted by Hazel Hall
March 25, 2010
Registrations for the LIS Research Coalition conference to be held at the British Library Conference Centre on Monday June 28th are now open. We are looking forward to welcoming a broad range of LIS research stakeholders for a productive day on 28th June during which delegates will add to their knowledge of the LIS research landscape, including the work of the LIS Research Coalition, while also increasing their awareness of:
- the diversity of LIS research opportunities
- research funding sources
- potential research collaborators
- means of increasing the relevance of research efforts
- avenues for publication of research output
- research development opportunities for individuals and groups
- techniques for integrating research activities into everyday work practice
Our speakers and facilitators offer research experience in: public, academic, special and corporate libraries; the health service; business; publishing; consulting; training; charities and higher education. (Further details are given on the main conference page.) Delegates are also offered the option of taking the stage for a 60-second slot by participating in the conference’s “one minute madness” session.
We are also pleased to announce that the specialist events management firm Event Logistics is providing the Secretariat for the conference. The contacts at Event Logistics are Richard Hart and Adele Bates, and they can be contacted at lisrc10@event-logistics.co.uk.
We are all looking forward to gathering the LIS research community together in London on 28th June.
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Posted by Hazel Hall
December 9, 2009
Taken as a whole, the annual Online event at London Olympia each December is a huge gathering of the information industry. Upstairs in the conference centre there are the formal conference sessions, downstairs are the exhibitors and free seminars, and around Olympia smaller satellite events take place in hotels and bars. Hence the use of quotation marks of the title of this blog posting. This is a “review” of Online 2009 from the perspective of Library and Information Science Research Coalition staff: participation was limited by the laws of physics that render it impossible to be simultaneously in more than one place at the same time. Thankfully a number of other participants have also blogged their experiences of Online 2009. These include: Brian Kelly of JISC (@briankelly); Marydee Ojala and colleagues of Information Today (@marydeeo); and Bethan Ruddock, who worked on the Mimas stand at the exhibition (@bethanar). Others have contributed posts about specific conference themes, such as Pete Cranston (@petecranston). In the New Year reviews of Online 2009 will appear in the print media. In the meantime, for a fuller picture of what went on at Olympia in the first week of December this year, please follow the links provided at the end of this entry.
Charlene Li was the opening keynote speaker on the Thursday
From the perspective of the LIS Research Coalition two themes appeared to dominate this year’s conference: (1) social media and (b) the semantic web. In her opening keynote on the Thursday morning
Charlene Li, co-author of
Groundswell, made sense of much of the discussion of social media of the previous two days that had taken place in formal conference presentations and face-to-face conversations, as well as along the conference’s
Twitter back-channel. It is now obvious that the time has come where engagement in social media is not optional for any organisation that hopes to maintain its competitive advantage. We are also now witnessing the impact of social media internally, for example on organisational structures, particularly in terms of communication and reporting.
In contrast the conference sessions on the semantic web gave the impression that those in library and information science related roles are now beginning to consider the exploitation of data to data links, although it is not yet obvious where the greatest commercial benefit will lie in doing so.
The CILIP stand on the exhibition floor
Other sessions of particular interest to the Research Coalition were those related to the future roles of information professionals. Professor Blaise Cronin’s discussion of the paradox of a postmodern profession made some astute observations, not least that long-term predictions on the future of library and information services by experts are often inaccurate. It was interesting to hear that an analysis of citations of LIS research literature shows that researchers from other domains are increasingly drawing on this body of work, thus indicating that its impact is growing in the research mainstream. Bob McKee, Chief Executive of CILIP (a founding member of the LIS Research Coalition) took advantage of the discussion following Professor Cronin’s presentation to refer to CILIP’s forthcoming “big conversation” on the LIS profession in 2010.
Both in the conference sessions and on the exhibition floor there were opportunities to see demonstrations of products and services that could be adopted by library and information services. Ellysa Kroski, for example, gave many examples of how libraries in the US are using social computing applications to their full potential. It was surprising to a few, however, how little mention was made of Google Wave in Online week.
FreePint is a regular exhibitor at Online
On the Thursday morning Hazel Hall gave an introductory presentation about the LIS Research Coalition to Online 2009 delegates. This covered the background to the formation of the Coalition and its broad mission to provide a formal structure to improve access to LIS research, and to maximise its relevance and impact. Taking each of the five specific goals of the Coalition, she explained the progress so far that the Coaltion has made on each. Hazel encouraged the audience to visit the web site at http://lisresearch.org, as well as follow @LISResearch on Twitter. She hoped that delegates would be able to keep Monday 28th June 2010 free to attend the forthcoming LIS Research Coalition conference. Hazel’s slides Introducing the UK Library and Information Science Research Coalition are available on SlideShare.
Hazel Hall with Ben, the youngest delegate and son of one of the speakers at Online 2009.
Throughout the three days of the conference, as well as on the Monday evening at a lively
TFPL Connect event, Hazel met with a number of people interested in and enthused by the work of the Coalition. She accepted a number of speaking and writing invitations, the details of which will be publicised in due course.
Links
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Posted by Hazel Hall
December 3, 2009
One of the highlights of the annual Online Information Conference each December is the announcement of Information Professional of the Year, sponsored by the American Psychological Association. The awards are organised by Information World Review and the Online Information Conference organisers, Incisive Media. Nominations are judged by a panel of previous Information Professional of the Year award winners.
