Chris Powis, Head of Library and Learning Services at Northampton University, came to Cambridge to deliver a session about the research culture that seems to be thriving in his workplace, providing an interesting case study and much food for thought for those of us working and researching in Cambridge libraries. His most powerful thesis to my mind was this: the reason librarians should do research is that it's one of the activities of universities. We are a service, yes, but we are also part of the academic fabric and as such we have a responsibility to take part in teaching and research. I have seen the difference it makes working with academics who think of us as colleagues in research, both to the quality of support we can give them and the quality of insight they can give us. It's a mutually beneficial relationship I feel lucky to have in my role.
At Northampton research by librarians is supported and encouraged at all levels. Chris emphasised that enthusiastic staff alone do not make a research culture, nor can you create one by managerial mandate. A true research culture derives from a collaboration between top-down and bottom-up support for research (not from some farcical aquatic ceremony - sorry, I went a little Monty Python there...). Support for research is included in the vision and plan for the library and staff who are interested in doing research have opportunities for training and resources that allow them to run with their ideas. The library has its own research ethics board, adapted from that of the University, and they report on the impact of their research annually as well as promoting published work by their staff in monumental banners in the library. All of this is serving to expand the perceived role of librarians to include research, just as it had to be actively and forcibly expanded to include teaching.
One of the most interesting practical steps they took to promote and develop a community and culture of research has been to hold library conferences that showcase NU library staff research. There are no keynote speakers - no external speakers of any kind - and so no-one's work is held above anyone else's. Most importantly, the conference is opened by the Vice Chancellor and open to academics from the university to attend. Additionally, research is often done in collaboration with academic colleagues. This level of visibility, professionalism and interdisciplinary work is a remarkable tool for changing both the perception of librarians and the quality of the research produced.
At Cambridge we do a lot of things very well with regards to library research. Our autonomy allows some wonderful small-scale, agile research projects to flourish. However, I think that lack of communication between libraries can sometimes lead people to believe that they can't do research because there's something fundamentally different about the libraries that do it, or that what they're doing already isn't research when in fact it is. I think it's worth tackling the barriers to a research culture across the University and developing a community of practice that would help cultivate top-down and bottom-up support. The session sparked a tentative discussion and it is my (not-so-secret) hope that this will provide a spark to get more of us involved with creating a research culture that fosters a rise in the quality of research and wider dissemination of what we do across all Cambridge libraries.
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Friday, 18 November 2016
Saturday, 5 November 2016
23 Research Things - Thing 11
While I don't think I'd ever really use them to put out my own content online, I am an enthusiastic consumer of YouTube and podcast content, and it's not just weightlifting tutorials and funny cat videos either. I love learning from these platforms. For example, I credit fandom podcasts such as The Tolkien Professor and Witch Please for making me a more careful, critical reader of fiction. Through 99% Invisible I've learned a lot about design and the way humans interact with the world.
The podcast I'm choosing to highlight for Thing 11, however, is Hello PhD, a fortnightly podcast "for scientists and the people who love them". I mentioned it in my previous post as a great example of communicating research and, although it doesn't focus exclusively on specific research projects, it provides great insights into the structure and culture of postgraduate science education. It takes a refreshingly critical stance toward that structure and also talks about mental and physical wellbeing in postgraduate training, mentorship, productivity, alternative routes outside of academia etc. Throw in the weekly science etymology puzzle and I'm totally hooked! The hosts are great at communicating complex issues within academia and advocates for loving what you do as a researcher. The podcast has a slight biological science bias but don't let that discourage you - the information is useful for all researchers and the people that work with (and/or love) them!
From YouTube there are too many good educational videos out there to be able to pick the best, from the now outrageously popular TED talks to SciShow, the Gates Notes, Vox, Crash Course... the list goes on and on! I did need to pick one, though, so I thought I'd go in for some good old fashioned nepotism and share my friend Peter's YouTube channel, The Binary Tree.
The podcast I'm choosing to highlight for Thing 11, however, is Hello PhD, a fortnightly podcast "for scientists and the people who love them". I mentioned it in my previous post as a great example of communicating research and, although it doesn't focus exclusively on specific research projects, it provides great insights into the structure and culture of postgraduate science education. It takes a refreshingly critical stance toward that structure and also talks about mental and physical wellbeing in postgraduate training, mentorship, productivity, alternative routes outside of academia etc. Throw in the weekly science etymology puzzle and I'm totally hooked! The hosts are great at communicating complex issues within academia and advocates for loving what you do as a researcher. The podcast has a slight biological science bias but don't let that discourage you - the information is useful for all researchers and the people that work with (and/or love) them!
