Peter Cruickshank, Stephanie Kenna and Jenny Gebel met with members of CILIP’s UC&R group at Regent’s College, London for a discussion with people in a variety of front-line and managerial roles in university and college libraries.

We started from the research question:

To what extent does the ouput of UK funded librarianship research projects influence the practice of librarianship?

Themes that emerged in our discussion included the types of research that are relevant to practitioners, and the role that students, chartering and revalidating staff have in keeping their colleagues up to date. The importance of face-to-face networking and informal links also came up, as well as how to make the best of the cost pressures which are limiting the numbers that are currently able to attend conferences.

The data collected will be analysed in full with that collected from the Perth focus group (with public librarians) and the final focus group which will take place in 28th June with medical/health librarians attending EBLIP6 on 28 June.

We also took the opportunity to raise awareness of the work of the LIS Research Coalition in general, and to encourage participation in the Developing Research Excellence and Methods (DREaM) project.

Thank you to Amanda Holyoak and the CILIP’s UC&R group for making it possible for us to hold our academic librarians’ focus group, and to all that took part for their contribution.

You can follow our progress through our twitter account: @LIS_RiLIES  – and please tell us if you’ve been using results from one of our five case study projects

The LIS Research Coalition is delighted to announce that its five sponsored places for new professionals at the DREaM project launch conference have been awarded to:

Paula Goodale
Research Assistant – PATHS Project
The iSchool
University of Sheffield
Follow @PaulaGoodale

Paula has recently graduated with an MA in Librarianship and is now working as a part-time researcher in the Information School at the University of Sheffield, where she is also registered for a part-time PhD. Paula is looking forward to the DREaM project launch conference because it will contribute to the conversation about evolving LIS research methods. She says “I hope that it will generate lots of ideas that I can immediately incorporate into my research practice, as well as highlight opportunities for extending my research into new areas, utilizing new methods for future projects. Having a digital media and multi-disciplinary background, I am aware of the wide range of research practices and I am keen to find out how some of these might be applied in LIS and perhaps how more traditional LIS methods can be adapted in areas of my current research that are outside of the mainstream.”

Samantha Halford
Subject Librarian (School of Engineering & Mathematics)
City University London
Follow @samanthahalf

Samantha graduated with an MA with distinction in Library and Information Studies from University College London in 2007. She currently works as a subject librarian at City University and will be working towards a postgraduate certificate in academic practice next academic year. Samantha’s first professional post focused on supporting academics’ and students’ research and learning. Now she would like to turn her attention to developing her own research and writing. Samantha says “I would like to start making a contribution to the body of LIS research, and attending the DREaM project launch conference would be a wonderful opportunity to learn about best practice in methods and techniques from the beginning.”

Ray Harper
Planning Officer
University of Sheffield

Ray has already embarked on his career as a practitioner researcher having recently published a paper based on his Masters dissertation project in the New Review of Academic Librarianship. He is also currently engaged in another project to examine the overlaps between LIS and knowledge management skills. In his role as Planning Officer at the University of Sheffield Ray analyses and prepares data for a range of departments across the institution. Ray says “I think that it is important for the LIS profession to positively engage with other professions because LIS practitioners and researchers have skills of direct application to numerous other disciplines, and can learn a lot from dialogue with those outside the traditional LIS ‘sphere’”.

Shreeti Rajyaguru
Clinical Information Search Service Officer
UHL NHS Trust Education Centre Library

Shreeti holds an undergraduate degree in Information Management and Computing and earlier this year started a new job as a Clinical Information Search Service Officer in the NHS. Shreeti is looking forward to contributing a fresh perspective on LIS research from her position as a new professional working in clinical librarianship. She is keen to join the conference as a delegate to “gain further exposure to the works of professionals in the area of library and information science as well as continue to build networks in the field”.

Charlotte Smith
Assistant Librarian
University of Cambridge
Follow @LottieMSmith

Charlotte completed her MSc dissertation last year and is currently working towards chartered member status of CILIP while in post as an assistant librarian at the University of Cambridge. Charlotte is a strong supporter of the goals of the DREaM project, particularly since social media has changed the ways in which we can gather and analyse data, as well as disseminate research output. Charlotte says “LIS researchers are branching out into informal domains to conduct research and this has the effect that such research may not be disseminated to the entire LIS community. This is why it is crucial that we develop a UK-wide network of LIS professionals which we all, if not belong to, at the very least have the knowledge of how and where to look for current research.”

