Breaking: LARK 2022 Symposium Program Now Available

As part of our 10 year celebrations, your LARK committee is proud to be hosting #LARK2022 Research for Library and Information Practice Symposium in September at the University Technology Sydney. Great news is that the program is now available here.
 
We are very excited to have Professor Lisa Given from RMIT University delivering the keynote titled The power of evidence-based practice: fostering social change through library and information research. Lisa has a wealth of experience and knowledge in multi-disciplined research methods, and will provide practical advice about research for those in the information professions. Lisa’s talk will focus on how information workers can enact social change through engaging with user data and a plethora of varied research projects. 
 
As well as our keynote, on the agenda are a number of presentations and lightning talks covering innovative research projects and studies into academic libraries and non-university library/information sectors. Presentations will cover a great mix of topics on blended learning, online tours, art galleries in the digital environment, makerspaces, evidence-based practice, a school-based reading scheme action research, and study of Saudi Arabian female academics and their research experience. The symposium finishes with two sessions aimed at providing; firstly, insights into a study of the educative role of academic librarians, and then the final session of the day will highlight the challenges and opportunities for practice-based researchers.
 
As we prepare for the symposium, LARK is inviting anyone who wishes to share some research reflections, and results of their finished research or a work in progress on our blog. You can contact us on Twitter @LARKollektive or by email (lark.kollektive_at_gmail.com). 

Registrations are open on the ALIA website.

LARK2022 Symposium Program

FULL PROGRAM

ROOM: UTS CB08.05.002

9.00 am – 9.30 am	Welcome and acknowledgement of Country 10 YEARS OF LARK	Dr Bhuva  Nararyan Dr Suzana Sukovic
9.30 am – 10.30 am	KEYNOTE Prof Lisa Given (RMIT University) The power of evidence-based practice: fostering social change through library and information research	Session Chair Dr Suzana Sukovic
10.30 am – 11.00 am	Morning break
11.00 am – 12.30 pm	SESSION 1 Ms Patricia Mariel Velasquez (Univ. of Auckland), Prof Anne Goulding and A/Prof Chern Li Liew (Univ. of Wellington) Designing blended library space to support students’ need post-lockdown Mrs Emilia Bell (Univ. of Southern Queensland) User experiences in a regional university library makerspace Ms Gabrielle Mace and Ms Merrilyn Lean (Queenwood School) 'Just Read' - A school-based action research project	Session Chair Edward Luca
12.30 pm – 1.15 pm	Lunch
1.15 pm – 2.15 pm	SESSION 2 – Lightning talks Miss Reham Alsuhaibani, Dr Huan Vo-Tran (RMIT), Dr Elizabeth Tait (Charles Sturt University), Dr Naomi Whiteside (RMIT) The role of information practices in research capacity building: perspectives from Saudi female academics who studied at home and abroad Dr Erin Roga, Ms Karen Pruis and Dr Myles Strous (Federation University Australia) A library and lecturer collaboration: Evidence-based practice and foundational research skills in undergraduate nursing students Mr Stephen V. Graham (Univ. of South Australia) Art Online: transformations in digitisation and discoverability of University Art Museum collections Dr Helen Cheung, Ms Yoko Hirose Nagao, Dr Mary Carroll (HKSKH Ming Hua Theological College, Rapidswide Company, Charles Sturt Univ) Visible importance of libraries and librarians: Worldwide ‘live’ online tours	Session Chair Dr Bhuva Narayan
2.15 pm – 2.30 pm	OPEN Q&A
2.30 pm – 3 pm	Afternoon break
3 pm – 4pm	SESSION  3 Ms Romany Manuell (Australian Council for Educational Research) The education and training role of Australian academic librarians: A variety of conceptions Dr Bhuva Narayan (Univ. of Technology, Sydney) Research-practice nexus in LIS: issues and opportunities	Session Chair A/Prof Tina Du
4 pm – 4.30 pm	OPEN FORUM DISCUSSION Next 10 years of LARK: Supporting research in LIS practice	Facilitator: Dr Mary Anne Kennan
4.30 pm	CLOSE	Dr Suzana Sukovic
From 4.30 pm	DRINKS GIN LANE

PDF thumb image by vecteezy.com

Symposium registrations & extended CfP

LARK is delighted to announce that the Symposium registrations are now open on the ALIA website.