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| Source: http://hellophd.com/page/9/ |
Peter's great at explaining the theory behind computer science - something I admit I'm way more into than learning programming languages - in simple terms that appeal to my visual learning style. He's a great example of how accessible it is to share what you know with the world and get others excited about your area of interest.
Enjoy, and let me know what you think!
23 Research Things - Thing 10
I'll do my best to encapsulate my rambling and multifarious thoughts on communicating research into a single blog post. I suppose the people to whom it makes sense are already doing it, so I will do my best not to preach to the converted but instead address people who may not see the point in spending their valuable time translating their research into plain language.
Georgina and Ryan made some great points in their podcast on the topic, not least of which is that if you've devoted your time to researching something in great depth, hopefully it means you're quite excited about it. I recently asked one of my classes to chat to each other about their research topics and overheard one student ask another, "What are you geeking out on lately?" It's the same sort of language people use around a show they really love or a hobby they've gotten really into. I hope all of the researchers I work with feel that way about their work at least periodically.
To me, the "geeking out"- getting excited about an idea or a question or a problem and then pursuing it, finding it difficult to talk about anything else over dinner or out at the pub - is what it's all about. It's why I've always wanted to go into some field in education; to watch that spark ignite and help people take down the barriers to pursuing that shiny new piece of knowledge. The most influential people in my life have been educators, but first and foremost they've been great communicators who were able to share their enthusiasm, passion and curiosity. They're the Neil deGrasse Tysons and Bill Nyes of the world, but they're also the Katie Browns and Debbie Aldouses of the world. These are people who are passionate about knowledge and who are able to share that passion.
One of the chief advantages of the tools explored in previous Things is that they mean you don't have to be a brilliant public speaker or teach in a classroom to communicate your passion for your research. People like Katie Mack (AKA @astrokatie) have found the power of tools like Vine (RIP) and Twitter for sharing their research and have huge followings because they get people excited by and interested in what they're doing. The "Dance your PhD" Contest launched by Science shows how engaging, funny and accessible communicating research by video can be, while podcasts like Hello PhD provide a forum for those who prefer the spoken word.
The thing in common with all of these is that they've learned to make complex research topics accessible. The first step is letting go of the idea that your research is too complicated for other people to understand. Obviously they won't understand it at the level that you do, but I agree with Ryan that there is no concept or process that can't be explained relatively simply. I would also argue that in translating your work into a simpler, more easily communicable form, by coming up with your "elevator pitch", by trying to condense it into the length of a Tweet, or by explaining it in an animation, you change your perspective on your subject. You can actually learn more about your subject by simplifying it and communicating it.
When you communicate your research, you never know where the conversation will take you.
Georgina and Ryan made some great points in their podcast on the topic, not least of which is that if you've devoted your time to researching something in great depth, hopefully it means you're quite excited about it. I recently asked one of my classes to chat to each other about their research topics and overheard one student ask another, "What are you geeking out on lately?" It's the same sort of language people use around a show they really love or a hobby they've gotten really into. I hope all of the researchers I work with feel that way about their work at least periodically.
To me, the "geeking out"- getting excited about an idea or a question or a problem and then pursuing it, finding it difficult to talk about anything else over dinner or out at the pub - is what it's all about. It's why I've always wanted to go into some field in education; to watch that spark ignite and help people take down the barriers to pursuing that shiny new piece of knowledge. The most influential people in my life have been educators, but first and foremost they've been great communicators who were able to share their enthusiasm, passion and curiosity. They're the Neil deGrasse Tysons and Bill Nyes of the world, but they're also the Katie Browns and Debbie Aldouses of the world. These are people who are passionate about knowledge and who are able to share that passion.
One of the chief advantages of the tools explored in previous Things is that they mean you don't have to be a brilliant public speaker or teach in a classroom to communicate your passion for your research. People like Katie Mack (AKA @astrokatie) have found the power of tools like Vine (RIP) and Twitter for sharing their research and have huge followings because they get people excited by and interested in what they're doing. The "Dance your PhD" Contest launched by Science shows how engaging, funny and accessible communicating research by video can be, while podcasts like Hello PhD provide a forum for those who prefer the spoken word.
The thing in common with all of these is that they've learned to make complex research topics accessible. The first step is letting go of the idea that your research is too complicated for other people to understand. Obviously they won't understand it at the level that you do, but I agree with Ryan that there is no concept or process that can't be explained relatively simply. I would also argue that in translating your work into a simpler, more easily communicable form, by coming up with your "elevator pitch", by trying to condense it into the length of a Tweet, or by explaining it in an animation, you change your perspective on your subject. You can actually learn more about your subject by simplifying it and communicating it.
When you communicate your research, you never know where the conversation will take you.
