Tell us about your research interests

By Suzana Sukovic



Head to ALIA research page, scroll to Being Research Active

http://www.inflexions.org/1000platos-1914-14.gif

 
In lively discussions at EBLIP8 conference, I mentioned my interest in establishing a central place where library and information professionals and academics could express their interest in collaboration indicating areas of their research interest. The idea was enthusiastically supported and discussed at the conference, so it seemed the time was right to put it to action. After further discussions with the ALIA Research Advisory Committee and CEO, Sue McKerracher, it was decided to start small, but give ALIA members an opportunity to share information about their research interests. Lo and behold, the humble research interest spreadsheet was born. Check it out here and, even better, let ALIA know if you want to be included.

We hope this will be a good opportunity to start some partnerships. Many people in the profession who want to do research, but don’t know where to start may have an opportunity to learn from more experienced colleagues while contributing in other ways to interesting research projects.

Research papers at ALIA conferences

By Suzana Sukovic

REMINDER: ALIA National 2016 call for RESEARCH papers 
The ALIA National Conference 2016 call for abstracts has been extended – now closing 3 December 2015. Submissions of research papers are VERY welcome and STRONGLY encouraged! All research papers will be acknowledged in the program. Please see the conference website for further information on submission guidelines. Enquiries regarding abstract submissions for research papers can be directed to the ALIA Events Team at events@alia.org.au. (From the Conference Committee)

This call for research papers appears as your regular run of the mill message from conference organisers. However, those of you engaged with the Australian LIS community know it is a milestone. Over a number of years Australian academics and LIS professionals felt (and still feel) they work in their own, distinctly separate corner of the field. ALIA conferences tended to focus on the “work on the ground”, which made it less inviting for academics to participate, especially that most universities pay conference costs only when academics present, preferably full peer-reviewed papers. Professionals interested and engaged in practice-based research felt that they were missing opportunities to learn about research in the field and advance their evidence-based practice.

ALIA Board and Research Advisory Committee heard voices of discontent (many in our own ranks). With ALIA’s vested interest in research and evidence-based practice, it became apparent that ALIA conferences need to put research more prominently on their programs. ALIA 2016 now has the process in place to identify research papers and make sure that those that pass quality selection criteria are included in the program. With options to submit full papers for blind peer-review or abstracts for consideration by the program committee, LIS professionals and academics have a chance to decide how they want to participate in this conference. ALIA and the Research Committee hope it will open new opportunities for conversation and learning.

Dr Suzana Sukovic is Co-Chair of the ALIA Research Advisory Committee

Transliterate reading

By Suzana Sukovic

Sukovic, S. 2015. 'Transliterate reading', Scholarly and Research Communication, 2015, 6(4), 11pp
(OA journal)

Are babies becoming hard-wired for interacting with content onscreen in a way unatainable for us, older generations? Or, are comprehension, immersion and healthy reading habits seriously undermined by electronic devices? The answer would depend on whom you are asking. A few studies stressing the importance of interaction with the book for retention and a sense of orientation in the text, have taken a prominent place in conversations about reading in media and at schools. While this line of research is important, focusing on comparisons with the print is taking our attention away from new reading practices emerging from our daily interactions with digital technology. 

In my article Transliterate Reading, published last week in the Scholarly and Research Communication, I consider results from three research projects showing common threads in the behaviour of vary different groups of people – academics in the humanities, high school students and the community as users of a historical website (historyofaboriginalsydney.edu.au). A disappearing line between user, reader and creator emerges as a common theme from data about behaviours of the three groups of users. Even the distinction between print and digital is not as clear as it firstly appears. In the environment where searching, browsing, communication, and skim and focused reading quickly replace each other, the pattern of behaviour is as important as its particular aspects. The concept of ‘transliterate reading’ points towards ‘the practice of reading across a range of texts when the reader seamlessly switches between different platforms, modalities, types of reading, and genres’. 

