from perspectives to policy: an examination of evidence, value and impact can inform the lis...

LIS Research Coalition Conference, 28 June 2010

From perspectives to policy

How an examination of evidence, value and impact can inform the LIS research agenda

Professor Charles Oppenheim


A REQUESTPlease tweet during this session,

ideally just three words summarising your views of the key words that

describe the day – Kirsty Pitkin will be collecting your tweets for her write-up

#lisrc10 plus #eval


SETTING THE SCENE FOR YOU

All the England-branded Mars bars are on special offer in

Tesco’s – four for one


WHY DO LIS RESEARCH?Intellectual interest/curiosity?Make you more engaged and

empowered?To help influence policy and decision-

makers?To make your name?

Other reasons?


MY PERCEPTIONS OF THE LIS RESEARCH LANDSCAPE

A lot of scattered effort, some of which isn’t really recognised by those doing it as research

Often poorly funded, poorly conducted, poorly recognised

Plethora of unco-ordinated funding bodies, with different agendas, requirements, overlapping areas


WHERE IS THE NEXT GENERATION OF RESEARCHERS?

• Every generation worries about the next one• Standard complaint when short-listing for

lectureships in the field• We’ve seen a really impressive set of presentations

from PhD students exploring some fascinating topics• Gives me reason to be optimistic for the future


Large amount of research going on world-wide, much of it in the UK

Ranges from fundamental studies on how people seek, search for and use information, via IR (TREC, etc.), to very practical studies on how to improve a particular library service


THE ECONOMIC CONTEXT

Cuts in funding means increased pressures on LIS to justify their existence/provide

evidence of value for moneyIt also means less money available to fund research, and reduced funds for University

LIS Departments


VALUE AND IMPACT• How does one measure impact or value?•The bean counters demand something robust that they can relate to, e.g., RoI•Research on how much money has been saved by having the library or information service there is often viewed as unconvincing/self-serving


COST BENEFIT

Cost is easy to measureBenefit is hard to measure

The bean counters require it – we have to learn to use their techniques and talk their language, even if it goes against our deep-

seated principles


TWO KEY TERMS

ImpactHuman angle


“IMPACT”Everyone is talking about it

The REF requires evidence of impact of research, and HEFCE has provided guidance notes on what constitutes impact – more to

comeThe REF’s approach: a series of case

studies, plus a narrativeWhy not adopt the same approach?


THE HUMAN ANGLEOur profession is about humans creating, storing,

disseminating and using information, and this can only be done by understanding the way humans interact

with informationThe most outstanding IR system in the world is useless

if humans don’t want to interact with itAlso learn from history – good and bad use of

information in the past and the lessons we can learn today

LIS research has to focus on this as well


MOREHow do yuppies multi-task?

Information overload strategies and stress

What makes information valuable to people?

Adopt a scientific paradigm – seems to press the right buttons


POLICY ANGLESWe have yet to work out the new

Government’s policies towards LISThere seems to be a commitment to releasing

Government dataIssues to do with the Digital Economy Act

affecting library operations


QUESTIONS TO ASKWhat is the purpose of the research?

Who are we demonstrating our value and impact to?The audience changes over time

How do we communicate to the audience – formal routes, informally

Different levels of seniorityAre we influencing the end users and are they our best

advocates?


How much do we involve the audience in the research design?

Do practitioners really understand what users want?Cultural issue – do we have the skills?

To what extent is research “nice to do” rather than “must have”? How to get research embedded into the

organisational culture?


Do we use mixed methods? How important are narratives?


WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE?• New sources of funding – Microsoft, Google – and lobby existing funding

agencies• International collaboration/exchanges?• Ground-breaking report on the benefits of LIS?• Use of novel research techniques, e.g., social network analysis, critical

incident technique, sophisticated stats,, log file analysis, Balanced Scorecard, observational studies…..

• Involve psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, computer scientists (but don’t become bedazzled by IT) , economists!


MOREPublish, or at least

capturing/anonymising negative results – something for the

Coalition?Get journals to publish more

practitioner researchMentor practitioners


TASKSIdentify worthwhile realistic

research projects, especially a research agenda for tough timesIdentify the researchers who can

undertake itIdentify the funders to pay for it


A CLASSIC IMPACT EXPERIMENT


CONCLUSION

The title of my talk was wrong – it should be “Evidence, Value and

Impact SHOULD BE the LIS research agenda”


DON’T FORGET TO FILL OUT YOUR EVALUATION FORMS AND

LEAVE THEM AT THE REGISTRATON DESK!

from perspectives to policy: an examination of evidence, value and impact can inform the lis...

Education

fund research

university lis departments

measure impact

information service

particular library service

key words

examination of evidence

generation worries