RIN report on social media

I've just been reading the Research Information Network's recent report Social media: a guide for researchers. It's a useful guide to using social media for research and I find it quite persuasive about the advantages of these tools. It is also quite open about the criticisms / perceived disadvantages, and I think it addresses these well. It includes some interesting case studies (including links to researchers' blogs) - the brief summary of network theory also seemed useful.

The research topic

First of all, a few words about my research topic: "Conceptualising the library collection for the digital world: a case study of social enterprise". I'll go into this in much more detail over the coming weeks (months, years...) but essentially the project involves looking at how the library collection is changing, using the example of collections for social enterprise to explore current issues in collection development, management and exploitation. I also hope that it will provide an opportunity to explore perceptions of "the collection", from the perspectives of customers, librarians and other stakeholders. Is this (still) a meaningful term for all or part of the information resources a library offers its users?

The project will also involve getting to grips with the theory and practice of social enterprise - a new field for me, but very fascinating. There are a number of different approaches to defining social enterprise (definitely a potential topic for another post or several) but for present purposes I'll be using the definition provided by the Department of Trade and Industry (2002) Social enterprise: a strategy for success:

"A social enterprise is a business with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or in the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximise profit for shareholders and owners."

According to this definition, a social enterprise operates as a business serving a social purpose. Other definitions place varying degrees of emphasis on the different elements alluded to here - for example, there is a hint here that the ownership structure of a social enterprise might be different to that of other business types; other definitions may place a more explicit emphasis on this difference, focussing, for example, on the role of democratic decision-making within a distributed ownership structure.

Another useful introduction to the social enterprise field, from the practitioners' perspective, is available from the Social Enterprise Coalition website.

Starting off

I've been thinking about setting up a blog to share and discuss ideas and experiences relating to my research project for a while now. Following the principle that good ideas are the ones we keep on coming back to, I finally thought I'd take the plunge and give it a go.

I'd like to use this blog:

• to "think aloud" about my project;


• to reflect on particular experiences and challenges;


• to share information about events I attend and things I read along the way;

...and maybe to demystify some aspects of the research process, especially for librarians who may be interested in pursuing this path themselves.

I hope that blogging about this project will encourage people from the library world and other fields to share their comments. I'd particularly like to continue to benefit from the wisdom of colleagues who have helped me so much in the past - if I start saying things which really don't reflect how things are in practice, or if there are particular issues you think I should be considering, please let me know!

I hope the blog will be interesting and helpful for you too - ask me questions if you think my research might be able to help with any practice issues. It'll certainly be a big learning experience for me, finding out how it feels to be writing informally about my research and thinking about the most appropriate style and content.