In the article I consider a range of behaviours to illustrate the concept of transliterate reading. Particularly interesting to me are creative aspects of reading, which emerge from ‘reading across’ and juxtaposition of ideas. An academic study participant explains the experience:

… when you’ve got your computer going and you’ve got a couple of different documents open and you’re cutting and pasting or you’re toggling between two or three documents… you’re just feeling ideas come out of this idea, idea number one and idea number two. When they pop up against each other often completely other idea, idea number 25 will, sort of, turn up out of that.

We don’t know yet what sort of ideas and skills will pop out of transliterate reading, but there is evidence that practices are changing. Academics and teenagers are both unsure about the right way to interact with digital texts as there is very little in traditional education that has prepared them for transliterate using-reading-creating. Librarians and teachers have an excellent vantage point to observe the change and gather evidence for new programs and devices, which will enable fluid reading across texts and technologies.  

Image: http://www.mommyposh.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/baby-tech.jpg

Collaborative approaches for social memory

 





By Katherine Howard
  
Edwards, P. (2004) Collection development and maintenance across Libraries, Archives and Museums: A novel collaborative approach. Library Resources and Technical Services, 48(1), pp 26-33
Full text available to ALIA members via ProQuest database.

This article was first published in Incite (October 2015) 


With this month’s InCite theme being Collections, I wanted to select an article for LIS Investigations that incorporated the collections of our sister institutions: archives and museums. The Edwards (2004) article, based on his PhD research, takes an holistic approach to the collections of libraries, archives and museums*, suggesting amongst other things that a collaborative approach to collection processes “may enable collecting institutions to provide a high level of service to patrons” (p. 26). Despite being over ten years old, the article raises issues that are yet to be fully investigated.

Edwards’ argument centres on the “social value of objects within collections” (p. 28), and that it is fundamentally due to decisions of accessioning and de-accessioning that determine whether those objects are deemed to have continuing value (i.e. they enter and/or  remain within the collection), or are deemed ‘value-less’ (i.e. they are removed from the collection). Those documents that are designated as “archival” are seemingly “placed […] on the pedestal of national progress, sacred memory, civilisation, history, culture, democracy or social necessity […] and assigned a special status” (Nesmith, 2004 as cited in Edwards, 2004). Edwards (2004) refers to this as items being transfunctionalized: that the meaning of a document moves toward a socio- or ideofunction as opposed to a technofunction.  While the effect that selection/exclusion decisions have on the shaping of social memory and what is considered ‘valuable’ may not be a new revelation, what is new is Edwards’ proposed collaborative solution.

In order to preserve a more holistic view of our social memory, Edwards suggests that a collaborative approach to de-accessioning in particular between libraries, archives and museums is perhaps a better option, arguing that “[w]hen a collecting organization acts in isolation, there is always the potential that some valuable materials will be prematurely lost” (p. 30). Edwards asks if we, as a collective professional group, “could align some of our processes and practices in order to better serve the interests of society” (p. 30), given that society has become less interested in where material is housed, only that  it can be accessed. 

While noting that differences in collecting philosophies can lead to tensions between institutions, Edwards highlights that decisions made at a local, individual institutional level may not be the same as those made collectively. Hence, he advocates for a “shift in paradigm – from local to societal value judgements” (p. 31).

Although some of the technological aspects mentioned in the article are now in existence, the overarching tenet of the article is nevertheless still applicable: that the overall social welfare generated from a more collaborative system of collection development and maintenance could prove to be quite significant (p. 31).  Edwards closes the article by appealing to library, archival and museum professionals to rethink how our practices relate to one another, and suggests that viewing current practices through social theoretical constructs may assist us to re-shape future practices.

* Museums in the US are inclusive of what Australians refer to as a Gallery, hence there is no specific reference to galleries in this article.

