I love everything about research, especially social science research. In class on Tuesday (my final Information Policy class), a guest speaker made the point that library advocacy in Canada suffers from a lack of studies (and that using US data in Canada is rarely convincing). I couldn’t agree more – I often read articles in newspapers about studies conducted in the US and wonder, “Hmm… I wonder if this is true in Canada?” My first professional effort to address this problem was born last summer when I approached Meghan Ecclestone, a fellow student, and proposed that we study the professional development activities of students in the Faculty of Information. Some of the preliminary findings of our study were reported by Dean Seamus Ross at the Ontario Library Association conference back in January. Meghan and I will be presenting our results at this year’s Canadian Library Association Conference in Montréal.
Why did we conduct the study? First, there is almost no information on Canadian students in the information field in the literature (in fact, I found only one study anywhere, about archival studies). Second, I was curious to know more about what my fellow students were up to. Why do I think others in the profession would be interested? Well, I hope that the findings will help employers understand more about students and what they are capable of. It should also assist educators (and professional associations!) in designing programs to meet the needs of students. I don’t want to go into it too much more, but this is the sort of work that I would like to do more of. Almost everyone in education (and libraries etc) would benefit from understanding students better, especially if such understanding raises above the level of anecdote.
In addition to the above, I am conducting research for my Master’s thesis on net neutrality policy in Canada and the United States. Many in Canada may be unfamiliar with this issue as it has a lower profile here than in the US, but that is no reason not to be interested. The debate over Net Neutrality is fundamentally about the future of the Internet and its role in society. Will freedom of expression continue to be protected (or even advanced further)? Will ISPs and governments respect privavy rights? What will happen to non-profit uses of the Interenet such as health research, tele-medicine, education and so forth, if net neutrality fails to be upheld? My project is specifically focusing on the views and activity of civil society organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, the American Library Association and so forth. I hope to some day turn this project into academic articles or perhaps a book.
In addition to conducting my own research, I am interested in supporting others as well. I am a member of the Special Libraries Association Research & Development committee which provides grants to researchers. This is my first term working on this Committee and I look forward to reporting more about it later. Needless to say, if you are looking for funds to conduct research on information professionals, please do consider applying for a research grant.
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