Blogging and its role in research. Discussion led by Angharad Roberts

To introduce the discussion topic, I spoke briefly about my interest in blogging and about my new research blog. I also mentioned the Research Information Network (2011) Social Media: A Guide for Researchers which I found particularly useful in the early stages of thinking about setting up a blog. The group then discussed some of the advantages and disadvantages of blogging and of researcher engagement with social media tools more generally. Some of the issues raised included:

• The opportunities offered by private (as opposed to public) blogs, which facilitate collaboration between teams of researchers without the same potential degree of exposure as public blogs;
• The potential ethical issues relating to the use of social media tools, particularly because of the spontaneous and informal style of communication which they encourage;
• Potential issues relating to self-plagiarism when reusing blog content in more formal writing;
• The lack of permanence of blog content - posts can be edited or deleted at any time;
• How a blog can help to raise a researcher's profile;
• The potential to use blogs as primary data sources - a form of auto-ethnography - in research studies;
• Challenges in following other people's blogs and managing the large amount of information they provide.

I found Sheila's suggestions about ways to promote a blog particularly useful. These included: providing links to the blog when engaging with discussion lists or commenting on other people's blogs, tweeting about new posts, and including the blog address in email signatures and on presentations.

The Warburg Institute (by Liz Chapman)

The Warburg Institute, which is part of the University of London, focuses on research in cultural history, art history and the history of ideas, and its library is world-leading in many areas relating to these disciplines. Recently, the Warburg has greatly increased its online presence: for example, it is on Facebook and Twitter, and it has an ongoing programme of digitisation. However, I want to focus on the way in which hard-copy texts are classified and presented: this has some interesting contrasts and also parallels with some of the more digital-focused projects presented in previous weeks, particularly in terms of what it suggests about the ways in which users locate materials.

The library is divided into four main sections: Image, Word, Orientation (the shift from magical beliefs to religion, science and philosophy) and Action (social and political behaviour). In all of these sections the focus is on how images, themes, literary forms, beliefs, approaches to scholarship and behaviours show both change and continuity over time (Warburg Institute, 2011). Rather than employing a traditional hierarchical classification system of discrete sub-sections, the Warburg tends to sub-divide general classes into broad sections which are not necessarily mutually exclusive. This helps the researcher to find interconnections and, by avoiding hierarchy, also avoids implications of precedence (Minter, 2008).

Within the sections the most important factor is that each book has something in common with the books next to it, a principle known as “the law of the good neighbour” (Friman et al., 1995). This theory holds that the book which will be most useful to you is not the one you think you are looking for, but the one next to it on the shelf. Research on serendipity supports this, as researchers report that the best ideas are often sparked by something only tangentially related to their current thinking. For this reason, the library also has completely open stacks to facilitate serendipitous information finding and to encourage cross-disciplinary research. Rare books are scanned and a copy is printed out for the open stacks, while individual articles are also kept on the shelves alongside related books.

In addition, the library also retains books on open shelving even if they have not been used recently. Professor Ernst Gombrich, formerly the Director of the Warburg Institute, once observed that in arts subjects, it is precisely the books which haven’t been used for many years which will provide interesting information, because they have been overlooked (Cieszkowski, 1991). This is fascinating in its contrast with what one is generally taught in library school, and it also has implications for the development and use of digital technologies in research libraries.

References

Cieszkowski (1991). “Heresy and the pleasures of the hunt.” Art Libraries Journal, 16 (1), 20-22.

Friman et al. (1995). “Chaos or order? Aby Warburg’s library of cultural history and its classification.” Knowledge Organization, 22 (1), 23-29.

Minter (2008). “ ‘Liberating the responsibility to think for oneself’: the Warburg Institute library classification.” Knowledge Organization, 35 (4), 192-208. http://www.ergon-verlag.de/isko_ko/downloads/ko3520084b.pdf

Warburg Institute (2011). Classification Scheme. http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/index.php?id=maps

Comparing and classifying

Imagine an ignorant northern European, dropped at the edge of a tropical jungle.  He knows only things from his homeland.  In the distance, he sees something as black as a crow.  A gust of wind shakes the nearby trees.  The object sits, solid and unmoving.  It’s obviously not a crow then. 

Against the grey green shade of the trees, the pitch black object stands out.  A nut falls from the canopy.  It hits the object and bounces off.  There is a dull thud.  On a hot day like this, pitch would be soft and sticky.  Whatever sort of black it is, it is not pitch black. 

The man moves closer.  Beside the trees sits a round carved object.  He picks it up.  It looks as black as coal, or as black as jet, but it feels like neither of them. 

The mysterious force that dropped him near the jungle picks him up and whisks him home.  He returns, the proud possessor of an ebony carving and a new source of similes and metaphors.

OK - forgive the somewhat fanciful turn that this blog has taken.  The point that I am labouring to make is that we classify according to what we're familiar with, and that's especially relevant to LIS people.  Thanks to Liz C for not only offering to give a short talk about the classification system of the Warburg Library at the forthcoming researchers' discussion group (Thursday 14/04, 16.30, Rm 324) but also for reminding me of George Lakoff.  His book "Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things" gave me food for thought when I did the MSc here years ago. 

The main event this Thursday however, is a discussion on blogs and their role in research, to be led by Angharad (who's working overtime, since she also contributed to last month's discussion).

Cross cultural willingness and the nature of collections

Many thanks to Alex and Angharad for giving us an insight into their projects. 