**Image source https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM 

Dr Katherine Howard is Lecturer at RMIT

#EBLIPRG (Evidence-Based Library Practice Reading Group) Meeting on Thursday, 29 October

By Liz Walkley Hall
 
#EBLIPRG (Evidence-Based Library Practice Reading Group) Meeting on Thursday, 29 October, NEW TIME 2pm AEST on Twitter. #LARK

The next #EBLIPRG  article is :

Wilson, V. (2013). Formalized curiosity: Reflecting on the librarian practitioner-researcher. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, 8(1), 111-117.

In this article, @virginiaprimary (Director, Centre for Evidence Based Library & Information Practice (C-EBLIP), University Library, University of Saskatchewan) discusses the role of practitioner-researchers and the contribution research can make to practice.

I invite all librarians, both practitioners and practitioner-researchers, to read and reflect on this article and share what it means for them in their workplaces.

Some questions to get us started:

• Are you supported to do research in your workplace? And if so, how? It would be great to hear of any examples of support.
• If you are a practitioner-researcher, what motivates you to do this? As there is often a personal investment (of our time) in research projects.
• If you are not a practitioner-researcher, would you like to be? And if so, what would help you get there?

I look forward to our next stimulating tweet chat! And don't forget the NEW time 2pm AEST, not 8pm as previously advertised. See you there.

Questions for Twitter chat #EBLIPRG

http://www.designindaba.com/sites/default/files/news/fox_0.jpg

By Suzana Sukovic



#EBLIPRG (Evidence-Based Library Practice Reading Group) Meeting on Thursday, 24 September, 2 pm AEST on Twitter. #LARK


Our reading for this meeting: The Researcher Librarian Partnership: building a culture of research by Helen Partridge, Insa Haidn, Terry Weech, Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Michael Seadle. Library & Information Research, Vol 38, No 118 (2014)
Available from http://www.lirgjournal.org.uk/lir/ojs/index.php/lir/issue/view/69 

As far as we know, this is the first Australian library reading group online. If other people are like me, we don't know exactly how it's going to work, so preparation should be a good start. Here are some questions I'd like to use to facilitate our discussion:

Q1. What was your overall impression about the article?

Q2. Do you agree with what it says about the importance of #LIS research and obstacles? Is there anything else you think is important?

Q3. What do you think about the process adopted by the mentoring program? 

• What sounded particularly useful? What sounded difficult?

Q4. Do you have some experience in research mentoring? What worked, what didn’t work?

Q5. Can we borrow something from this program and use it in our practice? 

If you come late, it may help to find the last question to orientate yourself. Some resources on Diigo (link on the left side menu on this page), tag "Twitter" may help you with other useful tips.

Prepared or not, we are hoping you'll join in. 

Hoping this fledgling EBL reading group takes off! #LARK Alas, I'll miss this meeting; def there next time! #EBLIPRG https://t.co/xAEX74gv54

— Megan F (@fitzm) September 21, 2015

We are also hoping this fledgling thing will take off, hence a date for your calendar. Our October meeting will be on 29 October at 8 pm AEST so that people from different time zones can join us. The facilitator will be Liz Walkley Hall (@LizWalkleyHall)

Reading group on Twitter on 24 September

By Suzana Sukovic
 
#EBLIPRG exists! We have "minutes" of our first meeting to prove it
https://storify.com/suzanasukovic/ebliprg In case you aren't sure what the abbreviation stands for - it's Evidence Based Library and Information Practice Reading Group.

We decided to go ahead with monthly meetings on Twitter on the last Thursday of a month. We'll alternate times to include as many people from different time zones as possible. Our choice for now are two time slots - 2 pm and 8 pm AEST, but we are open to suggestions.

The group is aiming to have as many different facilitators as possible from all LIS sectors. The meeting facilitator will choose the reading, preferably on a topic of broad interest and freely available.

We'd like to have meetings, facilitators and readings lined up in advance. If you are interested, please let us know via #EBLIPRG or contact us via LARK.

