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Home - Course Web Pages - Summer 2007 - LIBR 285-10 Greensheet

LIBR 285-10
Research Methods in Library and Information Science
Summer 2007 Greensheet

Joe Matthews
E-mail
Phone: (760)930-9223
Office Hours: Office hours are conducted virtually.  You may reach the instructor anytime using email.

Greensheet Links
Textbooks and Readings
Course Requirements
 Resources
Blackboard
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Students must self-enroll for this course on Blackboard. You will be required to use a password access code. The code will be provided to you via the MySJSU Messaging system.

Course Description

Evaluation is a practical and important tool for any manager although it is often dismissed by some who claim “It is not REAL research.”  The purpose of this course is to provide the student with an understanding of evaluation, and the strengths and limitations of the models and methodologies used in evaluation.

You should be cognizant that this class will help you build a toolkit of practical tools that can be used to evaluate a library or a specific library service.  You should plan on using your completed class assignments as a part of your e-portfolio.

Course Objectives

The objectives of the course are:

LIBR 285 supports the following SLIS Core Competencies:

In addition, this section supports the following SLIS Core Competencies:

The SLIS Core Competencies are found at http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/slis/competencies.htm

Textbooks and Readings

Readings
Readings are assigned throughout the class.

Required Text
The required text is:

Wonderful Resources

Other Resources

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Course Requirements

Class Meetings
This is an online class that will meet Thursday night from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm, using Elluminate.  You will need to purchase a microphone if you do not have one.  Your attendance and active participation during the online session is an important part of your grade.  The first class meeting is June 7th.

Attendance/Participation
Regular attendance is vital to success in this course because a number of cooperative learning/group activities will occur in class and a great deal of material will be covered during each class session. Participation in group projects, in online class meetings using Elluminate and in Blackboard discussion forums is crucial.  Reading/viewing/listening to required materials will enhance your ability to participate in these discussions. Check Blackboard regularly for updates.

Coursework Completion
All course work to be completed by August 6, 2007.   

General Expectations
All students must:

Other Requirements
Students must have e-mail accounts and access to the Internet, including the ability to view the World Wide Web with a graphical browser (e.g., Firefox, Netscape or Internet Explorer) and PDF files; and the ability to listen to RealOne Player lectures. Students may access Blackboard directly at http://tigris.sjsu.edu or from the SLIS Web site ( http://slisweb.sjsu.edu ) under the Computing pull-down menu.

Downloading Software Tools
If necessary, you may download Adobe Reader from Adobe's Web site at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
For instructions on downloading the RealPlayer, see http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/ecommunication/realplayer.htm

SLISADMIN
Students should also join the school’s electronic list, SLISADMIN, to get official or administrative messages from SLIS. Find directions at http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/ecommunication/electroniclists.htm or choose
Electronic Lists under the Computing pull-down menu on the SLIS Web site.
See Blackboard for other information about this class.

Assignments
All projects will be presented near the end of the class.  Each presentation will last about ten minutes and should involve all team members.  Project presentations can be presented to the instructor at any time prior for a review and feedback (this review will not be graded).  A PowerPoint presentation is recommended. 

Make sure that the type of library is clearly identified at the start of each presentation.  Each presentation must include a literature review (a list of citations must be provided), an exploration of methods that could be used for the evaluation, why a particular method(s) was selected and the use of real data from a library, if at all possible, should be included in the analysis.

Each team will complete five projects from the “Evaluation of Services” section and one project from the “Evaluation of the Library” section.  The projects will be selected using a process that prevents duplicates until all projects have been selected and then duplicates can be chosen.  Each team will select one project, and then the next team will make a selection, and so forth (similar to the NBA draft). 