Wednesday, 26 October 2016
23 Research Things - Thing 8
For Thing 8 I had a look at ResearchGate and Academia.edu. The handy side-by-side comparison provided by the Moore shows exactly why between the two I favour ResearchGate, even though it sounds like the name the popular media would give a scandal involving researchers. Just as Apollo, the Cambridge repository, has developed a "Request a copy" form on otherwise closed access records, I think the ability of students and academics to contact an author in order to circumvent publishers' paywalls is an important feature of a site.
As much as I teach people to be wary of illegitimate copies of papers online and direct them to openaccess.cam.ac.uk to ensure their manuscripts are archived in a way that meets legal, funder and publisher requirements, ResearchGate's facility to request copies is a service I certainly recommend to my user group when I reach a dead end trying to source things through Inter Library Loan.
I've had an account for a few months but, as fellow #23researchcam participant Luther noted, it may be a better service for people who have a portfolio of academic work to share and discuss. It's also one of several ways to follow academics you're interested in, provided they're active users. While Scopus can alert you when favourite academics publish, and the same service is available on Google Scholar if they have made their profile public, both Academia.edu and ResearchGate seem like a slightly more personal service, giving you the opportunity to comment and discuss as well as receiving updates.
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| Opening the gates to connect people to the information they want is one of the key benefits of ResearchGate. |
I've had an account for a few months but, as fellow #23researchcam participant Luther noted, it may be a better service for people who have a portfolio of academic work to share and discuss. It's also one of several ways to follow academics you're interested in, provided they're active users. While Scopus can alert you when favourite academics publish, and the same service is available on Google Scholar if they have made their profile public, both Academia.edu and ResearchGate seem like a slightly more personal service, giving you the opportunity to comment and discuss as well as receiving updates.
Tuesday, 26 January 2016
Whales, games, conferences and teaching
Apologies that my blogging has been a little like the sporadic surfacing of a Cuvier's Beaked Whale lately! I have a lot I want to reflect on and, as I've said previously, the times when I feel least like I have time to reflect are precisely the most important times for me to do it. (I wonder why I use breathing metaphors so much when thinking about reflecting...) So I'm sticking my head above water to give a quick update to reflect a bit on what has been going on since I started my new job in November.
- Attended a course on game design for libraries put on by the CILIP School Libraries Group. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was being taught by some HE librarians and they were talking about the HE sector for the most part, so the content was very well suited to me, but it was also fantastic meeting and talking to lots of librarians from school libraries. We don't often get to meet school librarians in HE but I was struck by how different the support for information literacy is in the different schools. It reinforced the idea that we can't assume what undergraduates arrive knowing because just within London there is very different exposure to critical reading and information literacy depending on the school.
- Attended various talks by the fabulous Office of Scholarly Communications. These guys just seem to get it. They just formed last year and already they're tackling a lot of big issues facing researchers such as open access, open data, and managing one's online profile. This overlaps with some of the work librarians are doing but rather than fighting for supremacy, the OSC have made sure to leverage the might of librarians in Cambridge, providing training and ensuring that we have a lot of buy-in with what they're doing. I think it's absolutely brilliant - rather than having to navigate the vast and confusing information "out there" online, we have a local resource I can point people to and in turn they're making sure librarians are better prepared to answer some of the questions we get from academics. Big shout out to these guys! Check out their blog as well - it's well worth a look.
- Attended the Libraries@Cambridge conference. I was also one of the live bloggers for this event. You can read my hastily typed post on the first Keynote Address here! It was my first time at this event and I was very impressed. I like going to external events like the CILIP SLG course because of the chance to meet with people from diverse backgrounds but it was clear from the conference that there is huge diversity within library roles just in Cambridge.
I've been learning quite a lot in my new role, helped along by my brilliant co-workers. From my perspective it's a relatively small team, but there's a lot of interlocking expertise. Some of us overlap in places but we also complement each other's expertise very well.
The big thing on my mind at the moment, however, is teaching. For a very, very long time I've known that I wanted be involved in education in some way, just not in front of a classroom day in and day out. (I have respect bordering on awe for those who can summon the energy to do so and do it well!) This meandered from thinking about tutoring for a non-profit to interpreting heritage sites for visitors to doing museum outreach and education and lately being focused on information literacy education through libraries. I've taught roller skating with the local roller derby league and absolutely loved it - the feeling of helping someone "get it", of breaking things down to help them, giving pointers and knowing when to step back and let them practice on their own.
So I was fairly nervous but also excited when I found out I was to begin teaching last week! I've taught a couple of sessions so far and I think they went pretty well. Areas I want to work on are deepening my knowledge of the areas I'm talking about so I can speak with a bit more understanding and developing a storehouse of pertinent examples for each point. What I think I'm good at: being engaging/holding people's attention, appearing relaxed even when I'm feeling nervous or flustered and developing sessions that take into account different learning styles. I think it's a little early to start making much deeper statements about teaching. I can certainly see how it is an incredibly dynamic process learning to teach!