NEXT MEETING: 24 SEPTEMBER 2 pm AEST (#EBLIPRG #LARK)
Article: The Researcher Librarian Partnership: building a culture of research by Helen Partridge, Insa Haidn, Terry Weech, Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Michael Seadle. Library & Information Research, Vol 38, No 118 (2014)
Available from http://www.lirgjournal.org.uk/lir/ojs/index.php/lir/issue/view/69  
I'll be the facilitator.

Please feel free to share the details and join discussions online. Everyone is welcome.

 

A new reading group on Twitter

Thursday 27 August 4pm-5pm AEST
#EBLIPRG #LARK

By Liz Walkley Hall

Since the recent EBLIP8 conference, some of us have been considering how we might build on the fantastic connections we made there -- both face to face and on the Twitter back channel using the #eblip and #LARK hashtags. We have a common cause in growing a community of practice in evidence-based librarianship, but weren't sure how best to do this as busy practitioner researchers.

Further conversation on Twitter saw our initial thoughts and connections evolve. Fiona started us off by suggesting a journal club.

Suzana offered the LARK space to bring it together.

And Liz sought the wisdom of the crowd for ideas and inspiration.

 We got lots of great responses from the EBLIP community...

And so our Twitter reading group is born! Our inaugural "meeting" will be this Thursday 27 August 4pm-5pm AEST and will focus on the how-to of a twitter reading group, including the format and frequency as well as potential topics/ articles. We plan to use the hashtags #ebliprg and #LARK. Fiona (@macdonaldf) will moderate our initial conversation, and Liz (@LizWalkleyHall) and Suzana (@suzanasukovic) will be joining in, but this is very much about bringing us all together as a community so please do add your thoughts and comments -- we look forward to hearing from you!

Liz Walkley Hall is Manager, eResearch at Flinders University

Social media in public libraries

By Edward Kostraby

https://pixabay.com/p-488886/?no_redirect

Leading the pack and constant innovation, seem to be part of the routine of managing any business venture and equally applies to libraries. The myriad of influences is simply overwhelming: the need to transition between platforms to access information, from open source products, cultural heritage and archival digitisation, to digital text mining, publishers with ever growing commercial interests, mobile apps, responding to various trends, whether surveyed or perceived and the need to enhance and develop new generation library management systems. 

Digital transition is now a constant, complex, ever changing and competes for the consumer’s diverse interests and engagement. Social media currently drives much of the need to be connected on an individual and business level. It is little wonder that the idea of a digital future seems meaningless as the digital is well entrenched as a constant. Creating new library service contexts and connections, virtual and physical spaces as a direct connect requires exploring diverse mental frameworks.

The article on hand, "Social technologies in public libraries: exploring best practice", is a research project which explores social media best practice in the public library sector, over 2 partnership library services, the Yarra Plenty Regional Library (YPRL) and City Libraries Townsville (CLT) which provide us with a pathway and an innovative practice on using what is a deep social trend and provides evidence to its effect.

It is an attempt to be part of the digital scene away from the commercial drivers (as these are in the background supporting the infrastructure) and to develop a participatory library service, to engage users (communities attached to the service and beyond) building relationships is time consuming and an important psychological component to a service, “including acceptance of the idea that they (users) added value to the library (rather than simply being a trend the library was following”.

The view that “users creating content and participating with the service, ever new time horizons will keep all on the edge of the next best thing and embedding what they already have”. There was a sense of the inevitable about social technologies melding into the networked society, so much so that YPRL established WikiNorthia, a user input into the “creating stories about the region”
Their report provided five emerging themes which were essential for strong community participation from connecting communities through social technologies “to allow users to have greater say in library direction and generate content” to “fostering an organisational culture that allows social technologies to be used to create a participatory service, where the users are equally engaged as are the staff in providing dialogue, information and a sense of being part of lively and evolving services”.

