First the Question

1
First the Question

• then the method.
• Rachel Fleming-May
• July 14, 2008

2
Three Research Questions

• How do doctoral students learn to do research?
• How has the concept of use of library and
  information resources and services evolved in
  LIS?
• What skills are needed to perform the job of
  Electronic Resources Librarian? Where are ER
  Librarians learning those skills?

3
Doctoral Students

• How do they interact with faculty advisors?
• Are the resources theyre using appropriate for
  the type and level of work doc students engage
  in?
• Do they utilize the services offered by the
  library?
• What is their knowledge and/or opinion of those
  services?
• How can the library be more helpful to them?

4
Use

• How has the concept changed over time?
• Is use represented differently in different
  sub-disciplines of LIS?
• When use is discussed, how is it discussed?

5
Electronic Resources Librarians

• What kind of work do ER Librarians do?
• Where did they learn the skills necessary to
  accomplish those tasks?
• How responsive are M.L.I.S. programs to the needs
  of this new area of librarianship?

6
Doc Students

• Diverse disciplines, but representation of
  different schools not important
• Collaborative data generation
• Researcher-participant
• Public relations

7
Focus groups

• Group interview of 6-10 people
• Facilitator poses questions to the group
• Participants statements may lead to statements
  by other participants
• Can generate positive p.r.

8
Use Concept

• Diverse temporally and disciplinarily
• In-depth analysis of a concept

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Concept Analysis of Literature

• Allowed deep examination of a static body of data
  (journal articles)
• Allowed time travel via older journal articles
• Presented a broad spectrum of LIS sub-disciplines

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ER Librarians

• Needed to collect data from a large number of
  Electronic resources librarians
• Needed to be able to slice-and-dice some data
  based on other data
• Respondents would likely be a highly articulate,
  opinionated, motivated group without a common
  geographic location

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Survey

• Allowed collection of information about the
  experiences of a large number of ER Librarians
• Survey software (surveymonkey) allowed responses
  to be filtered by number of years since M.L.I.S.
  (or any other question)

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In summary

• Look for exemplars in the literature. How have
  others answered similar questions?
• Consult resources!
• Try not to commit to a research method until your
  question is fully formed.