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Home - Course Web Pages - Summer 2006 - LIBR 285-10 Greensheet

LIBR 285-10
Research Methods in Library and Information Science (Executive MLIS)
Summer 2006 Greensheet

Joe Matthews
E-mail
Office Hours: Conducted virtually. You may reach the instructor anytime using e-mail.
Phone: 760-930-9223

Greensheet Links
Required Text and Readings
Course Requirements		 Resources
Blackboard
Blackboard Tutorials

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.

Course Objectives

The objectives of the course are:

The course emphasizes the following SLIS competencies:

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

Required Text and Readings

Readings are assigned throughout the class. They are in either the required text or from online sources.

Wonderful Resources Other Resources

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Course Requirements

Course Format
This is an online class that will meet Thursday night from 6:30 pm to 8 pm, using Blackboard chat. Your attendance and active participation during the online session is an important part of your grade. In addition, we will meet once together as a group. You have already been assigned to a group and will be asked to complete several group exercises during the six days we meet together. The on-site meetings will take place in San Jose between July 24 and 28. Class will meet from 9am to 5 pm with a break for lunch. We will adjust the morning start time if the teams need time in the librry for research.

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 online group projects, in class 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 15, 2006.

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.

See Blackboard for other information about this class.

Assignments
This first task is an individual assignment. What problem or challenge(s) in your library would you like to evaluate (improve) during this course? You can submit more than one challenge.

Each team will prepare a written report of their findings for submission to the instructor. Each report should be prepared using Microsoft Word.

  1. 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. 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? What performance measures would you like to use that are not found in the directory?
  2. Prepare a simple 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. 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. After reviewing Robert Taylor's book, Value-Added Processes in Information Systems, prepare a presentation that discusses the ways in which a traditional public library adds value for its customers. What new ways could a library add value by changing existing services or introducing new services?

Each team will complete six projects from the following list. 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).

All projects will be presented during the one week when everyone will be on-site in San José. Each presentation will last about twenty minutes and should involve all team members. Project presentations can be presented to the instructor at any time prior to our meeting in San José for a review and feedback (this review will not be graded). While the team may use PowerPoint for their presentations, other means of presenting results of each evaluation project are also encouraged. Make sure that the type of library is clearly identified at the start of each presentation.

  1. The library's funding decision makers have announced a 20% budget cut. Prepare an analysis of the library's existing services and how much they are used. Identify the costs to provide each service. Based on this information what services will be cut? Prepare a presentation of your analysis and be prepared to justify your recommended cuts to achieve the new fiscal realities.
  2. 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?
  3. 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.
  4. 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)? Prepare a presentation about this topic.
  5. The library board/your boss has received complaints that the library's collection is old and useless. Prepare a presentation that includes an analysis and a set of recommendations.
  6. The Mayor/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? Prepare a presentation. See Bradford's 2005 article.
  7. 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? Additional sources of information about the economic impacts of public libraries may be found at http://www.lrs.org/topics.asp.
  8. 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 outcomes and how you would collect the data to assess the magnitude of these outcomes. Prepare a presentation of your plan.
  9. 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? Prepare a presentation of your findings.
  10. The library board/your boss has requested 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?
  11. 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 a presentation to determine whether the library should outsource the processing of its new materials or re-organize technical services.
  12. 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? Prepare a presentation for the library board. See Kantor (1984) and Gore (1978).
  13. Assess your library's Web site. Examine the Web sites from at least 20 other "peer" libraries across the US. Give each site a score based on first impressions (look at the site for less than 5 seconds). How long since the site has been updated? How easy is it to move around the site? Prepare a set of recommendations for your presentation.
  14. 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? Prepare a presentation of what you really would like from your system's vendor.
  15. 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 and presentation.
  16. The state library is offering implementation grants for projects which have be "piloted" in another library. You have access to the project's evaluation (posted on Blackboard). What additional information would you like to see, if any, in order to determine whether to implement such a service in your library? Prepare a presentation.
  17. An evaluation of other services may be submitted by a team and approved by the instructor (The instructor will prepare a list of problems and challenges submitted by each student as a list of possibilities). Prepare an analysis and a presentation.

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.

Due: On or before August 15, 2006.

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

Date
Assignment
June 8 Read Measuring for Results, Ch. 1-3
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.
June 15 Read Measuring for Results, Ch. 4-5; Basic Research, Ch. 3
June 22 Read Measuring for Results, Ch. 6-7; Basic Research, Ch. 4
A. Bookstein. Questionnaire Research in a Library Setting. Journal of Academic Librarianship. 11, Mar 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.
June 29 Read Measuring for Results, Ch. 8; Basic Research, Ch. 5
July 13 Read Measuring for Results, Ch. 9;
Basic Research, Ch. 7;
Amos Lakos and Shelley Phipps. Creating a Culture of Assessment: A Catalyst for Organizational Change. portal: Libraries and the Academy, 4 (3), July 2004, 345-61.
Amos Lakos. Opinion Piece. The Missing Ingredient – Culture of Assessment in Libraries. Performance Measurement and Metrics, August 1999, Sample Issue, 3-7.
Eric Bonabeau. Don't Trust Your Gut. Harvard Business Review, 81 (5), May 2003, 116-23.
July 20 Read Measuring for Results, Ch. 10;
Basic Research, Ch. 9;
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.
July 24 Discussion and review of evaluation.
Team presentations.
July 25 Discussion and review of input, process & output measures.
Team presentations.
July 26 Discussion and review of descriptive statistics & surveys. Team presentations.
July 27 Discussion and review of qualitative data.
Team presentations.
July 28 Discussion and review of analysis of data.
Team presentations.
July 29 Discussion and review of presentation of data.
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 discussions will receive the B provided the quality of written work meets the standard of rigorous scholarly work for the University. Above standard work is defined as clearly displaying one of more of the following criteria:

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

Item
Each
Total Points
Four written reports
25
100
Six presentations
25
150
Class participation (using Blackboard and in person in San José
25
25
Contribution to team (as judged by your team members)
25
25
Total points for class  
300

Grading Scale
Final grades will be based on the following grading scale established for graduate students by San José State University:

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+

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

Read the SJSU Academic Integrity Policy at
http://www2.sjsu.edu/senate/S04-12.pdf

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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