Libraries are often framed in terms of a library's physical branches, but the emphasis here is to go beyond this, as this is now the reality, something YPRL state explicitly in their strategic plan Yarra Plenty Regional Library from 2008. So this has been an emerging environment for them. During their engagement with participants, defining what they felt made a good social media message, participants identified similar features of a successful social messages, as messages should be interactive or engaging, fun, articulated in a personal tone, and most importantly, framed in terms of the users, so the message was about them, rather than just about the library. This was evident in their social media interactions where their organisations were given a personality that was welcoming and personable. Their online personality had been planned by the services and while it was not described in their governance documentation, there was an awareness that they needed to find this voice to promote community engagement. 

Both services decided to push their boundaries of their futures by connecting with their communities using social media and the essential role they can play within it. They do not have a clear vision of what they need to do beyond the current practice, but acknowledge that the future is digital and that they will be part of it. Predicting any digital future is up for grabs. It is always a brave and measured move and can be argued that it may be well beyond Delphi forecasting or other methods and perhaps is in the realm of stock market prediction - take your pick, but whatever one picks make sure that you lead the push.

Reference
Smeaton, Kathleen; Davis, Kate. 2014. Social technologies in public libraries: exploring best practice, Library Management vol.35, no. 3, pp. 224-238.

A version of this article first appeared in Incite, June/July  2015

Edward Kostraby is Head of Library at 
St Michael’s Grammar School, St Kilda, Victoria

Towards a teaching library: connecting academia and the profession

By Suzana Sukovic

The disconnect between academics and professionals in the library and information sector has puzzled me for many years. Like many others, I am interested in both and, surely, they have a lot in common. In Australia, LIS is a relatively small field, struggling for many years for its rightful place in the increasingly complex knowledge landscape. It would be reasonable to think that academia and practice could gain more ground if we worked together. But, somehow, the connection has remained elusive. On the other hand, listening to what has been happening in other applied fields, I’ve heard a lot about medical students in hospitals and academics’ ‘clinical days’; architects-academics whose main claim to fame are their building projects; engineers-academics who are valued industry consultants and I’ve seen many teachers-to-be in real classrooms. It seemed logical that we should have something like ‘teaching hospitals’ and ‘training schools’, and that our academics could be industry consultants on a regular basis as well. The concept of a ‘teaching library’ has been on my mind for a while, but EBLIP8 has finally promised a right environment to put my thoughts together and present a paper. Lively discussions with the audience after my presentation, conversations during the conference and comments on Twitter have clearly indicated that it was a good time to start this conversation. It may be that LIS needed a high-pressure situation, which came with digital technologies and many new players, to learn more from our disciplinary neighbours. In any case, many people at EBLIP8 seem to think the same as me about the ‘teaching library’: ‘Really, why not?!’Annotated slides are available here and here.

EBLIP8: Grass, trees and a landscape

By Suzana Sukovic

Poster session in The Cube #eblip8 amazing! pic.twitter.com/6KeEFPOUsc

— EBLIP8 (@EBLIP8) July 7, 2015

The excellent EBLIP8 closed on Wednesday, but it opened many possibilities. One is strengthening an often tenuous link between academic and professional silos. And, once we started talking about connections, links were popping up everywhere. If Twitter #EBLIP8 is anything to go by, I wasn’t the only one who responded to this.

The conference was in the middle of Brisbane with its mild winter sun, but you could be forgiven for thinking at times you were in Canada with its mild summer. According to conference statistics, Canadian were not a particularly large group, but they were well-represented as presenters and participants in various discussions because they have a lot to contribute to conversations about the evidence-based practice. In comparison with Australia, Canadians have a well-established EBP and support structures of which most countries can only dream. What we do have in Australia is curiosity, the ability to experiment and innovate, and individuals with significant experience in applied research –- a good start for learning and community-building. 