The DREaM project launch conference takes place on Tuesday 19th July 2011 at the Conference Centre of the British Library in London. For further information about the DREaM project launch conference and registration, please see the DREaM project launch conference web site.

We would like to thank the sponsors TFPL Intelligent Resources, Sue Hill Recruitment and Glen Recruitment for supporting the award of the five places to new professionals.

Hazel Hall introduces the focus group

Today team members of the Research in Librarianship Impact Evaluation Study (RiLIES) Hazel Hall, Ella Taylor-Smith and Jenny Gebel travelled to Perth to run a focus group at the AK Bell Library.

The focus group was kindly organised by Elaine Fulton and Rhona Arthur of SLIC (the most recent associate member of the LIS Research Coalition) to take place before a meeting of the Scottish heads of public library services in the afternoon.

Jenny Gebel at the meeting

We enjoyed a lively discussion of the impact of UK funded librarianship projects on librarianship practice, with interesting points raised on ease of access (or not) to research output, roles of the librarian, the importance of context to the production and consumption of research, and the value of different dissemination routes. The data collected today will be analysed in full with that collected from the other two focus groups taking place in London on 20th June (with academic librarians) and Salford on 28th June (with medical/health librarians).

The visit to Perth also provided an opportunity to raise awareness of the work of the LIS Research Coalition amongst public librarians, and to encourage participation in the Developing Research Excellence and Methods (DREaM) project.

Focus group members discuss how research findings are disseminated

We would like to thank everyone for their participation at the RiLIES project focus group in Perth, especially those who travelled from as far away as the Outer Hebrides and Shetland to contribute to the discussion.

By the end of the annual Online conference and exhibition each year a couple of themes emerge as dominant. Last year, for example, in the LIS Research Coalition’s review of the Online 2009, we reported that social media and the semantic web had been the key areas of interest. At Online 2010 conversations centered on a range of themes including linked data, the social web, the value and impact of information professionals, and mobile and cloud computing. However, at the forefront of many minds was the UK weather as it deteriorated over the course of the week. In the future we may well be remembering this event as “the one when it snowed”.

Online 2010 exhibition hall at London Olympia

Presenters Angela Ashenden, Helen Clegg and Gordon Vala-Webb

Twitter

Those who follow @LISResearch on Twitter will have watched our tweeting from sessions where Hazel was a member of the audience. If you would like to see the full archive of conference tweets, it is available from the Online10 Twapperkeeper set up by Karen Blakeman.

A session tweet on the tweet wall

Paper highlights

Of the sessions that Hazel attended she particularly enjoyed the discussion of “Web squared” as the successor to Web 2.0, illustrated neatly by Dion Hinchcliffe in the opening keynote paper. Here Dion used a table to compare Web squared’s characteristics with those of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.

Conference chair Stephen Dale and keynote speaker Dion Hinchcliffe

Bonnie Cheuk’s efforts with social media to protect staff from information overload generated by the “e-mail high five” were entertaining and illustrated the challenges of culture change when implementing social media in the work place. There were three strong presentations from Euan Semple, Lee Bryant and Brian Kelly in the Social media and leadership session on the Tuesday morning, with Euan’s focus on how to move people away from po-faced attitudes to social media, and Lee’s discussion of how information professionals should have a stronger involvement in an area where corporate communications staff often have a hold. Librarians working in higher education are advised to review the video of Brian Kelly’s presentation on the value of cloud services, accessible from his UK Web Focus site. The conference sessions also gave access to many case studies from which librarians and information scientists could learn about good (and sometimes less than optimal) practice in information services delivery.

Ake Nygren spoke about social media and public libraries

The two papers that followed in the gallery area of the exhibition hall by Annie Mauger of CILIP and Anne Caputo of SLA were also based on the output of research projects. We were particularly pleased when Annie restated in her presentation CILIP’s recognition of the importance of evidence-based research to library and information science.

Congratulations

Hazel was pleased to join in celebrations of success at Online 2010. On the Tuesday afternoon, and just before he was due to take the stage, it was announced that Phil Bradley had been elected Vice President of CILIP for 2011.

