Library Research Service

This post will delve into trauma-informed practices for research and everyday interactions for library workers. With that in mind, the key concepts from this piece are shared first, to preface the material and ensure you are aware of the content that will be covered up front.  

• Trauma is defined by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration (SAMHSA) as “an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or life threatening and that has lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional,...

Throughout the Between a Graph and A Hard Place blog series, we’ve often spoken of bias and controlling bias. From keeping your own bias in check during qualitative data analysis to understanding social desirability bias during surveys and observations, managing bias is a constant challenge throughout all aspects of evaluation from planning to presenting. During interviews bias can be particularly difficult to avoid, taking many different forms and heavily impacting the quality of the data being collected. This post will take a look at what bias is and three different ways it can distort data during an interview. The next...

How do you feel most comfortable speaking in front of an audience? Do you have the confidence to let your ideas flow freely, or do you prefer sticking to a plan? The Colorado Association of Libraries Conference (CALCON 2022) begins today, and there happens to be quite a connection between the styles in which we choose to present our ideas, such as at CALCON and how we conduct the next data collection method we are discussing–interviews. It’s a fitting time to take a closer look at interviews as another viable data collection method for evaluation in libraries since interviews fall...

At some point during this past year you may have found yourself trying to remember what pre-pandemic life looked like or wondering if there is anything that remains unchanged. We’ve been having similar thoughts at LRS, so when new research is published on reading habits we are eager to see what has shifted and what, if anything, has remained the same. In the latest reports we found a mixture of old habits and fresh growth leading libraries into new territory. This month LRS is taking a break from research methodology to highlight sections of a few recent publications that paint...

Did last month’s post inspire you to incorporate a focus group into your project? Are you too busy at this moment? We understand! However, you never know when conducting a focus group may just turn into the best possible way to collect community input before moving forward with a big project, and we want to make sure that when that time comes you are fully prepared to host a focus group full of meaningful discussions from participants. So let’s dig in! Laying the Groundwork Our last post shared some ideas on how to create a safe space for a focus group, but...

Ready to polish up your people skills? This month we are taking a step back from analysis and turning to data collection again. In previous posts we touched on different data collection methods, and in May we discussed the process of coding qualitative data. Understanding the basics of qualitative analysis opens up a world of possibilities for evaluation, and it definitely helps to know what you are taking on before beginning qualitative research since coding is an extensive process. With this background on coding qualitative data hopefully you feel more equipped to begin collecting it. Today we will focus our...