Grass, bush and a maple tree

The most powerful aspect of the conference for me was thinking of how we can connect individuals and various groups with their different strengths and needs. Grass--tree, rhizome--root metaphors for organisation of information and knowledge, especially in digital environments, have been pretty well-known and very meaningful to me (see Wikipedia page and this explanation). I’ll use the metaphor to sketch a rough landscape of EBLIP groups as glimpsed at the conference (albeit, without drawing skills of some talented library folks).

http://www.inflexions.org/1000platos-1914-14.gif

Grass: An obvious example of a grass-root group is LARK. As LARKs know, face-to-face meetings and events have been organised only in Sydney so far (except the LARK meeting at EBLIP8), but our online group is comprised of people across Australia and the world. A short meeting at the conference with people interested in being involved with LARK showed there is a good will to collaborate and connect. Because LARK is flexible, agile and has an online presence, it can easily link with other groups and take the role of a connector. Its strength is in its lightness. It is a peer-to-peer group and it doesn’t belong to any particular organisation. It also benefits from an association with ALIA.
 
Bush: Like-minded people within the same organisation come together to foster evidence-based practice at their workplace. They have a root structure to be planted within their organisations, but they are small and flexible enough to easily fit into a grassy landscape. Library Research Group at Flinders University, for example, is one of few academic libraries with a thriving peer-support group. Their strength is in their ability to provide face-to-face support and organise team work. Similar groups are not wide-spread, but exist in schools and other organisations. 

ALIA Research Advisory Committee (RAC) has also worked on building research culture by writing the research column in Incite and presenting research workshops at conferences for the last five years. RAC members are scattered across Australia, but exist within the ALIA structure (see ALIA Research).

Maple tree: North American countries have a well-established structure for practice-based research, including defined research roles for academic librarians. A keynote speaker, Virginia Wilson, made us gasp as she was describing support for evidence-based practice at the University of Saskatchewan. Research is part of the academic library role with 20% of work time devoted to research for pre-tenure and 15% for tenured librarians. They have the Centre for of Evidence Based Library & Information Practice which, among many initiatives, provides the Researcher-in-Residence Program. It is open to international applicants if any LARK wants to apply to see what is happening on this maple tree.

There are many excellent examples at North American academic institutions, which provide supportive structures for the EBLIP. It seems, however, that strong institutional structures are largely absent outside universities.

Whole landscape

In the current and future EBP landscape there is space and place for all these groups. What is needed in Australia is a sense of purposeful connection – or landscape architecture -- to extend the metaphor. EBLIP8 has played an important role in providing aspirational models, raising awareness and igniting discussions and connections. There were many excellent papers for modelling and learning, but equally important were conversations, both face-to-face and on Twitter. The conference also provided an excellent forum for quick feedback on some of the ideas.

A fantastic boost for the Australian EBLIP and a hope for a well-designed landscape was announced during the conference. The project to build the basis the evidence based library and information practice, led by professors Helen Partridge and Lisa Given in partnership with ALIA and NSLA, received a Linkage grant from the Australian Research Council. With solid funding and experienced people involved in the project, the dispersed, budding evidence-based community in Australia is looking forward to some tangible outcomes.

@suzanasukovic let's use #LARK and #eblip hashtags as another way to keep in touch :) @eblip8 #eblip8

— Liz Walkley Hall (@LizWalkleyHall) July 8, 2015

 

#DH2015 with a woman’s touch

Digital Humanities 2015, University of Western Sydney, 29 June-3 July 2015

Watching 2 corellas destroying the building during #dh2015 lunchtime session on research infrastructure #irony pic.twitter.com/umSHlA0jxm

— Fiona Tweedie (@FCTweedie) July 2, 2015

By Suzana Sukovic


It was a great day, Digital Humanities. After 15+ years of following, I thought I moved on to other things. But, you moved on too, and here we are again... More importantly, you haven’t quite become a well-established field yet. Actually, there is so much going on to keep many different people interested. And that makes you, DH, still interesting.

