Blogging about research and visiting Pittsburgh

This week I'm in the USA, attending the 32nd Charleston Conference. On the way to South Carolina, I spent a few days in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. On Monday, I visited the University of Pittsburgh's School of Information Sciences. This was a really valuable opportunity to get an insight into the US approach to doctoral studies. The US PhD course seems to have a much greater focus on equipping students with the skills they need to become faculty members. The final thesis or dissertation only occupies around one year to eighteen months, rather than being the focus of the full three or four years of study, as it is in the UK.

In the afternoon I facilitated a discussion session about blogging for research. I gave a brief presentation, which included talking about three blogs created and maintained by members of the University of Sheffield's iSchool. I also discussed my own experience of blogging including the benefits of maintaining this blog, such as:

• Popular posts about events which I've attended - sharing experiences which may be relevant and of interest to other people, but which not everyone would have the opportunity to attend;
• Acting as an informal record of the progress of my research and a place where I can embed resources such as presentations or documents;
• Leading to contacts from people interested in my research, either through comments on the blog or by email;
• Providing further information about my research for research participants or potential participants;
• Giving a global dimension to my research, with a significant number of blog visitors being based outside the UK;

I also talked about some of the challenges and limitations I've experienced, including:

• My lack of integration of the blog with other social media tools;
• The somewhat sporadic nature of my postings and the challenge of finding time to post;
• A relatively small number of comments - I'm aware I could do much more to encourage discussion here;
• Ethical issues and issues relating to prior publication - how much can I say about my research findings here on the blog and how much do I want to save for journal articles or conference papers?

The presentation was followed by a lively discussion about the pros anc cons of blogging about research and encouraged me to resolve to blog more frequently.

Many thanks to everyone at the University of Pittsburgh iSchool for giving me such a warm welcome!

Sheffield iSchool researchers: blog discussion

Just over a week ago, I helped to lead a conversation about blogging for research in the monthly Sheffield iSchool researchers informal discussion meeting. You can read about some of the issues we talked about on the iSchool researchers blog. My contribution followed a fascinating talk about the Warburg Institute library - I recommend having a look at the post about that, too.

Since then, I've been thinking about how this blog is developing and how I could improve it. A comment on a previous post suggested that more pictures would help and I'll certainly try to add some in future. I think I still have work to do clarifying the topic - I'll return to that subject again as my ideas develop. I also hope to write more about the reading I'm doing (articles, books and reports etc). However, I also thought this might be a good time to ask you if there's anything else which you think the blog could benefit from. Any comments or suggestions would be very welcome!

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.