Want to listen to an episode?

1. You can download an app, subscribe to “Linking Our Libraries” and all episodes will appear on your phone – it’s so easy!
   • Apps we like include Pocket Casts, iTunes, and Stitcher.
   • Download any of these, search for “Linking Our Libraries” and hit Subscribe.
   • If it is not readily available, just enter this RSS feed: http://libraries.blubrry.com/feed/podcast/.
2. Or, you can stream an episode right now on your computer by going to our streaming page, by clicking here.

Whatever tool you use, we hope you enjoy it! Thanks for listening, and sharing ideas on libraries!

Want to talk with us about this topic? Do you, your staff, or your organization need training in this topic? Want to write a policy, or develop a program?  We are here for you!
Click here to get started!

Check out our full information page here!

Introduction

Welcome back to Season Three of Linking Our Libraries! We are Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange, and we are here to share information with all types of libraries, archives, and other nonprofits working to build their skills. This season, we are working on building a toolbox of leadership skills and ideas. By the end of this season, you will have fifteen specific skills that will make you a stronger leader and manager in your organization.

This week we discuss Research and Writing. Joining us is Guest Host Rhonda Huisman, Dean of the Library at St. Cloud State University.

The Basics

Talking about research and writing is not typical for management development; but sharing your experience is an important part of being a good library leader. Remember that you are not “just” a manager in your Reference department, or of your hospital library, or working in your grade school; you are also part of a profession. That means you get some great benefits in being part of a large group; and you have some responsibilities back to that group. Carrying out research, and communicating the good and bad experiences you have in the profession, are ways to fulfill that responsibility.

This is a surprisingly tough sell for many library people. They worry they are not doing things that are important enough to share, or that they are not good writers, or that they just do not know where to start.

Fortunately, these problems are easily overcome. In our profession we have a lot of people who are active in publishing their work – in journals, in blogs, in newspapers, in podcasts, or other venues. You can find all sorts of resources on good writing and on publishing to help you get started. And it does not matter at all how big or how small they are – every single library we have ever visited is doing something interesting and unique. Never worry that you have nothing of value to say.

In libraries and archives, research is all about finding ways we can help our organizations to function better, and do more to reach out to our communities. Just like everything else we do, it is about solving problems and connecting people with the right information. As a manager, you want to be actively involved in solving problems and finding answers to different issues that will arise in your organization. Understanding some basics on research will let you do this.

Research

We are going to spend some time looking at the basics of research, and giving you a framework you can use to develop your own research projects. Remember: this is just a very fast overview. We will have more information on our show page, and you can always call us for help in developing your own research project.

Let’s look at the steps of a research project:

• Craft a research statement: This is the time to think carefully about everything you want to accomplish in this study – and to narrow that focus down. This does not need to be perfect, and you may not use this exact sentence – but it’s a starting place.
• Pick a methodology: There are more ways to answer your question than you can possibly imagine. So the trick is to find one that will: 1. Answer the question (seems intuitive, but still important), 2. Be relatively easy to implement. Methods can be quantitative or qualitative (or both).
  • Quantitative methods are those that involve numbers, statistics, counting – you are finding the quantity of whatever you are measuring. An example of this would be counting the number of books you circulate in a week, a month, and a year; then comparing those stats to other weeks, months, and years. A few of these could be:
    • Mann-Whitney Test
    • Wilcoxon Signed-Ranks Test
    • Kruskal-Wallis Test
    • One-Way ANOVA
    • Basic Linear Correlation & Regression
    • Chi-Square “Goodness of Fit” Test
      • You do not need to know any of these; there are websites available to describe them, to help you pick the best one for your work, and to do the actual calculations.
    • Qualitative methods are fuzzier; they look at the quality of the experience, instead of counting things. An example here would be an interview with patrons who have checked out materials to see how the experience was for them. How did they feel about their experience of checking out materials? Happy, sad, frustrated, delighted – these are qualitative results. A few of these are:
      • Focus Groups
      • Ethnographic Research
      • Critical Social Research
      • Ethical Inquiry
      • Historical Research
    • Do the research! Too many plans go astray here. The library field needs more research, and better research. As a manager, you can be the one doing the research; but you can also be the one who is making research a part of the culture of your organization.
    • Analyze your results: This is the fun part! You have collected a lot of interesting and useful information; analysis is how you figure out what you have there.
    • Share your information: After you get some results, share them with your colleagues across the profession. Talk about them in Board meetings, share them on listservs, or publish them in blogs or journals.

 

Writing
This is easier to discuss, because everyone has a framework already for writing. Whether it is something you enjoy, or struggle to finish, you have both written and read other people’s work. The best thing to do to share ideas by writing is not to think about it too much.

Here are the stages of writing an article:

• Make an outline
• Gather some sources for context
• Find your data and put it in order
• First draft (it will be terrible)
• Second draft
• Final draft
• Send it to a journal
• Put it on your resume

Writing a descriptive article can take on a lot of different structures; so design it to fit the needs of your information. If you are writing up a research study, the format is always the same:

• Introduction
• Literature review
• Methodology
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusion

You can post your writing to your own blog, or share them with other professional blogs. (Note: CMLE would be very interested in sharing your work with our members!) You can look for a journal and send them an article. Sometimes people say yes, they will publish your stuff, sometimes they cannot. No worries either way – just keep writing things down and sharing ideas. The profession will be stronger when more people share the work they are doing, so please do your part!

CMLE is always available to help members with brainstorming ideas, with getting the words out onto a page or a screen, and with editing your work. We also suggest the very small book How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing, by Paul J. Silvia. You do not need to be publishing academic material to get some good ideas from this book, though of course it will be helpful if you are.