I have to say I’ve been having my doubts about all the DH inclusiveness talk for quite a while. Last week Scott Weingard posted a very interesting analysis on why women are so well represented in the audience and so poorly on the speaker’s podium. To simplify his more complex argument, male DH movers and shakers (and they are the majority) aren’t keen on all the talk about culture and other soft topics. They don’t like strange names that aren’t clearly male or female either. That’s what Weingard’s quantitative and digital analysis indicates – and, in machines we trust. 

The real shakeup, however, came with the announcement of the keynote address this morning. Deb Verhoaven from the Deaken University started lightly and inconspicuously before she launched into a DH version of the “misogyny speech”. Funnier and friendlier than Julia Gillard’s speech (for a reason), Verhoaven delivered the same poignant message about a “parade of patriarchs” seen at DH during the previous sessions. I hope that someone made a recording and will share the speech and the reaction in the audience. It nearly ended with a standing ovation. 

It was an unexpected moment of inspiration followed by Genevieve Bell’s fantastic keynote address. Who knew that a talk about the history of robots could be so interesting? History, culture, perceptions and human hope to breathe life into things, combined with funny situations when an anthropologist met a full room of engineers in the Silicon Valley 20 years ago, came together in a fascinating talk about people and machines. Most likely accidentally, Bell illustrated Weingard’s point that women like to talk about culture. And the audience was delighted – just look at the Twitter stream #dh2015.

The second plenary session was shared by a panel on the Indigenous Digital Knowledge. Hart Cohen, Peter Radoll, Susan Beetson, Julia Torpey and Peter Read (convener) discussed the use of technology in ways meaningful for Indigenous people. Peter Read referred to the project A History of Aboriginal Sydney* to discuss possibilities of a 3D presentation of spaces significant in Aboriginal history. He asked the audience to think how imagination and technology can open uncovered perspectives and lead to deeper historical understanding. Peter Read said that all his life he studied place and people and now wonders about uncovering emotions of the past.

It seems, after all, that the Program Committee had a good sense of the Other when they planned plenary sessions today. Listening is also a good sign of a healthy, vibrant field.

There were many excellent papers delivered in English with many accents by both (all?) genders. I can’t do them justice, but glimpses of a great range of papers and a sense of engagement can be seen on Twitter and notes by Geoffrey Rockwell.

*The website www.historyofaboriginalsydney.edu.au has been recently transferred to another server which caused some glitches. They will be corrected soon.  

EBLIP8

8th International Evidence Based Library and Information Practice Conference 

Suzana Sukovic
A whole conference devoted to applied research  – it’s a nerd dream come true to a LARK. I am looking forward to EBLIP8 so much that I allowed it to rule my weekends – a bit of work for the Program Committee, background reading, preparing a presentation and a workshop - and the first LARK meeting outside Sydney. Next weekend is a shopping-packing-flying routine and then three days of talking practice-based research. Imagine! If you have read so far, I think you can agree it isn’t just my weird taste to find it all so exciting.

EBLIP8 registrations are closing on Monday 29th. Only two days left to join all the fun! When you are filling in the registration form, please pay attention to many excellent workshops. Bhuva Narayan and I presenting the Workshop 3 From blog to academic article. 

LARK meeting is on Tuesday 8-9 am. As the meeting descriptions says, we will network and discuss how we can work together across geographical distances.

LARK event tonight

Suzana Sukovic

The LARK event - tour of the UTS library retrieval system and workshop How to get published?, followed by dinner at a Japanese restaurant - are tonight. Everyone involved in organising this event is looking forward to an evening of stimulating conversations and good fun. 

Anyone who has made the last moment decision to come is welcome to join us. The workshop will start at 6.15 pm. See LARK post on 20 May for details.

People who are going to the LRS tour will be escorted to the workshop. Others who are coming straight to the workshop will be directed from the entrance at the UTS Library. Someone from the LARK group or library staff at the front desk will be there to let you pass the security gates. We'll be in the Lecture Room 4K.

We'll use #LARK @UTSLibrary on Twitter. Join the conversation!

