oh dear.
lingonberry scented? i can’t even.
http://www.neatoshop.com/product/Runaway-Monkey-Air-Freshener
related blog post about the ikea monkey: http://orgmonkey.net/?p=1591
I recently attended the Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries conference in Rome, Italy, and had a blast. What a treat to see librarians and library researchers from across the globe present the results of their mixed methods research. It was especially nice to not have to explain why one would want to use both qual and quant at the same time, but rather it was just accepted that using both is how some really well informed research gets done.
We presented the results of two new research projects (my co-investigator is David P. Kennedy of RAND). Listed here are our abstracts and links to presentation slides.
When faced with the need to make decisions about library policies, such as offering new services, discontinuing existing services, or marketing underutilized services, administrators often need to better understand patron expectations of the library. For example, if new services do not meet the expectations of patrons, these services may not be used or appreciated and resources devoted to developing these new services may be wasted. Also, if existing services are seen as essential to patrons’ expectations of a functioning library, patrons may react negatively to discontinuation of these services. In addition, communicating with patrons about policy changes without fully understanding their expectations my result in marketing campaigns that are ineffective, misunderstood or ignored. Therefore, understanding shared patron conceptualizations of library functions is essential to successful policy development and implementation.
In this presentation, we provide an extended example of a mixed qualitative and quantitative research design for identifying the shared conceptualization of library functions. We discuss methods of collecting and analyzing data from the field of cognitive anthropology, including freelisting, pile sorting, and cultural consensus analysis. These methods are designed to explore a domain of information that may or may not have strong cultural agreement, to identify the culturally salient elements of this domain, to identify which elements are core elements and which are peripheral, and to provide a means of testing if there is cultural agreement for the domain in a particular population. We will apply these methods to the domain of a library’s function on a university campus in the United States and discuss the usefulness of these methods to the development and implementation of library policy.
Academic libraries in the United States commonly employ COUNTER or proxy server statistics to describe the use of their electronic resources, but we know that a “use” is arguably more than a full-text download or web page “hit.” This presentation reports on an analysis of data gathered at the Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles, California) from library reference encounters with patrons during which an electronic resource is mentioned. Social network analysis is used to examine the relationship between a patron, a librarian, and an electronic resource to more fully describe the use of the resource. This research provides a framing mechanism for comparison between traditional COUNTER statistics, proxy server statistics, and the social network analysis perspective.
We’re working on writing up the results for publication, soon-ish. 🙂 Let me know if you’d like an advanced peek at either of the two articles.
Here are two twitter screen shots about our presentations:
Our new book is being sold through Amazon and other booksellers, in addition via the publisher, Neal-Schuman. I created an author page at Amazon, which you’ll see when you land on the web page for our book (author info is at the bottom). You could peruse the author page on its own, as well: https://www.amazon.com/author/mariekennedy. It’s a nice promotional feature, I think, being able to see more about the author of a book you’re considering buying. I wonder why our publisher doesn’t have such a thing? Guess I’ll drop them a note next week and ask them to consider adding it.
Here’s a snippet from the first review of our new book, Marketing Your Library’s Electronic Resources: A how-to-do-it manual, via Michelle Dalton at www.libfocus.com/2013/05/marketing-your-librarys-electronic.html:
For those completely new to the area however, this is certainly a book that will serve as a useful toolkit from start to finish – if there is such a thing as a finish in marketing!
Because it’s summer! Because contests are fun! Because making photographs is a blast!
You have several options for how to submit your photo for consideration:
DEADLINE: Share or upload your photo by the end of the ALA Annual Conference, July 2 to be considered for the prize.
If you have a personal copy, or have found the book in your library, that’s awesome! If you don’t have a copy yet you can visit the ALA Store in the conference hall (BOOTH 1224, right in the middle of the exhibition area) and borrow their copy (or buy one for yourself!) to make your picture.
Upload now, upload later, it doesn’t matter. Just be sure to submit your photo by July 2!
The BEST photo (totally subjective) of someone with our book wins an awesome Organization Monkey apron: www.cafepress.com/mariekennedy.499249083. 3 runners up get small prints of one of my photos (http://marie-kennedy.com).
Classes are over for this academic semester, grades are in, and now it’s time to … WORK FAST. During the semester we try to keep our e-resources as stable as possible, so that students have the same experience every time they use a resource. Think of it as a slooooow dance step. When the students are no longer engaged in research our e-resources staff move quick, quick, to make any needed changes to platforms, URLs, and title lists. We’ve only got one week before the summer session begins.
image found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rumba2.png