There is a lot more going on at the moment that I would love to get into, such as the UX study for which I'm currently applying for ethics approval, and my new-found evangelism for Open Access, especially at moments when I'm dealing with tricky Inter Library Loans requests, but I will save those for another time!
Thursday, 30 April 2015
UX Studies 1 - Lessons learned from the Feedback Wall (that don't have much to do with feedback)
The Feedback Wall at my library has been ongoing since mid-February and was inspired by this post on the UKAnthroLib blog. I'll admit that my secret hope when putting it together was that we would get positive feedback in among the mixture of suggestions and criticisms, the way other libraries seemed to be getting. In hindsight, I know that was a lot to ask given the relationship we currently have with our students, and our feedback so far has been entirely criticism and suggestions. While it has occasionally been a bit wounding to the ego, a lot of good has come out of the Feedback Wall and we intend to keep it going. Hopefully we'll get to the point where we do start to get positive reinforcement from students, but I certainly know now not to expect it.
Along those lines, I wanted to share a few lessons I have learned during this process that have less to do with the comments people have left and more with the process of soliciting feedback in this way and about workplace culture.
1- You can provide all the bells and whistles you want as long as you also address the most pressing needs.
I had been feeling pretty good about the Feedback Wall. In response to feedback we've received in the last three months we've brought in pens for next to the catalogue computers, sped up the acquisitions process for recommended books, purchased USB DVD drives and book rests for students to borrow, acquired ear plugs to give out to students and relaxed our drinks rules to allow students to finish hot drinks in the Issue Desk area rather than outside the library.
However, one issue keeps coming up consistently: the students want a water cooler or drinking fountain in the library. It is our most common suggestion/complaint on the feedback wall and was one of the most common comments on our user survey last year. No matter what else we were doing, this issue came up again and again and, while I sympathise very much with the student perspective, there was reluctance from higher up to do anything about it. I feel certain it will keep coming up until we do take some kind of action. It has been an excellent lesson in the fact that even if you think your institution is being reasonable (i.e. bring in your own water bottler), the users do not necessarily agree, and it is important to address those concerns.
2 - No matter how hard you work, people will still find something to critique you on. There's a balance to strike between trying to meet every single need and not bothering.
As a library assistant I work very hard to make the library a positive place for students to work. I am one of their main human points of contact with the library and as such I am very invested in making sure they have a good experience. However, I am also in the position of enforcing rules and, as the person who keeps track of the Feedback Wall, representing the views and expectations of my institution to students. This is a very difficult position to negotiate, especially when your sympathies and the policies you are enforcing do not align.
Even if you could somehow meet every need thanks to an inexhaustible budget, incredibly flexible library space and a staff entirely comprised of the sort of service-minded, bend-over-backwards librarians we wish we could be, there will always be something that someone thinks you've done wrong or could improve on. If you're in a more flawed (i.e. real) library, there are lots of somethings users will pick up on. This can become overwhelming if you let it. Or, you can take things on as you have the capacity to deal with them, one step at a time. Like I talked about in my previous post, keeping your focus on the final goal of a perfect library is unattainable and will ultimately lead you to burn out. Do what you can, when you can. If you are smart about it, you can potentially have a big impact without wearing yourself out.
3 - Learn to not take criticism of your institution personally.
Most of the feedback has been constructive or at least polite, but there have been a few that have really gotten under my skin and made me feel truly awful. The worst actually cropped up this week and was about - you guessed it - water. Not only did the student feel that we were expecting people to "drink from the sinks like dogs" but wondered how long the library was going to "ignore" the issue. This hurt, particularly because I had been trying for months to find new angles and new approaches to get management to solve this issue. Even if it was not being resolved, it was certainly not being ignored.
That was a moment when I needed to step back and put myself in the shoes of the individual who wrote the comment. From their perspective, it must have felt like we were ignoring the issue. If students see that nothing is being accomplished, they assume that means that nothing is being done. It wasn't a personal critique, just an expression of frustration at what to the students must seem like a no-brainer issue because we haven't been able to adequately justify the library's position.
I think empathy is the key to negotiating these difficult situations. If you can simultaneously empathise with both parties and truly understand their perspectives, it makes creative problem-solving and negotiation much easier. The moment you let yourself get worked up and feel personally affronted, you shut down your ability to approach the problem from different angles because now you are simply approaching it from a defensive position rather than one based on understanding.
4 - If you really believe in something, don't give up arguing for it. Keep changing your approach until you can reach a compromise.