Evaluation of Services

  1. Prepare a simply analysis of who you believe a library’s customers are without consulting any reports or statistics (if you don’t work in the library, interview two or more staff members for their perceptions).  Now, using statistics and reports from the library’s automated system, prepare a presentation about the library’s customers.  What segments of your potential customers do you currently serve?  How often do they use the library?  What proportion of your potential customers are actual customers, “lost customers,” and non-customers (marketplace penetration analysis)?  Now compare your beliefs with what the data has to say. 
  2. Now, knowing who and where your customers are located, how will you determine what they want?  What quantitative research methods might you employ?  What qualitative research methods might you employ?  For a public library, demographic information about your community is optionally available at www.geolib.org. 
  3. Prepare a presentation to determine if a library’s customers who use electronic resources are different in some way from those who physically visit the library?  How would you determine what problems these customers have in using the electronic resources? Identify the costs of providing electronic resources.  What trends exist with regard to the amount of use of electronic resources?  What demand for desktop access to electronic resources is likely to exist in the future? What are the implications for a library in the next five to ten years? 
  4. Using statistics and reports from a library’s automated library system, prepare a presentation about the library’s collection.  What is the overall turnover rate?  Percent of circulation and turnover rates by type of materials, fiction versus non-fiction, call number range and so forth.  Compare this information to the library’s holdings – for example, if DVDs account for 2% of the total collection, what is the percent of circulation for DVDs? 
  5. Prepare a workflow diagram for circulation or technical services as it exists today in a library and then prepare an alternative arrangement of furniture and equipment that will simplify things.  How many steps in the process before and after the proposed changes?  Now carefully examine each of the steps or tasks performed and determine whether some may be safely eliminated or combined with other tasks.
  6. Your boss read an article in USA Today that stated that reference librarians are right about 55% of the time.  Your boss wants to know if that is the case in your library.  What does the literature have to say about this?  How do you resolve the conflicting views found in the literature? How would you prepare an evaluation in your library to ascertain how accurate your reference librarians are?  What would be an acceptable level of accuracy (and why)?   
  7. The library board/your boss have received complaints that the library’s collection is old and useless.  Prepare an analysis and a set of recommendations.
  8. Your boss is concerned about the library’s continuing expenditures for reference books when “everything is available on the Internet.”  Prepare an analysis of a library’s expenditures for reference materials and contrast it with expenditures for electronic resources.  What trends are evident when looking at data for the last five years?  What data would you need and how would you gather it to determine how much the reference collection is being used?  Is the reference collection too large?  Is your boss wrong? 
  9.  Prepare a presentation for the library board/your boss about the economic benefits of a library.  What options are available to determine economic benefits?  How would you prepare a cost-benefit analysis for your library? 
  10. The state library has awarded your public library a grant to determine all possible outcomes associated with the library’s annual “summer reading program.”  Identify likely input, output and outcome measures and how you would collect the data to assess the magnitude of these measures.   
  11. Assess the current state of readiness of the technology in your library.  If your library has a technology plan, what is the state of implementation?  Is the library’s technology current or is it getting a “bit long in the tooth?”  Should “open source software” be seriously considered? 
  12. The library has been requested to make a presentation assessing the existing facilities.  Do some facilities need to be expanded and modernized?  Do some facilities need to be replaced or closed?  Are new branch facilities needed?  What criteria should be used for this assessment?
  13. You are concerned that the costs of processing new materials are too high and that it takes too long for materials to be processed.  How will you determine what the existing costs are and the time it takes to process materials?  How do your costs and processing times compare to “peer” libraries (best practice libraries?)?  Prepare an analysis to determine whether the library should outsource the processing of its new materials or re-organize technical services. 
  14. The number of complaints that items are not on the shelves has increased dramatically during this past year.  How would you determine what the current availability rate is and where are the items if they are not on the shelf? 
  15. Assess your library’s Web site.  Examine the Web sites from at least 10 other “peer” libraries across the US.  Give each site a score based on several criteria.  Explain why you selected the criteria used for your analysis.
  16. Consider your library’s online catalog.  If your system is more difficult to search and less effective than Amazon.com (and whose isn’t?), then you have work to do.   How would you involve users in asking what they want?  How would you identify what they actually do now?  What new features would you really would like from your system’s vendor? 
  17. You are concerned about the quality of customer service provided by your library staff members.  How can you assess the customer service received by your customers?  How would you assess customer satisfaction?  What options are available to assess customer service?  Prepare an analysis.
  18. A school or academic library wants to ensure that its students received instruction in the area of information literacy.  In addition to discussing ways to deliver information literacy content, discuss ways to discover the impact of information literacy instruction in the lives of the students.
  19. Customers are complaining about the time it takes to get materials through interlibrary loan.  What can be done to improve the service levels?
  20. The library’s online catalog reflects the fact that something has been ordered.  However, complaints are being received that indicate that it takes months before items are received and placed on the shelves of the library.  What are the current service levels and what can be done to make improvements?
  21. Customers and staff are complaining about the number of typos in the library’s online catalog.  Prepare an analysis of the problem.
  22. Your public library is considering adopting merchandising.  Your boss has asked you to prepare a presentation that identifies “best practices.”
  23. An evaluation of other services may be submitted by a team and approved by the instructor.  Prepare an analysis and a presentation.

Evaluation of the Library

  1. How would you determine if your library is a “good” library?  How do you select “peer libraries” so that you can compare and contrast your library with your peers?  What are the issues surrounding selecting “peer libraries” from out-of-state? 
  2. Prepare a presentation about a library of your choice using statistics from a national/state/province resource or directory.  The audiences for this presentation are the funding decision makers for your library.  You are trying to get these stakeholders to approve a more than 15% increase in your budget.  What performance measures would you like to use that are not found in the directory? 
  3. After reviewing Robert Taylor’s book, Value-Added Processes in Information Systems, prepare a presentation that discusses the ways in which a library adds value for its customers.  What new ways could a library add value by changing existing services or introducing new services? 
  4. Prepare an analysis of the library’s existing services and how much they are used.  Identify the costs to provide each service.  Identify the cost-effectiveness of all services and place them in rank order.  Prepare a presentation of your analysis. 