Special guest at the LARK workshop on 25 June

By Suzana Sukovic

 

LARK is delighted to announce a special guest at the LARK workshop How to get published? Dr Joycel Kirk will join Dr Bhuva Narayan and me in answering your questions and planning the best publishing route for you. 

Dr Joyce Kirk has been involved in most aspects of research: preparing funding applications and winning grants, leading and managing individual and team-based research projects, writing and editing research papers and reports, assessing grant applications and reviewing research papers for publication. With her academic colleagues at UTS, she has developed courses in information behaviour and research methods.  She has supervised the projects of research degree candidates in LIS and education and has examined theses for universities in Australia, India and New Zealand. 

I have to add that I was one of the lucky candidates who had Joyce as her Doctoral Supervisor.

Please let us know if you intend to come to the workshop by emailing lark.kolektive(at)gmail.com

Workshop details are in the previous post

Workshop 'How to get published?'

&Tour of the UTS Library Retrieval System 

When: Thursday, 25 June 2015
Where: University of Technology, Sydney

For this outing, LARK has organised everything you need to be informed, intellectually stimulated and entertained. Sounds like a tourist brochure, but this is a pretty accurate description of our plan for the evening:

• Tour of the UTS Library Retrieval System (LRS) for an informative warm-up when you will see this amazing automated system for book retrieval 
• Workshop 'How to get published?' for some intellectual stimulation and your chance to ask questions about best ways to communicate your research
• Dinner with lovely LARKs for your entertainment and networking. 

You can join us for all or some of these activities.

Workshop How to get published?

You have done some research – now what? There are many opportunities to communicate results of your research, regardless of its size and significance. A major study as well as a small-scale survey or literature review is likely to have an audience. In this workshop, you will consider blog, professional magazine, academic journal and a book as possible publishing outlets, each with its own advantages and requirements. Publication in a scholarly journal will be considered in some detail – the choice of a LIS journal, manuscript submission and peer-review process. You will have opportunities to ask questions, share experiences and network. The workshop is suitable for professionals and students.

The workshop will be presented by doctors Suzana Sukovic and Bhuva Narayan. See below for details about presenters.

Details

UTS maps

Tour of the UTS Library Retrieval System (LRS)

Meeting place:  Tower building (CB0.2) Level 4 in front of the concierge desk.
Start time: 5 pm
Cost: Free

Workshop How to get published?
Place: UTS Library, CNR Quay St & Ultimo Rd, Haymarket 
Time: from 5.45 pm for 6.15 pm start till 7.45 pm. The LRS tour guide will escort the group to the library.  
Cost: Free

Dinner from 8 pm.

RSVP: 24 June lark.kollektive-at-gmail.com (please indicate activities)

Workshop presenters

Dr Suzana Sukovic has an extensive experience in the library and information sector. She has presented her professional and academic work in a range of publications, and experienced peer-review process as an author and a peer-reviewer. Suzana has learnt about communication of research by conducting her doctoral study into issues of knowledge production and by collaborating on research projects. Suzana is currently Head of the Learning Resource Centre at St. Vincent’s College, Potts Point in Sydney and Co-Chair of the ALIA Research Advisory Committee. She leads ALIA LARK and regularly contributes to the LARK blog. Transliteracy and the use of digital technology for learning and knowledge production are her main research interests.
Dr Bhuva Narayan is an academic in the School of Communication at the University of Technology, Sydney, and coordinates the Digital Information Management program. Her professional background is in the book and publishing industries.  She has an MLIS from the iSchool at the University of Pittsburgh and a PhD from the Queensland University of Technology, Australia where she studied Information Behaviours. Bhuva teaches in the area of Library and Information Science, ICT, and Social Media and her research interests are in human interactions with information and IT, human learning, and social media. Her current research projects include the use of mobile technologies to investigate information management for people with diabetes, developing a user-friendly technology to combat cyberbullying, and the use of social media in teaching.