After a lengthy period of illness I am now trying to get back into my research – whilst working. I have a lot of respect for people who are able to split themselves many ways and keep all the balls in the air; I’m pants at it. It takes me a long time to warm up.
I’m working through my content analysis now; what really helped was drawing together my survey material in response to a request from a librarian in Portugal – how cool is that, I’m still tickled at how Web 2.0 can draw us together in our common goals – which has focussed my mind at what I have asked. This will help me to work out what people have answered! Simple but it’s these baby steps that get me to my ultimate goals, not over-reaching and trying to do it all at once.
I am of course concerned about the relevance of my research now that a few months have passed and I’ve not been so connected. What I have to remind myself of is that many people and public libraries are really not all that connected at all yet so I have to think that I am still doing some research that is valid. That’s one good reason why I don’t think I’d make the world’s greated PhD student, that angst of relevance and up-to-date-ness muct be crippling sometimes!
Ridiculously unrelated to my dissertation but so worthy of passing on. With the idealogy that now obviously anyone can become a presidential or vice-presidential nominee, this well-argued campaign message points out that the wrong Palin is on the ticket. Sign up and pass it on!!
There comes a point in any research where you simply have to stop reading what other people have written. This is difficult because there are so many multi-branching and diverging avenues your reading can take you down. This was far less of a problem when I was an undergraduate in the 1990s because it was quicker to establish whether or not something was a blind alley: this was often the result because the university library simply did not subscribe to the journal in which you were interested and by the time an inter-library loan came through, the course was over and you were into the summer holiday!
Of course it’s far better now, you can satisfy yourself that you really have read everything that has been published in the English language that is available electronically, but the amount of time that takes! I’m trying to put my literature review together for the introduction and methodology sections of my dissertation but I just keep finding new stuff! I just found a really interesting article on organisational blogging and how it was found to give an organisation a more human voice in the perceptions of its readers; this is an intuitive truth but of course empirical evidence is always key. Then of course you look in Google Scholar and do a citation search on your key references and that’s another afternoon gone.
At some point, information overload kicks in and it’s time for a cup of tea….
Now here’s an interesting thing about a survey of UK government workers wanting to use social networking tools for their work (i.e. not playing Path Words on Facebook) but management just not “getting it”. The whole “social” networking terminology has been superseded surely. There are so many fantastic applications that can help you do your job more efficiently, effectively and cost-effectively thanks to these apps and platforms.
Access to my survey has been blocked by the web controls of many public libraries in the UK; I haven’t had that response from any of the many US respondents. This just adds more strength to my argument that professionals need to be accorded a level of respect according to their abilities and given the opportunity to communicate in these meaningful, interesting and often fruitful ways.
Well here it is at long last, I’ve piloted and tweaked and hope it tells me what I want to know about public libraries engagement with Library 2.0. I’m not so keen on the “social” networking name of all the sites and applications this entails as there’s so much that it professional in their functionality now.
My name is Sarah Hammond and I am conducting some research in fulfilment of my MA in Librarianship at the University of Sheffield. I am interested in how public libraries and librarians feel about the use of so-called social networking websites and software as a tool for the library and its various functions.
I am interested in obtaining the views of as many public librarians who canspare a few moments to complete this survey but if you do not wish to but thinkone of your colleagues might, then please forward it on to them. Could I ask you to please spare a few minutes to whizz through my survey?
And the one I’m really proud is on World War II movies because it’s made it into a publication with an ISBN! Yup, I made it into the VIP Magazine’s special report on SLA 2008 (the subscription-only arm of Freepint).
All I need to do now is get on with my dissertation of course.
So I need to go back and revise my questionnaire. One of my peers on the MA gave me the most constructive feedback anyone has been kind enough to give me, incredibly generous. Obviously my heart sank when I started to read it but when I pulled my morale out of my boots I was very grateful; the constructive criticism was structured and has enabled me to go back and really improve and streamline my survey; I’ll effect these changes then send it to my dissertation supervisor who probably thinks I’ve fallen off the planet.
On another note entirely: I am full of admiration for someone who can demonstrate logic gates using domino runs. That’s just not how my mind works, I’m not great at visualising like this. I can imagine Richard Feynman would have loved this!
I read a couple of articles yesterday on how Facebook is not a good business tool; I’ve joined some professional groups on FB and hope to get some survey respondents that way but I thought some good points were made, hence I immediately signed up to LinkedIn and found one of my brothers on there! I think this is an excellent tool and it’s quite surprising how many connections I have already.
I’m really impressed with Survey Monkey and I think that this would have made a massive difference to me and my peers when we did our undergraduate psychology degree all those years ago – back when the internet was a mere curio and functionally useless.
I notice that they are recruiting for a web developer at their HQ in Portland, OR. Oh if only I were a web developer and lived in Oregon! Not really, apart from the last part. One thing that really struck me is how the librarian and info profession commands respect in the US of A. It made me feel very positive about my career choice, I need to hang on to that through these tough days of dissertation and job hunting. Apparently there are 2.5 hours being advertised for a local branch library. This does leave me wondering how well the services are being managed if they have to advertise externally for this.
I’ve sent my cv to three agencies now which is progress. I am somewhat hamstrung by my lack of driving licence (and car) but Leeds is commutable and there are all kinds of interesting public and private sector organisations there.
I’m doing it again, getting panicky about the reading and not doing the doing, as it were. I need to just get on with the questionnaire construction and get it the hell out there, after the pilot. Time is running out and my jetlag is only just dissipating so it’s time to go up several gears.
If I keep blogging then it means I’m working so I have something to blog about and that I’m thinking about what I’m doing.
Keir is going great guns on his research and it’s high time I started to catch up with him! I’ve also been contacted by someone who is doing the same research at City University! No need to panic, obviously this idea has come into its time. There’s even a PhD around that looks excellent. It’s just very easy to get down-hearted that I won’t be able to put this into practice in a public library in the UK. I’ll have to see what the questionnaire finds out about organisational culture. I’m off to learn how to use Survey Monkey now.
My own blog is somewhat becalmed as I am blogging for SLA at present on the most amazing experiences I’ve been so lucky to have. As I only submitted my last assignment (not counting that 20 000 word dissertation I need to magic up for 1st September) this time last week, I’ve been somwhat lax on the old blogging front there. Tsk tsk, not good enough I know. Well I calculated that I had written 17 000 words in the last 5 weeks – nothing like piling the pressure on yourself – so I reckon I can write any old tot, and at great length now. What an achievement.
To bed, to bed, to bed……… more in due course, I promise to my 1.1 readers – Cerf, 2008.
