Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

“Just Like When I Was A Liaison”: Applying A Liaison Approach To Functional Library Models, Kristin Hoffmann, Emily Carlisle-Johnston

Western Libraries Publications

In this exploratory paper we consolidate themes discussed in literature to highlight three principles of liaison librarianship: building relationships, anticipating and meeting needs, and drawing on specialized expertise. These principles capture how liaison librarians approach their professional activities and together comprise what we define as a liaison approach. Through stories of our own work as scholarly communication librarians, we explore how a liaison approach can extend beyond subject liaison models to be relevant for librarians in functional roles. In sharing our stories, we prompt academic librarians in a variety of roles to consider how the perspective of a liaison approach …

Spatial Thinking, Gender And Immaterial Affective Labour In The Post-Fordist Academic Library, Karen P. Nicholson

FIMS Publications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to use spatial thinking (space-time) as a lens through which to examine the ways in which the socio-economic conditions and values of the post-Fordist academy work to diminish and even subsume the immaterial affective labour of librarians even as it serves to reproduce the academy. Design/methodology/approach – The research question informing this paper asks, In what ways does spatial thinking help us to better understand the immaterial, invisible and gendered labour of academic librarians’ public service work in the context of the post-Fordist university? This question is explored using a conceptual approach …

Survey Research: Useful, Valuable Findings Require Hard Work, Kristin Hoffmann, Selinda Berg

Western Libraries Publications

Gathering data using a survey is often perceived by practitioner-researchers as one of the easiest ways to carry out research; however, a well-constructed survey can be difficult to develop. Librarian practitioner-researchers often use surveys as an economical and easy way to capture information from a wide swath of people. Once the information is gathered, however, the application and usability of the data is often limited and can fall short of the standards of scholarship. Librarian practitioner-researchers may also default to a survey when it is not the most effective tool for data gathering. But when surveys are designed well and …

"Being In Time": New Public Management, Academic Librarians, And The Temporal Labor Of Pink-Collar Public Service Work, Karen P. Nicholson

FIMS Publications

Time is a site of power, one that enacts particular subjectivities and relationships. In the workplace, time enables and constrains performance, attitudes, and behaviors. In this qualitative research study, I examine the impact of the values and practices of new public management on academic librarians’ experiences of time when engaged in pink-collar public service (reference and information literacy) work. Data gathered during semi-structured interviews with twenty-four public service librarians in Canadian public research-intensive universities, members of the U15 Group, serve as a site of analysis for this study. Interview data were first analyzed using thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006) …

Conceptions Of Research Among Academic Librarians And Archivists, Lise Doucette, Kristin Hoffmann

Western Libraries Publications

Academic librarians and archivists occupy a unique role as researchers and as practitioners who support faculty and student researchers. However, the ways in which librarians and archivists think about research is largely unexamined, while faculty conceptions of research have been studied extensively. In this study, we analyzed drawings and interviews of 25 Canadian academic librarians and archivists and identified six conceptions of research: research is a shared, community experience; research leads to learning and growth; research is influenced by personal and professional experience; research is a process involving interrelated components; research involves refining and answering a question; research by librarians …

Understanding Factors That Encourage Research Productivity In Academic Librarians, Kristin Hoffmann, Selinda Berg, Denise Koufogiannakis

Western Libraries Publications

Objective – This project identifies the factors that contribute to the success of librarians as active researchers. Research success is generally aligned with productivity and output, and the authors are therefore interested in understanding the factors that encourage research productivity. This fills a gap in the literature on librarians as researchers, which has tended to focus on barriers rather than enablers.

Methods – For this quantitative study, we distributed an online survey to 1,653 potential participants across Canada and received 453 usable responses for a 27% response rate. The survey asked participants to report their research outputs and to answer …

Examining Success: Identifying Factors That Contribute To Research Productivity Across Librarianship And Other Disciplines, Kristin Hoffmann, Selinda Adelle Berg, Denise Koufogiannakis

Western Libraries Publications

While some academic librarians have embraced the role of researcher and have successfully become active researchers and authors, others have struggled to be productive in this aspect of their responsibilities. A content analysis of literature on research productivity for librarians and non-librarians was conducted in order to identify factors that have been found to affect research success. This content analysis is part of a larger study designed to develop an instrument to measure the impact of key factors on librarians' success in research. This analysis reinforces the need to identify and study those factors that are truly antecedents for librarians’ …

A Needs-Driven And Responsive Approach To Supporting The Research Endeavours Of Academic Librarians, Ken N. Meadows, Selinda Berg, Kristin Hoffmann, Margaret Martin Gardiner, Nazi Torabi

Western Libraries Publications

In this article, the authors describe a grassroots model for research support and explore the success and evolving directions of this model based on three iterative needs assessments administered by the Librarian and Archivist Research Support Network (LARSN) Steering Committee at The University of Western Ontario. Needs assessments were identified as a critical tool to ensure that LARSN programming is relevant to librarians’ and archivists’ changing research needs. In the first four years of LARSN, three needs assessments were administered: in fall 2007, fall 2009, and spring 2011. The iterative needs assessments aimed to capture how the environment and research …