Everyone's heard the phrase "You have to pick your battles", right? I kind of have a love/hate relationship with that phrase. It's useful in as much as it can remind you about the finite energy, finite resources or finite flexibility you have to work with, as in my previous points. But when it comes to dealing with people, this phrase makes me very frustrated. "You have to pick your battles with ________, you know?"
To my mind this just excuses the other person from having to make compromises. I'm certainly not saying I want to be adversarial over every single issue. Indeed, the most effective approaches involve seeing the issue from the other person's point of view and addressing their concerns in a creative and civil way. But I don't think that you should let "picking your battles" excuse anyone from having to engage in conversation over your difference of opinion on important issues. Nor should you let it excuse you from having a conversation that you're nervous about having. If you truly believe in something, keep trying different angles, different approaches, different solutions.
Somewhere in the depths of the UXLibs hashtag on Twitter I saw a quote from a keynote address (I'm really sorry, I don't remember which one or whose tweet it was) about approaching service design using the same rules as improvisational acting. In improv, there's the idea of "Yes, and..." This is where actors doing a scene together always build on what was said before. They never shut each other down by contradicting the inventions of their fellow actors, and they keep the scene going by expanding and elaborating on what has just been said, no matter how off-the-wall it may be. There was the idea at the UX Libs conference that this kind of environment is ideal for design because it keeps creative momentum going. Maybe some of the ideas will be impossible or undesirable in the end, but as part of the creative process it's important to run with them anyway because what sounds like a mad idea may end up being the brilliant solution you've been looking for.
If you are lucky enough to work in a "Yes, and..." environment, it's likely that you have a lot of scope to innovate. If you work in a "No, but..." environment, chances are you find it difficult to stay positive and keep coming up with new ideas. I know that I can get very emotionally exhausted by keeping my own momentum going while being told why my ideas won't work, why things won't change and so on. I'm not saying that you should ignore your own emotional well-being and plug away at things until you feel like you're going to drop, but don't let yourself get discouraged on the issues you really believe in. In that sense, you really should pick your battles - make sure you're investing emotional energy in things proportional to how important you think they are. But it's worth remembering that there are multiple approaches to every problem and it would be a shame to give up before you find one that works.
5 - Don't pay for supplies for your research out of your own pocket.
This one doesn't need much clarification. If you're doing UX research for your library, you're doing it for them. If you pay for your own supplies you'll end up feeling like an idiot later on, believe me.
Along those lines, I wanted to share a few lessons I have learned during this process that have less to do with the comments people have left and more with the process of soliciting feedback in this way and about workplace culture.
1- You can provide all the bells and whistles you want as long as you also address the most pressing needs.
I had been feeling pretty good about the Feedback Wall. In response to feedback we've received in the last three months we've brought in pens for next to the catalogue computers, sped up the acquisitions process for recommended books, purchased USB DVD drives and book rests for students to borrow, acquired ear plugs to give out to students and relaxed our drinks rules to allow students to finish hot drinks in the Issue Desk area rather than outside the library.
However, one issue keeps coming up consistently: the students want a water cooler or drinking fountain in the library. It is our most common suggestion/complaint on the feedback wall and was one of the most common comments on our user survey last year. No matter what else we were doing, this issue came up again and again and, while I sympathise very much with the student perspective, there was reluctance from higher up to do anything about it. I feel certain it will keep coming up until we do take some kind of action. It has been an excellent lesson in the fact that even if you think your institution is being reasonable (i.e. bring in your own water bottler), the users do not necessarily agree, and it is important to address those concerns.
2 - No matter how hard you work, people will still find something to critique you on. There's a balance to strike between trying to meet every single need and not bothering.
As a library assistant I work very hard to make the library a positive place for students to work. I am one of their main human points of contact with the library and as such I am very invested in making sure they have a good experience. However, I am also in the position of enforcing rules and, as the person who keeps track of the Feedback Wall, representing the views and expectations of my institution to students. This is a very difficult position to negotiate, especially when your sympathies and the policies you are enforcing do not align.
Even if you could somehow meet every need thanks to an inexhaustible budget, incredibly flexible library space and a staff entirely comprised of the sort of service-minded, bend-over-backwards librarians we wish we could be, there will always be something that someone thinks you've done wrong or could improve on. If you're in a more flawed (i.e. real) library, there are lots of somethings users will pick up on. This can become overwhelming if you let it. Or, you can take things on as you have the capacity to deal with them, one step at a time. Like I talked about in my previous post, keeping your focus on the final goal of a perfect library is unattainable and will ultimately lead you to burn out. Do what you can, when you can. If you are smart about it, you can potentially have a big impact without wearing yourself out.
