Reflection & Analysis

When I think about research, I feel that people either love it or they don't. I'm in the "love it" camp, as long as I am interested in the topic. I knew that going into this class, and hoped that I would be able to pick a topic of interest so that the learning part would come a little easier.

One of the things I appreciated about this class was that it gave an introduction to a lot of things. Our first order of business was taking the CITI Research Training. It was a series of trainings about the rules and regulations of research projects, especially as they have to do with human subjects. The legal and ethical implications are vast and it was important to start with this to truly understand the gravity of research work. The professor took us through the process of creating our own research projects, while simultaneously sharing information about the various types of research, the processes of getting them approved, and the elements of each. The history of research is fraught with forms of misconduct and I appreciated learning of the ways in which systems have worked to ensure that changes.

Research is an important foundational skill in librarianship. The ability to search for information (and find it) is tantomount to being an information specialist. While conducting research is not the job of every librarian, it is something that can be beneficial to hold in the skill bank. It can help determine what does and does not work in a library space - such as with my final project, that looked at whether the diversity initiatives in a public library system were having the impact the system had hoped. It can be a way for librarians to determine the type of programs and services they should offer, as well as a way to seek out the impact that those services have on the communities they serve.

As we were learning the different types of research and the various avenues one can go through to collect data, we were also practicing these steps. When learning about literature reviews, we were required to write a lit review on our own chosen topics. When learning about surveys and focus groups, we were asked to create a survey and determine focus group questions that could conceivably be used in our own research. This led to our final research proposal, where we combined our lit review with our proposed methodology, informed consent procedures, data collection and analysis techniques, and anticipated results. Completing the CITI training and going through the proposal process gave a more detailed insight than simply reading articles about this could have.

A video explaining the research proposal for my research topic.