One of the joys of working in a department with a lot of foreign students is the glimpses that we get into other societies.  Shahd's views on collection management were a useful reminder of the fact that books that are seen as a waste of space in one library can be of great value elsewhere. 

Of course, even if that is the case, it sometimes takes a lot of effort to match the discards of one library to the spaces of another.  Some time ago, when I was working at a UK Government research institute, a new librarian was appointed.  Within months of his arrival, skips were hired and were soon filled with books and papers.  The librarian responsible still recalls with frustration the outcry that ensued.  Those documents, some of his critics argued, went back decades and were part of the institute’s long tradition.  His response was to point out that he had gone to great pains to offer the documents to other places that might be interested, and nobody was prepared to pick up the cost of moving them.  He was well aware that many of the discarded documents went back decades since they had layers of dust to prove it. 

Interesting Challenge of the Month arose during Alex's talk.  Firstly, how does one define willingness to share?  Secondly, in a study that focuses on willingness to share information, how can a researcher compensate for the fact that, by agreeing to participate in his/her study, volunteers have already demonstrated a willingness to share, thereby (possibly) biasing the sample.  I'm sure Alex will be up to the challenge.

Further discussion revolved around what to do next.  It was agreed that meetings should be set for a regular slot of the second Thursday of every month at 16.30.  Future sessions will focus on the role of blogs in research; JISC's "Researchers of tomorrow" project; approaches to research (based on Father Brown); and journal reading groups.

I hope to see you on Thursday14 April in room 324.

A cross-cultural case study on the degree of knowledge sharing openness and externalisation methods in the financial services industry (by Alex Schauer)

Purpose
The study examines the degree of knowledge sharing willingness of staff in a single organisation across different national cultural backgrounds.

Positioning of research
Several studies have investigated specific factors that affect staff willingness to share knowledge; however it seems that none have embarked on a cross-cultural study encompassing individual, team, organisational and
national influences.  The aim of this thesis is to address this gap and provide a consistent framework that can be applied to future research studies.

Research design
The research design has not been finalised as yet, however a mixed method approach is anticipated.  This involves using both interviews and an online survey questionnaire.

Interviewees would be selected based on differing departmental categories and hierarchies in order to obtain a broad spectrum of data.

The questionnaire would be distributed to all participating national company subsidiaries to either obtain initial results or confirm qualitative findings.

Anticipated outcomes
From an academic point of view, this research will be the first study to develop and test a formative scale of knowledge sharing willingness. In comparison to a reflective latent construct, this study aims at incorporating all validated indicators into this study to form an index score.

From a managerial perspective the study allows practitioners to objectively measure the current situation in regards to staff willingness to share knowledge in a particular country subsidiary.  In addition to obtaining an
overall measure, this tool allows managers to obtain readings on the individual factors that affect the overall score.  With this, managers can concentrate their efforts to enhance these low-scoring factors to boost
overall knowledge sharing willingness.

Conceptualising the library collection for the digital world: a case study of social enterprise (by Angharad Roberts)

Collections have historically been central to a library’s purpose. However, the term ‘collection’ seems surprisingly ill-defined in library literature. Collection-focused sub-disciplines of librarianship only emerged relatively recently: the concept of collection development appeared in the 1960s, followed by collection management in the 1980s. In more recent discussions, it has been suggested that concepts such as content management or knowledge management may provide more appropriate frameworks for considering the changing role of library and information services within organisations. New digital formats present new challenges and opportunities for library collections as demonstrated by electronic journals and e-books, projects to assist with data management or open access publishing for research, and by initiatives such as the Library of Congress’s tweet archive. The digital environment also has the potential to improve access to content from traditional printed materials, through digitisation projects or increased information sharing about library collections through online catalogues and collection data mining. New technologies also provide new ways of working, enabling greater customisation or personalisation of information about resources and facilitating greater user interaction and involvement with collection development and management processes through, for example, patron-driven acquisitions or tagging and commenting.

Social enterprise is an emerging interdisciplinary field, focusing on businesses with a social purpose. Information relevant to social enterprise may potentially be found in the collections of a wide range of different types of library. Social enterprise stakeholders include practitioners and academics and come from a wide range of different backgrounds, professions and organisations, potentially having access to a number of different library collections.

A case study of collections for social enterprise should therefore provide a valuable opportunity to explore broader issues relating to the development, management and use of library collections in general. The research will take a mixed-methods approach, using interviews, questionnaires and collection data to explore these issues.

iSchool researchers meetings - What next?

Many thanks to the nine research staff and students who joined me in the Wilf Saunders room last Friday.  I think most of us enjoyed the discussion (and chocolate marshmallows).

Thanks in particular to Mark, Simon and Liz B for their talks.  From my perspective, the most interesting part of the ensuing discussion took place on the intellectual ground between Simon and Liz's research.  Simon (as can be seen from his contribution to this blog) has been researching recommender systems for a digital library catalogue.  Liz's research is in bibliotherapy, and it occurred to me that there might be a role for recommender systems there.  However, according to Liz, use of ICT amongst the people she is researching is very low, regardless of their age group.  I was left wondering whether this is an artefact of the selection process or whether it was more significant.

We also discussed the future of the group.  There was a suggestion (which received general support) that it be moved to a late afternoon spot so that those who wished could adjourn to a still more informal setting. (The Red Deer wasn't specifically named but I got the impression that it was being considered).   With that in mind, I've booked the Wilf Saunders room for 16.30 on Thursday, 10 March.