3 - Learn to not take criticism of your institution personally.
Most of the feedback has been constructive or at least polite, but there have been a few that have really gotten under my skin and made me feel truly awful. The worst actually cropped up this week and was about - you guessed it - water. Not only did the student feel that we were expecting people to "drink from the sinks like dogs" but wondered how long the library was going to "ignore" the issue. This hurt, particularly because I had been trying for months to find new angles and new approaches to get management to solve this issue. Even if it was not being resolved, it was certainly not being ignored.
That was a moment when I needed to step back and put myself in the shoes of the individual who wrote the comment. From their perspective, it must have felt like we were ignoring the issue. If students see that nothing is being accomplished, they assume that means that nothing is being done. It wasn't a personal critique, just an expression of frustration at what to the students must seem like a no-brainer issue because we haven't been able to adequately justify the library's position.
I think empathy is the key to negotiating these difficult situations. If you can simultaneously empathise with both parties and truly understand their perspectives, it makes creative problem-solving and negotiation much easier. The moment you let yourself get worked up and feel personally affronted, you shut down your ability to approach the problem from different angles because now you are simply approaching it from a defensive position rather than one based on understanding.
4 - If you really believe in something, don't give up arguing for it. Keep changing your approach until you can reach a compromise.
Everyone's heard the phrase "You have to pick your battles", right? I kind of have a love/hate relationship with that phrase. It's useful in as much as it can remind you about the finite energy, finite resources or finite flexibility you have to work with, as in my previous points. But when it comes to dealing with people, this phrase makes me very frustrated. "You have to pick your battles with ________, you know?"
To my mind this just excuses the other person from having to make compromises. I'm certainly not saying I want to be adversarial over every single issue. Indeed, the most effective approaches involve seeing the issue from the other person's point of view and addressing their concerns in a creative and civil way. But I don't think that you should let "picking your battles" excuse anyone from having to engage in conversation over your difference of opinion on important issues. Nor should you let it excuse you from having a conversation that you're nervous about having. If you truly believe in something, keep trying different angles, different approaches, different solutions.
Somewhere in the depths of the UXLibs hashtag on Twitter I saw a quote from a keynote address (I'm really sorry, I don't remember which one or whose tweet it was) about approaching service design using the same rules as improvisational acting. In improv, there's the idea of "Yes, and..." This is where actors doing a scene together always build on what was said before. They never shut each other down by contradicting the inventions of their fellow actors, and they keep the scene going by expanding and elaborating on what has just been said, no matter how off-the-wall it may be. There was the idea at the UX Libs conference that this kind of environment is ideal for design because it keeps creative momentum going. Maybe some of the ideas will be impossible or undesirable in the end, but as part of the creative process it's important to run with them anyway because what sounds like a mad idea may end up being the brilliant solution you've been looking for.
If you are lucky enough to work in a "Yes, and..." environment, it's likely that you have a lot of scope to innovate. If you work in a "No, but..." environment, chances are you find it difficult to stay positive and keep coming up with new ideas. I know that I can get very emotionally exhausted by keeping my own momentum going while being told why my ideas won't work, why things won't change and so on. I'm not saying that you should ignore your own emotional well-being and plug away at things until you feel like you're going to drop, but don't let yourself get discouraged on the issues you really believe in. In that sense, you really should pick your battles - make sure you're investing emotional energy in things proportional to how important you think they are. But it's worth remembering that there are multiple approaches to every problem and it would be a shame to give up before you find one that works.
5 - Don't pay for supplies for your research out of your own pocket.
This one doesn't need much clarification. If you're doing UX research for your library, you're doing it for them. If you pay for your own supplies you'll end up feeling like an idiot later on, believe me.
Saturday, 31 January 2015
UX and Ethnographic Methods for Librarians
I feel extraordinarily lucky to work where I do. I have a lot of latitude, including the opportunity to really shape my own role, I have been able to usher in pretty major changes in the culture and services at my library working from the bottom of the hierarchy and I have a pretty sweet work space from which to research exhibitions, explore avenues of outreach and publicity and keep up with what's going on in other libraries.
One of the best things about working here - and in Cambridge Libraries in general - is the focus placed on the CPD (continuing professional development) of library staff. We have great opportunities to learn and grow as a community, not least of which is the Librarians in Training courses that run throughout the year. If you're working in Cambridge libraries and haven't yet taken advantage of these, you should really think about doing so. Not only can you learn a lot from courses targeted to Cambridge librarians, but it's a fantastic opportunity to meet people from other libraries who will be your allies and resources in projects you might want to take on in future. (And they're all lovely people, it goes without saying!)