Phil Bradley (photo credit Dave Pattern)

Later in the afternoon she attended the presentation of the award of Information World Review Information Professional of the Year 2010. Unfortunately the recipient Dave Pattern had been unable to make the journey to London due to the snow, so Karen Blakeman accepted the award on his behalf. For further information on Dave’s well-deserved success, please see the blog post by Brian Kelly. On the Thursday lunchtime we were also pleased to see Stephanie Kenna receive her honorary fellowship of CILIP.

Other reviews

This review of Online 2010 can only reflect the perspective of one participant and, as such, it is limited. For a fuller picture it is worth checking the reviews of others who have reported in detail on individual sessions, as well as the conference as a whole. The blogs postings from the Conference Circuit by Donald T Hawkins provide a good overview starting with Welcome to Live from London – Online Information 2010, as do the posts by Val Skelton and Kat Allen at InfoToday.eu. Val’s summary of What we learnt at Online Information 2010 is particularly interesting. Individuals who have blogged their own experiences of the conference include Mareike Guy and Onlineability. Nancy Davis Kho’s review for VIP focuses on the exhibition, and FreePint’s photos from Online are worth browsing. There are also links to blog postings and photographs from the conference and exhibition on the SLA Europe web site. We look forward to seeing further reviews of the conference in the print media in early 2011.

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.

• “Review of the work of the LIS Research Coalition and its support of LIS research in 2009/10, and plans for 2010/11″ by Michael Jubb
• “Perspectives on the evidence, value and impact of LIS research: conceptual challenges” by Andrew Dillon
• One Minute Madness session
• Breakout sessions
• “From perspectives to policy: how an examination of evidence, value and impact can inform the LIS research agenda” by Charles Oppenheim.
• Views and comments (video interviews with conference participants)

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.

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.

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!

The sponsors of the six PhD student places

Thanks to the generosity of three of the leading LIS recruitment firms – Glen Recruitment, TFPL and Sue Hill Recruitment – the LIS Research Coalition is able to offer six sponsored places at its conference at the British Library Conference Centre on Monday 28th June 2010. These will be for PhD students currently engaged in LIS research. Sponsorship will cover the conference fee for each of the six students who win an award.

For further information about the awards, and how to apply, please see the page that details the sponsored conference places for PhD students.

• 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.

Charlene Li was the opening keynote speaker on the Thursday

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

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.

Links

• Online 2009 web site: http://online-information.co.uk
• Slides from the Library and Information Science Research Coalition presentation: Introducing the UK Library and Information Science Research Coalition
• Links to slides from the presentations made on the exhibition floor
• Blog postings by Brian Kelly, JISC (@briankelly)
  • http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2009/12/04/highlights-of-online-information-2009-semantic-web-and-social-web/
    This is Brian’s main review of the conference, in which the LIS Research Coalition is mentioned.

  • http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/a-tale-of-three-conferences/
    In this blog posting Brian provides a comparative analysis of the Twitter activity of Online 2009, taking into account activity at two other conference that took place in the same week.
• Blog postings by Marydee Ojala and colleagues, Information Today (@marydeeo):
  http://www.infotodayblog.com/conference/pastconferences/oi/online-information-2009. This link brings together all of Marydee’s reports, and those of her colleagues, on Online 2009 for Information Today.

• Blog posting by Pete Cranston (@petecranston):
  http://thegiraffe.wordpress.com/2009/12/04/linked-open-data-web-or-not-the-semantic-web. These are Pete’s reflections on the semantic web.

• Blog posting by Bethan Ruddock, Mimas (@bethanar): http://bethaninfoprof.wordpress.com/2009/12/04/online-09-the-aftermath Bethan’s report gives a flavour of work on an exhibition stand at Online 2009.
• Twapper keeper archive of #online09 Twitter posts: At the time of writing, Twapper keeper had archived 2396 tweets tagged #online09 at http://www.twapperkeeper.com/online09
  
  ]]> http://lisresearch.org/2009/12/09/lis-research-coalition-%e2%80%9creview%e2%80%9d-of-online-2009/feed/ 0 Hazel Hall keynote_slide CILIP_stand FreePint stand Hazel and Ben