Reflections on assigned reading—The Portable MLIS Chapter 15

Prior to reading this chapter (Research by Ron Powell) I suspected very little of his words would apply to me--either in my past life as a school teacher and administrator or to my future life plans to become a school media specialist. And I hoped that very little would apply to my current life as a graduate student in LIS. In my mind, "research" implied lots of science, math, statistics and quantitative data analysis--all things that do not appeal to me. In fact, Professor Powell even acknowledges that my feelings are not uncommon and that LIS research is not necessarily at the top of the list for LIS students. On page 178 he states, "The shortcomings of education in research methods are exacerbated by the fact that most students view LIS programs as primarily practical and professional in nature and not concerned with imparting academic skills such as research methods. Some LIS master's degree students seem to begrudge having to devote one of their courses to the study of research methods."

But once again, my preconceptions about library science topics has proved to be incorrect and ill-conceived. In fact, many of Professor Powell's words reminded me that I have spent a lot of my professional life doing research--although I may have called it something different--and certainly didn't view it in an academic context.

For example, my current work as a character education instructor in the Utica (NY) elementary schools requires that I "survey" my students at the end of each trimester. I guess I never considered this to be "evaluative research" but in fact, it is! The data collected from these surveys was very "pragmatic" and directly guided the management team in its decisions about which topics to offer the following year and how best to present the material to students.

During my years as a college admission officer, the capstone of most years was the completion of the Admitted Student Questionnaire (ASQ). This set of common questions was submitted to students admitted to our college as well as peer or competitor colleges and surveyed a range of topics related to the admission and application process. The results of these surveys were invaluable to us as we developed our recruitment strategies for subsequent years. I've also employed "focus groups" to evaluate and respond to admission publications. These reactions (while sometimes expensive as we were forced to abandon some marketing strategies based upon the sour reactions of the group) ultimately proved to be vitally important in our overall efforts.

While I learned a bit more about research from reading Professor Powell's essay, I must state that the greater lesson learned is for me to not make assumptions about a topic before I attack it. Since I am new to the field of library science (and really know very little about the nuts and bolts of it all) it will serve me well to tackle each new topic with an open mind and a positive attitude.

References:
Powell, Ron (2008). Chapter 15, Research. Found in The Portable MLIS: Insights from the Experts by Ken Haycock & Brooke E. Sheldon (Eds.), Libraries Unlimited, Westport, Connecticut.