• $120 ALIA members, students and speakers
• $150 Non-ALIA members

A call for papers has been extended to 15 July. If you wish to share your research or a great workplace initiative, you still have time to submit a proposal for your chance to join a line-up of great presenters.

Register now to hear from our fantastic keynote speaker, Dr Lisa Given, learn about interesting research in practice, and spend a day networking with like-minded colleagues. We have no doubt there will be something inspiring and thought-provoking for us all.

LIS Research in Practice - Twitter chat

 

This year LARK is celebrating 10 years of advocating and supporting research in practice. Our main event will be a day-long Research for Library and Information Practice: LARK 2022 Symposium at UTS (University of Technology Sydney) with some fabulous guest speakers and an opportunity to learn more about research in the Library and GLAM profession.

While we eagerly await our #LARK2022 symposium in September the LARK organising team were keen to keep the research conversation buzzing. Therefore, we have joined forces with ALIA New Graduates Group and will be hosting the next #AusLibChat Twitter chat on 7th June. #AusLibChat is an awesome safe space for everyone to join in and share their research stories or just tune in to listen and learn. The theme for the chat will be broadly looking at research in the library GLAM sector.

Would you like to get involved in research? Can you share some tips on research projects you know about from your reading or workplace? This will be a great chance to harness your personal learning network and connect with others who are at many different stages of the research ladder. Maybe you’ll be inspired with a new research idea? Maybe you’ll meet someone to collaborate with? Or maybe you’ll learn how to take the next step for your research project?

Please join us to discuss these questions:

1. Do you have any research projects going on in your workplace or any inspiring practice-based research project you have heard or read about?

2. Have you ever considered doing a research project? What have been the barriers or what has been helpful to working on a research project?

3. Do you think your library or information degree prepared you for doing research as part of your professional practice? What else would assist this?

4. For those who have undertaken LIS-based research, what factors made your research a reality? Did you get your work published or have any other outcomes? Don’t forget to share links so we can all take a look at your research!

5. Do you have any plans for future research? What are the issues in your practice or GLAM in general that require investigation?

We look forward to joining everyone on the 7th June. If you aren't sure how to join in, ALIA NGG has some good tips.

Keynote speaker: Prof Lisa M. Given

 

LARK is delighted to announce 

Professor Lisa M. Given as the keynote speaker at the LARK 2022 symposium

Lisa M. Given, PhD, is Director, Social Change Enabling Capability Platform, and a Professor of Information Sciences at RMIT University (Melbourne). Lisa’s interdisciplinary research in human information behaviour brings a critical, social research lens to studies of technology use and user-focused design. Her studies embed social change, focusing on diverse settings and populations, and methodological innovations across disciplines. A former President of the Association for Information Science and Technology, Lisa has served on the Australian Research Council’s (ARC’s) College of Experts. She holds numerous grants funded by ARC, Canadian Institutes for Health Research, and Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, working with university and community partners across disciplines. She is lead author of the forthcoming 5^th edition of Looking for Information: A Survey of Research on Information Seeking, Needs and Behavior, author of 100 Questions (and Answers) about Qualitative Research (2016), and editor of The Sage Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods (2008).

The Symposium Organising Committee is looking forward to inspiring conversations with Prof Given and our presenters. Please note that a call for papers is currently open. 

Sharing and communicating – a necessary addition LIS evidence based practice model

By Clare Thorpe

Earlier this year, Library and Information Science Research Australia held a panel discussion 'to consider the opportunities, issues and challenges for library and information professionals in sharing and disseminating Australia’s emerging body of LIS practice-based research'. Clare Thorpe has recently expanded on her presentation in a commentary article in the journal Evidence Based Library and Information Practice. She summarises her thoughts about why library and information professionals should share their outcomes and results widely.

The Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (EBLIP) model provides a structured approach to decision making and problem solving in workplaces. Colloquially known as “The 5As” (Koufogiannakis, 2013), it is a cyclical process that guides library and information professionals through five steps - Articulate, Assemble, Assess, Agree and Adapt. The model can be applied by individuals and in teams, providing a practical, guided approach that incorporates critical reflective practice and evidence-informed decision making. However, the model fails to explicitly identify a step to prompt the LIS practitioner to communicate their evidence based practice to their stakeholders, clients, or peers.