I attended a course yesterday afternoon entitled "UX and Ethnographic Methods for Librarians" taught by hippest-of-the-hip Cambridge librarians Meg Westbury (Wolfson) and Georgina Cronin (Judge Business School). Both of these women are inspirational innovators who really care about providing great services to library users and it's fantastic to get an insight into how they've done what they've done at their own institutions and for the wider Cambridge library community. The class itself was pretty much a perfect mixture of instruction and activity as far as I was concerned. I think I'm not alone in having had a really good time with it.
Meg began by defining and explaining UX and ethnography. Very briefly, UX (user experience) is a term originating with Apple, who are masters of the art. It encompasses UI (user interface) and usability (a term that itself encompasses how easy a tool or service is to navigate, learn, remember etc.), but goes beyond both to look at the qualitative dimensions of experience, emotion and cognition at the point where users interact with products or services. Essentially, it puts the focus on the individual's motivations, needs and feelings. It looks at barriers to use as well, trying to determine who is missing and why. Ethnography is writing about culture, with the worthy goal of doing so from ground level instead of top-down. As much as possible the aim is to understand the shifting points of view of the individual user without imposing assumptions or putting them in a static, statistical box. You can learn more about students from an ethnographic study with four participants, Meg said, than from surveying 100 with a standardized questionnaire.
Ethnographic UX research in libraries is growing rapidly as library professionals confront the fact that not only do we not necessarily know best about how to meet our users' needs but maybe we don't even know their needs as well as we like to think. As so-called "disruptive" technologies undermine the privileged position libraries have occupied as the sole gateways to information, how can we change our relationship to the information landscape and to our users in ways that will create meaningful, inspiring opportunities for our users? Luckily, UX research can be a lot easier to implement than more traditional research. Since you're looking for qualitative data that is not exhaustive so much as a window into a single user's experience at a single point in time, study design can be more flexible and creative. Many of the methods utilize things as basic as users' own mobile phones and post-it notes and require less planning and preparation than a questionnaire.
The majority of class time was spent looking at a few of the potential methods with Georgina, including trying them out for ourselves! First off was my favorite, cognitive mapping. The task was to draw from memory a map of your working spaces. The exercise lasted 6 minutes, and we changed pens every two minutes. This highlighted what was most significant in our minds, what was lower priority and what was most peripheral. (The order was blue, red, black, in case you want to psychoanalyze me based on the drawing below, i.e. I drew the Space Marine figure on my monitor long before drawing a representation of reshelving).
Normally participants would label their maps and discuss them with the researcher, but before doing that we swapped maps with someone else and tried to interpret theirs without any labels. This clever exercise showed how easy it is to misinterpret or assume you know what something means when actually you have it all wrong. It was also interesting to experience firsthand how it is slightly nerve wracking to do the drawing but really quite fun to talk about the drawing afterward.
The other main activity was looking at observation. Georgina herself learned a lot about how users move through her library simply by sitting and watching for an hour at a time on different days. She created a heat map and a list of activities performed by library users and got a better idea of how people were actually using the space. We went out into the wilds of the University Library to try it out! It's surprisingly difficult to be discrete, especially when you're an adult in a student space. A few people were asked if they worked for the UL. Not so subtle. It is interesting how much you can learn even from five minutes. On the top floor I found that no one really stayed up there to work but rather came and got their books and left, but that there was some difficulty locating items, meaning users were backtracking a lot and looking at the signage to try to work out where their book was. There were many other interesting observations from the other participants as well. I think it's a useful method, but would work better in conjunction with something that elicited user responses as well, for instance maybe I would interview a few students about what spaces they avoided in the UL and why, or ask them to do a photo diary of places they feel confused in the library.
We received handouts at the end with a list of resources to get started (which I will copy below) and an expanded list of methods (which I won't copy, but I'm sure Meg and/or Georgina would be happy to supply if you email them). I'll be hanging on to these long-term, I think, and referring to them for inspiration.
After a discussion about analyzing and presenting the results, the class ended with a brief discussion of ethics, which boiled down to common sense: let participants know how you're going to use their data, and don't let incentives create an imbalance of power or a sense of obligation. When in doubt, use a consent form, and let participants know that they can leave the study at any time. Also, food-based incentives are often more than enough to make participants feel appreciated for giving you their time.
One thing I would have liked to discuss in more detail is what kinds of questions lend themselves to these sorts of studies. I came away feeling like people might just pick a study that sounded fun without first designing it to address a specific gap in knowledge. I think it would be more useful to start from a particular aspect or question you wanted to investigate, as in this passage from Nancy Fried Foster et al.:
I will certainly be using some of these methods to conduct studies in my own library and have already started annotating my hand-outs with potential research topics/questions.