Each individual student will prepare a brief assessment of what you have learned as a result of this class.  You should also reflect on each team member’s contributions and the willingness of each individual to work together as a team.  A copy of the questions to be discussed will be posted on Blackboard.
Due: On or before August 6, 2006.

Course Calendar
Please see course outline each week and the assignments tab on the Blackboard Web page for specific assignment details, if any.  

Date
 Assignment
June 7
 Read Evaluation & Measurement, Ch. 1-2
June 14
 Read Evaluation & Measurement, Ch. 3
June 21
 Read Evaluation & Measurement, Ch. 4
June 28
 Read Evaluation & Measurement, Ch. 5
A.  Bookstein. Questionnaire Research in a Library Setting. Journal of Academic Librarianship. 11, March 1985, 24-28.
M.  Cooper. Perspectives on Qualitative Research with Quantitative Implications: Studies in Information Management. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science. 31 (2), 1990, 105-112.
B. Moran. Survey Research for Librarians. Southeastern Librarian. 35, 1985, 78-81.
Paper for team project # 1 and 2 is due.
July 12
 Read Evaluation & Measurement, Ch. 6
Denise Troll Covey.  Using Data to Persuade: State Your Case and Prove It.  Library Administration & Management, 19 (2), Spring 2005, 82-89.
H. Weiner. How to Display Data Badly. American Statistician, 38 (2) 1984, 137-147.
Paper for team project # 3 and 4 is due.
July 19
 Read Evaluation & Measurement, Ch. 16
Robert H. Orr. Measuring the Goodness of Library Services: A General Framework for Considering Quantitative Measures. Journal of Documentation, 1973, 29 (3), 315-333.
Rosemary Du Mont and Paul Du Mont.  Measuring Library Effectiveness: A Review and an Assessment.  Advances in Librarianship, 9, 1979, 103-41.
G. Travis White.  Quantitative Measures of Library Effectiveness.  The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 3 (3), 1977, 128-36.
Paper for team project # 3 and 4 is due.
Team presentations will start.
July 26
 Team presentations. 
August 2
 Team presentations.

Grading Policy
Everyone begins the class with a grade of “B”, the standard grade for graduate level work. Students who complete the assignments, use Blackboard class site, and the face to face class meetings and participate in the Elluminate discussions will receive the B provided the quality of written work meets the standard of rigorous scholarly work for the University.

Each project requires the team to prepare a project report using MS Word and a PowerPoint presentation.

Grading Points
A point breakdown contributing toward your final grade is as follows:

Item
Each
Total Points
Projects, reports, presentations (6)
50
300
Class participation
(using Blackboard, Elluminate and in person in San Jose)
50
50
Team contribution
(as judged by your team mates)
50
50
Total points for class  
400

Points for the projects will be awarded using the following rubric. 

  Standard Work Above Standard Excellent Work
Organization Straight-forward approach Material is well organized Organization of material flows well and the writing is easily moves from one point to the next
Evaluation of the literature 3-6 articles (books) are used
No clear reason selection criteria		 5-10 articles (books) are included
Some criteria are used		 A large amount of research is identified and synthesized
Reasons for inclusion of the literature are explained
Depth of analysis No indication of an analysis Some analysis of the project Analysis clearly reflects considerable thoughtful reflection of the project
Exploration of research methods Identify & discuss 2-3 research methods
Selection of a research method is not discussed		 Identify & discuss 4-5 research methods
Selection of 2-3 research methods		 Identify & discuss all known  research methods
Clearly articulated reasons why one or more research methods are selected for a specific library
Originality Straight-forward approach to the project   Clear evidence of originality in terms of study design, and presentation of data

Grading Scale
The standard SJSU SLIS Grading Scale is utilized for all SLIS courses:

97-100 A
94-96 A-
91-93 B+
88-90 B
85-87 B-
82-84 C+
79-81 C
76-78 C-
73-75 D+
70-72 D
67-69 D-
Below 67 F

Electronic Portfolio
SLIS has decided to use a e-Portfolio as evidence of professional competency and demonstrating your growth as a student.  A content management server, named Plone, has been set up to support your portfolio (you may also use a personal Web site).  Please familiarize with the software (tutorials are available) and create a personal portfolio site, if you have not yet done so, and publish your assignments. 

Academic Dishonesty/Plagiarism
Academic dishonesty is a serious infraction. Assignments must be the student's own work and sources must be properly cited.

Academic Integrity
Your own commitment to learning, as evidenced by your enrollment at San José State University, and the University's Academic Integrity Policy requires you to be honest in all your academic course work. Faculty members are required to report all infractions to the Office of Student Conduct and Ethical Development. The policy on academic integrity can be found at http://sa.sjsu.edu/student_conduct.

Reasonable Accommodation of Disabilities
If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability, please e-mail me as soon as possible. Presidential Directive 97-03 requires that students with disabilities register with the Disability Resource Center (DRC) to establish record of their disability.

No matter where students reside, they should contact the SJSU DRC to register. The DRC Web site: http://www.drc.sjsu.edu/

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