Figure 1: The five step EBLIP model (Koufogiannakis & Brettle, 2016, p. 14)

Writing, publishing, disseminating and sharing the completed work is the final step in the research process (Hallam, 2018, p. 457). Communicating research findings is a critical and often required stage of the research process, particularly when publishing research findings is mandated by funding bodies. Crumley and Koufogiannakis (2004) argued that: 

“Dissemination of research results is vital to the progress of the profession as well as helping to improve practice. It involves not only making your research available, but also ensuring that it is accessible to others and presented in a manner that is easy to understand. (p. 127)”

They promoted communication within the library, to its parent organization, and externally to the profession via informal and formal methods of dissemination, such as conference presentations, journal clubs, scholarly publication, reports to management, and personal networking (Crumley & Koufogiannakis, 2004).
 
So, if EBLIP is accepted as a form of practitioner research, then it follows that communicating findings and results should be a requirement of being evidence based LIS practitioners.

Figure 2: The six step EBLIP model (Thorpe, 2021, p. 121)

Why should announcing, advocating, and communicating be made an explicit part in the EBLIP model? In my writing, I proposed four benefits that may apply to individuals, libraries, and the profession: 

• To advocate and influence 
• To contribute to the profession’s evidence base 
• To demonstrate professional expertise 
• To build organizational capacity and maturity. 

During the LISRA webinar, panellists Suzana Sukovic and Daniel McDonald also highlighted additional benefits to LIS practitioners, such as writing as a form of professional development and as a source of professional pride. 

I try to practice to what I preach and tell stories of the work that I do in my library in a range of different forums. For example, in 2021, I have published four journal articles, presented at two conferences, spoken at four webinars and now, written one blog post. Taking time to reflect on the work that I have done with colleagues over the past year, has challenged me to think about how I explain my work to different audiences and to communicate with a purpose, whether that is share findings, to advocate for my library and my team, or to influence and inspire others into action. 

In a profession that values access to information and knowledge sharing, sharing of work based projects and practitioner research should be a normal expectation and behaviour of our work. I argue that the EBLIP model would be strengthened with an explicit step that promotes actively contributing to the evidence base for the betterment of libraries and the profession.

If a generation of LIS professionals learns to engage in EBLIP without sharing and communicating their work, then criticisms of the validity of our profession’s evidence base will endure. Communicating in an evidence based way should be an explicit part of the LIS professional’s identity. 

References
Crumley, E., & Koufogiannakis, D. (2004). Disseminating the lessons of evidence based practice. In A. Booth & A. Brice (Eds.), Evidence-based practice for information professionals: A handbook (pp. 138–143). Facet Publishing.

Hallam, G. (2018). Being evidence based makes sense! An introduction to Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (EBLIP). Bibliothek Forschung und Praxis, 42(3), 453–462. https://doi.org/10.1515/bfp-2018-0067 

Koufogiannakis, D. (2013). How academic librarians use evidence in their decision making: Reconsidering the Evidence Based Practice Model [Doctoral dissertation, Aberystwyth University]. Aberystwyth Research Portal. http://hdl.handle.net/2160/12963

Koufogiannakis, D., & Brettle, A. (Eds.). (2016). Being evidence based in library and information practice. Facet Publishing.

Thorpe, C. (2021). Announcing and advocating: The missing step in the EBLIP model. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, 16(4), 118–125. https://doi.org/10.18438/eblip30044 

Clare Thorpe is an award-winning library leader, research-practitioner, and board director. She is Director, Library Services at Southern Cross University and serves on the Board of the Australian Library and Information Association.
Clare.Thorpe@scu.edu.au
@thorpe_clare

LARK webinar recording

 

The last LARK's event this year was a great success. It was well attended and our audience was engaged in interesting conversations with the guest speakers who discussed their doctoral trajectories. Dr Katherine Howard facilitated discussions. We also re-launched LARK's South Australian Chapter.  

Many people were interested in the webinar, but unable to attend, so we are now pleased to share a RECORDING from the event. Many thanks to ALIA for posting it for LARK.

As always, we tweeted during the webinar. See #LARK2021 on Twitter