The September 2018 issue of the Journal of Librarianship and Information Science (50(3)) has just been published. This is a special issue that brings together ten expanded versions of conference papers that were presented at Information: interactions and impact (i3) 2017 in June last year (2017).
Amongst this collection are two articles by Edinburgh Napier University colleagues: Continue reading
John Mowbray
The second of the seven articles that I recently co-authored for the Journal of Librarianship and Information Science (JoLIS) has now been published as an OnlineFirst paper. The article is entitled ‘Job search information behaviours: an ego-net study of networking amongst young job-seekers‘.
Through the analysis of a set of egocentric networks of young job-seekers, my co-authors John Mowbray, Professor Robert Raeside, Pete Robertson and I reveal the key informational role of network contacts in job-seeking as one that extends beyond the simple diffusion of information about employment opportunities.
In the article we develop some of the findings from John Mowbray‘s ESRC/Skills Development Scotland funded doctoral study that were presented as a conference paper at Information: interactions and impact (i3) 2017 in June last year (slides; liveblog). The full manuscript of the article is also available to download from the Edinburgh Napier repository. Continue reading
My co-authored article with Peter Cruickshank and Bruce Ryan ‘Long-term community development within a researcher network: a social network analysis of the DREaM project cadre‘ is now available from Emerald as an EarlyCite paper for Journal of Documentation. Those with subscription access can download the full pdf. There is also a full text version available to view free of charge.
In the article we present the results from a study that investigated the extent to which an intervention to develop a community of library and information science (LIS) researchers – the Developing Research Excellence and Methods (DREaM) project – was successful in meeting its main objective three years after its implementation. Of particular interest are factors that support or hinder network longevity. Continue reading
Since the end of May my colleague Dr Bruce Ryan and I have been investigating the long-term impact of the AHRC-funded DREaM project (for which I was Principal Investigator in 2011 and 2012), and the forms that such impact has taken.
As part of this work we have been considering what ‘impact’ means in the context of library and information science (LIS), and how this relates to conceptions of the term in other domains where there is a perceived research-practice gap, such as policing, social work and nursing. This first part of the study has been based on an analysis of the extant literature. We intend to write this up as a review paper.
In 2011/12 I was Principal Investigator (PI) on the AHRC-funded DREaM project. The aim of this work was to develop a formal UK-wide network of Library and Information Science (LIS) researchers. The project ran from January 2011 to August 2012, and was supported by the Library and Information Science Research Coalition. We reported the initial successes of the DREaM project in a paper that I co-authored with Alison Brettle and Charles Oppenheim and presented at QQML 2012. Three years later, we are interested in any further lasting impacts of the project.
To this end I am working with my colleague Dr Bruce Ryan on a follow-up study that investigates any longer-term impact of DREaM, and the forms that such impact (if it exists) has taken. I mentioned these plans earlier in the month in a presentation at the Third International Seminar on LIS Education and Research, and then during my recent opening keynote paper at the 2015 EAHIL conference (the format of which was inspired by the DREaM project, and the event masterminded by Marshall Dozier, who was a member of the DREaM cadre).
Edinburgh: a festival city
The International Journal of Event and Festival Management has just published an article that I co-authored with colleagues from the School of Marketing, Tourism and Languages at Edinburgh Napier University. The article is one of eight brought together in a special issue on the festival and event experience.
My co-author: Dr Louise Cooke of Loughborough University
Last year Dr Louise Cooke of Loughborough University and I worked on a research project that explored the applicability of Social Network Analysis (SNA) to Library and Information Science research. The novelty of this work was in its assessment of the value of SNA in the context of the development of researcher networks. The findings from our empirical work, which we wrote up for publication as a research paper, indicate the potential of a methodology that could be used as a replicable framework for further development of networks in other contexts.
The manuscript of our paper was accepted for publication in the Journal of Documentation (JDoc) in December 2012. JDoc is one of the top international information science journals and regularly achieves the highest citation ratings in ISI for comparable titles.
Summer 2012 was a very busy time as I brought three projects hosted within the my research centre to a close: (1) the implementation of the Library and Information Science Research Coalition in July; (2) RiLIES2, also in July; and (3) the Developing Research Excellence and Methods project in August.
Hazel Hall 