Peter Williams (Editor of IWR magazine) Dr Hazel Hall & Peter Gaviorno (American Psychological Association)
This year Hazel Hall, Executive Secretary of the LIS Research Coalition, was named Information Professional of the Year. At a ceremony at London Olympia on Monday 1st December, Peter Williams, Editor of Information World Review, referred to Hazel’s “energetic and enthusiastic” contributions to the profession. He discussed how her work invigorates the professional landscape globally. He cited Hazel’s recent work with the Library and Information Science Research Coalition as an example of her achievements in 2009.
For further information, please see news coverage of:
Brian Kelly also noted the awards ceremony as one of the highlights of Online 2009 towards the end of his conference review.
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Posted by Hazel Hall
November 18, 2009
Hazel Hall at the podium at the British Library
Hazel Hall was invited to present at the SCONUL Autumn Conference on 17th November 2009 at the British Library. The
presentation slides are available from Slideshare.
Hazel’s presentation focused on two aspects of the work of the LIS Research Coalition as relevant to the student experience agenda. These were (1) the Coalition’s mission to promote LIS practitioner research and the translation of research outcomes into practice and (2) the Coalition’s efforts in creating resources to bring together information about LIS research opportunities and results. Hazel’s starting point was the pressing need for an evidence base on which library and information services may draw, not least to prove their worth. She quoted Peter Griffiths, the current President of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), who highlighted in his October 2009 presidential address that “We must prove the value we provide with hard evidence. Start thinking what evidence you offer”. Hazel shares Peter’s view that practitioner research is important, but also recognises a number of challenges that face (potential) practitioner researchers. Hazel referred first to the barriers that LIS practitioner researchers may encounter. These include:
- Navigating current funding infrastructures, for example due to the number of funding bodies and differing requirements as far as proposal writing and submission are concerned;
- Negotiating working practices with mentors and partners;
- Lack of confidence in research skills, especially when this is unfounded;
- Fitting research work into a demanding job role that includes other competing, and often more obviously pressing, service priorities.
Hazel also pointed out that often individuals carry out work that is, in effect, practitioner research, but fail to recognise it as such.
The focus of the presentation then moved on to barriers associated with the dissemination of practitioner research. Hazel mentioned how research output often becomes trapped within an institution or sector, and thus has limited dissemination channels. This minimises the opportunity for others to take advantage of the research findings, and key messages do not reach the level of strategy development. As a result, individual institutions tend to focus on local research output in their planning activities.
Hazel took the opportunity to suggest a number of research themes related to student experience. She argued that we should look beyond the more “visible” issues related to facilities, such as upgrading library space and extending opening hours. LIS research effort in academic settings should also relate to broader institutional concerns such as student retention and international student fee income. There are also a number of research themes that interest library and information services staff regardless of sector. For example, community engagement, the relationship between library services and learning, and evidence-based practice are worth pursuing. Specifically, Hazel suggested a range of student experience related research questions ripe for consideration:
- How can library provision be better aligned to broad institutional student experience initiatives?
- How can we measure the contribution of academic library services to the overall student experience?
- What are the roles of academic librarians in the learning processes of students?
- How can we better engage teaching staff with library services?
- How will scholarly communication develop in the future, and what will be the impact of this on library provision for students?
- What is the best way to integrate information literacy provision into the curriculum?
Hazel noted that one question that was of particular relevance to her work with the Library and Information Science Research Coalition could be framed as “What is the relationship between awareness of LIS research within the academic community and good practice for the benefit of students?”
Hazel then turned her attention to the second theme of her presentation, i.e. the means by which the LIS Research Coalition is working to bring together information about LIS research opportunities and results. The Coalition has a web presence at http://lisresearch.org, as well as a Twitter feed at @LISResearch. The Twitter feed postings cover a range of topics of relevance to the LIS research community, as Hazel illustrated by displaying some Twitter screen shots. Amongst these she showed a page of alerts that included news of: a research funding opportunity; PhD studentships on offer; an invitation to join in a research-related consultation exercise; two newly published research reports; a link to a web page on a topical debate; a report on an on-going research project; a training event; conference registration opening; the publication of a new journal issue; and a US conference offering funded places. Hazel strongly encouraged audience members to start following @LISResearch, or at least arrange for members of staff in their organisations to take responsibility for keeping up to date with the postings on behalf of others at their home institutions.
Hazel concluded her presentation by reiterating the support that the LIS Research Coalition can offer for practitioner research. First she noted that the agile information provision on LIS research related news through the dedicated Twitter feed saves time of practitioner researchers. Then she spoke about the efforts to raise the profile of practitioner research, making reference to the LIS Research Coalition conference. This will take place on Monday 28th June 2010 at the British Library with the intention of “liberating” of research output that may be trapped within institutions and/or sectors. Hazel explained that in the longer term the Coalition hopes to provide opportunities for research methods training that will extend current UK provision in this area. Hazel’s final point was that she looked forward to the LIS Research Coalition working in partnership with other LIS stakeholders, including SCONUL, in building the evidence base that will contribute to future LIS research strategy, as well as policy development.
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Posted by Hazel Hall
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