I really enjoyed this course and got a lot out of it, most importantly the confidence that this is something very achievable and useful to do. I am excited to find out what my library users need and want, and how we can more closely align our services to those real needs. Thanks, Meg and Georgina!
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| One of the nerve centres of the UX revolution (AKA my desk) |
I attended a course yesterday afternoon entitled "UX and Ethnographic Methods for Librarians" taught by hippest-of-the-hip Cambridge librarians Meg Westbury (Wolfson) and Georgina Cronin (Judge Business School). Both of these women are inspirational innovators who really care about providing great services to library users and it's fantastic to get an insight into how they've done what they've done at their own institutions and for the wider Cambridge library community. The class itself was pretty much a perfect mixture of instruction and activity as far as I was concerned. I think I'm not alone in having had a really good time with it.
Introducing UX and ethnography
Ethnographic UX research in libraries is growing rapidly as library professionals confront the fact that not only do we not necessarily know best about how to meet our users' needs but maybe we don't even know their needs as well as we like to think. As so-called "disruptive" technologies undermine the privileged position libraries have occupied as the sole gateways to information, how can we change our relationship to the information landscape and to our users in ways that will create meaningful, inspiring opportunities for our users? Luckily, UX research can be a lot easier to implement than more traditional research. Since you're looking for qualitative data that is not exhaustive so much as a window into a single user's experience at a single point in time, study design can be more flexible and creative. Many of the methods utilize things as basic as users' own mobile phones and post-it notes and require less planning and preparation than a questionnaire.
Methods
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| My cognitive map of the places I work. Don't judge me. I have not the skills of an artist. |
The other main activity was looking at observation. Georgina herself learned a lot about how users move through her library simply by sitting and watching for an hour at a time on different days. She created a heat map and a list of activities performed by library users and got a better idea of how people were actually using the space. We went out into the wilds of the University Library to try it out! It's surprisingly difficult to be discrete, especially when you're an adult in a student space. A few people were asked if they worked for the UL. Not so subtle. It is interesting how much you can learn even from five minutes. On the top floor I found that no one really stayed up there to work but rather came and got their books and left, but that there was some difficulty locating items, meaning users were backtracking a lot and looking at the signage to try to work out where their book was. There were many other interesting observations from the other participants as well. I think it's a useful method, but would work better in conjunction with something that elicited user responses as well, for instance maybe I would interview a few students about what spaces they avoided in the UL and why, or ask them to do a photo diary of places they feel confused in the library.
We received handouts at the end with a list of resources to get started (which I will copy below) and an expanded list of methods (which I won't copy, but I'm sure Meg and/or Georgina would be happy to supply if you email them). I'll be hanging on to these long-term, I think, and referring to them for inspiration.
Conclusion-y type things
One thing I would have liked to discuss in more detail is what kinds of questions lend themselves to these sorts of studies. I came away feeling like people might just pick a study that sounded fun without first designing it to address a specific gap in knowledge. I think it would be more useful to start from a particular aspect or question you wanted to investigate, as in this passage from Nancy Fried Foster et al.:
I like that this passage acknowledges the ignorance of the researchers. In studying social science research methodology for my librarianship course I often felt that studies commenced with researchers already having an idea about the results in their heads. It left little room for flexibility and possibly influenced interpretation, especially when studies attempted to fit qualitative experiences into quantitative data. Statistics have their place, of course, but they don't tell a story and they certainly don't put the individual at the heart of research."Our first task was to identify one trenchant research question to guide the project. The question we developed was, What do students really do when they write their research papers? Between the assignment of a research paper and the finished, submitted product was a black box that largely concealed the processes undertaken by the student. We wanted to take a peek into that box to see what we could find. We felt that this question accurately reflected our ignorance of student work habits while providing a manageable focus for our information-gathering activities." - Studying Students
I will certainly be using some of these methods to conduct studies in my own library and have already started annotating my hand-outs with potential research topics/questions.
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| I'm sticking notes on so I can keep the handout for longer. Yeah. |
Resources to get started
- Nancy Fried Foster et al., Studying Students: A Second Look. Free download at http://bit.ly/1Bj5QMp
- ERIAL Project Toolkit: http://www.erialproject.org/publications/toolkit/
- Donna Lanclos, The Anthropologist in the Stacks: http://www.donnalanclos.com/
- Cennydd Bowles and James Box, Undercover User Experience Design (2010)
- Leah Buley, The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide (2013)
- Sam Ladner, Practical Ethnography: A Guide to Doing Ethnography in the Private Sector (2014)
- Martyn Denscombe, The Good Research Guide for Small-Scale Social Research Projects (2010)
- #UKAnthroLib blog: http://ukanthrolib.wordpress.com
Thursday, 30 January 2014
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