Project research methods

Some time ago now I said I'd post in more detail about the research methods I'm using for this project. Fortunately my actual use of these methods has been developing at a better pace than this post explaining them!

The plan I've devised has three main strands:

1. a case study of social enterprise material in the British Library's collections;


2. searching other library catalogues for materials relating to social enterprise;


3. a series of initial interviews with a small number of people involved in social enterprise and relevant library and information services, leading to the development of a questionnaire for a larger group of people.

1. Case study of social enterprise material in the British Library collections
This project is funded and supported by the British Library, so I'm very fortunate to be able to link my research quite closely to the British Library's collections. I've carried out a search of the British Library's resources for social enterprise, using a small selection of relevant keywords and phrases, and I hope to be able to track the amount of use of some of these materials, both printed and online - always remembering the British Library itself is a very valuable information resource. I'm also keen to explore and use information about a range of different collection-related projects at the library.

2. Library catalogue survey of materials for social enterprise
I am using the same search terms used on the BL catalogue in strand 1 to search for similar materials in other libraries across different sectors (eg public, academic, health or other special libraries). I'm planning to search around 120-150 catalogues in total.

I will be interested to see how results from different libraries relate to the results from the BL - this might include:

• identifying works which frequently appear in different collections;


• identifying works not located in the BL search;


• comparing the level of detail provided by different types of information services (for example, which collections may include details of journal articles alongside books);


• comparing different collection approaches to web-based grey literature - such as PDFs of reports or policy statements.

3. Interviews and the questionnaire
So far I've carried out eight interviews - some with people involved in social enterprises, some with academics and researchers and some with those involved in providing library and information services relevant to social enterprise. I'd like to thank everyone who has taken part in these interviews so far - I've had some very helpful and insightful conversations. I hope to interview between thirteen and fifteen people in total, including more library and information professionals. I will use some of the inital results from my catalogue searching in strand 2 to identify library and information services with particularly interesting collections for social enterprise to approach for interviews.

I will blog in more detail about the interview process and about transcribing interviews, which is currently the major focus of my work outside time spent interviewing.

This interview data will enable me to draw initial conclusions about issues regarding information and library collections for social enterprise. To test whether the ideas emerging from the interviews can be generalised more widely across the field, I will then develop a questionnaire to send to a much bigger group of people some time in late 2011 or early 2012.

LIS DREaM event materials online

Materials are now available online from the LIS Research Coalition DREaM event last week. These include videos of Professor Hall's welcome, Professor Cronin's opening keynote and Dr Evans's closing keynote.

There are also links to some really excellent reviews of the event - definitely much more informative and stimulating than my blog post below.

What with the worrying news about reductions in research council funding for Masters and PhD students for the next academic year, a project like LIS DREaM at least provides some possible grounds for optimism about the prospects for research in LIS.

Oh, and there's also a video of the one-minute madness session in which I participated - I'm speaker number four.

DREaM Launch Event

Today I've been at the British Library for the launch event of the DREaM project. This AHRC-funded project is working to establish a network of library and information science researchers - the title stands for Developing Research Excellence and Methods.

Professor Hazel Hall introduced the project - including three forthcoming research workshops and a concluding event next summer. The initial project runs for a year, but the aim is to create a sustainable network which can be maintained beyond that. Professor Hall argued this is only possible with the involvement of a "cadre" of committed professionals.

Professor Blaise Cronin gave the opening keynote about the development of library science research and factors which have influenced this (including differences between arts and humanities and social science approaches). This presentation included some really interesting metrics about LIS research, such as the citing of LIS research by non-LIS fields, and the increasing role of non-LIS supervisors in LIS research, as well as general encouragement to use LIS metrics more in research.

I contributed to the one minute madness session by talking a bit about engaging with social enterprise networks for my research. It was an interesting experience - both the shortest talk and the biggest audience I've ever had! In hindsight it seems good fun: the session went very smoothly and I thought all the one minute talks were excellent.

In the afternoon, I went to a breakout session about three research methods which were fairly new to me: Delphi studies (iterative consultation of experts), co-operative inquiry (working collaboratively with others in an action research approach), and community consultation (engaging directly with relevant communities).

The final keynote was by Dr Dylan Evans. It was fascinating to hear him talk about his career path from linguist to psychoanalyst to research in the philosophy of science, with some interesting examples of the role of serendipity in a career trajectory. He gave a couple of examples of exchanges of expertise and knowledge across disciplinary boundaries, including between medical science and art. Finally he encouraged engagement with the media to communicate about research.

There's lots of useful information about the event, including presentations from the day on the event website.