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A new librarian, an experienced librarian and an archivist
got together to do a research project. What happened along the way was not
quite what we expected. Maybe you’ve experienced something like it, or maybe
you’ll face a similar situation in the future. We want to share our experience
with the joy, excitement, trials, and disappointment in the world of academic
publishing.
Why we did the
research
For us, finding the topic was the easy part. We had decided
that we would purposefully avoid supervising unpaid internships as a matter of
professional integrity, and only take on students that our library could
properly fund. During the course of this decision, it was clear that the topic
had been neglected in library research and we wanted to take a close look at
the institutionalization of unpaid internships within accredited library
science graduate programs. There was (and remains) a climate of scrutiny on the
misuse of unpaid interns in many sectors. Work-study programs are an accepted
part of librarian education - we thought it was prudent to take a critical look
at how well it’s working. We wanted to hear what the interns had to say. Are
they really benefitting? Is their work valued? Is the experience worthwhile?
So, with ethics board approval, a research plan, and a literature review in
hand we were on our way.
Research: The good,
the bad, and the anti-climactic
We thought a social sciences-based approach would best serve
our needs, so we used survey tools and interviews to examine the value of the
internships. Our background research went well: it showed a gap in the
research, offered guidance in the form of similar studies from other fields,
and highlighted issues to investigate. The dreaded ethics approval process was
a useful exercise, even though it did feel a bit fastidious in the moment. Gaps
in our survey tools, ethical considerations we’d missed, and practical issues
were highlighted and remedied. With approval in hand, we eagerly sent our
surveys and interview requests out into the world and waited for the data and
volunteers to come flooding in.
Cue the crickets.
Sometimes, despite best efforts, all you get is a small
sample size. In our case, very small. Tiny, really. Why? Some institutions may
have been unwilling to participate, some individuals were perhaps afraid of
giving negative feedback that may affect their future career, despite
assurances of privacy. Others may have simply deleted the email. Still others
may have had survey fatigue. There is no way to know why we got a a poor
response rate, but we did. We re-sent requests, we widened our search, we
ensured messages were being received, but we still only received a small amount
of responses. What next? We sought the advice of our ethics review board to see
if we should proceed. They told us that we could, but we would have to note
that the sample size would have to be acknowledged in the final product. And
so, we carried on - we’d gotten this far, right?
The interviews we did with former unpaid interns that did
contact us were fascinating. They shared experiences we hadn’t considered and
gave us a point of view we hadn’t anticipated. That’s what research is supposed
to do, right? We became so immersed in the rich narratives before us, our
concerns about the sample size were assuaged.
Putting it out there
When we had collected all the data we could, we found a
journal that seemed in line with the kind of research we did. We followed the
structure, formatting and submission instructions, and then we waited. And
waited. By the time we received the good news that our publication had been
accepted (with “extensive and comprehensive revisions”), the research was well
over a year old, and we were starting to lose enthusiasm. But we rallied, and
began to carefully review the required changes. Receiving negative feedback is
never a hootenanny. We understand the process is designed to ensure high
quality - and certainly there were changes that needed to be made - but upon
reviewing the portions that were re-written as per the reviewers suggestions,
we no longer felt the paper was meaningful enough to be published.
Making the hard
choice
So, now what? When you have annual reviews pending and
research is expected, it’s difficult to say “no” to a publication, even if the
final product would feel inauthentic. While our paper was technically accepted,
the required revisions would have nullified any conclusions we made, and we
honestly wondered why they wanted to publish it. We concluded that we didn’t
need to shoehorn our research into a box that didn’t fit. We also decided we
didn’t want to let it go, and opted for Plan B - alternative dissemination.
Plan “B” doesn’t have
to be Bad
This must be prefaced with an acknowledgement that we are
lucky enough to work for an institution that takes a relatively broad view of
publishing. Poster presentations, self-publishing, and blog posts are all
reasonably considered. This isn’t the case for everyone, of course. But if
librarians are meant to be at the forefront of a bold new world of scholarly
dissemination, we need to walk the talk. This project may not have gone exactly
as planned in the traditional sense, but even with its shortcomings, there is
value to its existence. We are sharing
it now,
for the wisdom to be gleaned from its (limited) results and to talk about the
experience we had from idea to peer review. We feel privileged to be able to
take this approach and hope that it helps inspire others to explore a similar
path if they find themselves in a similar situation.
Alternative dissemination is ok. [Editor’s Note: I’m
obviously a fan of alternative dissemination.] We don’t need to publish in
an academic journal to have our voices heard, to start a discussion, to make
people think. Certainly the traditional peer-review model has its place, but it
is not always the best way to reach your audience. We cannot expect scholarly communications
to evolve if we aren’t willing to take the lead by example.
Sounds like a great research opportunity….
Alison Skyrme is the Special Collections
Librarian at the Ryerson University Library and Archives, and an instructor in
the Film + Photographic Preservation and Collections Management graduate
program at Ryerson. Alison holds a Master of Information from the University of
Toronto, 2015, and specializes in the management of photographic collections.
She is currently the Image Arts liaison librarian. She tweets at @A_Skyrme.
Jane Schmidt has
worked in collections management at Ryerson University in Toronto since she
graduated from University of Alberta in 2004. She has previously presented and
published on issues related to monograph acquisitions including weeding, demand
driven acquisitions and budget management. She is presently the Engineering
liaison librarian. Her current research interests include Little Free
Libraries, public libraries, political economy and dinosaurs, thanks to her 5
year old son Elliott. She tweets at @janeschmidt and blogs at The Incidental Academic Librarian.
Curtis Sassur
currently serves as the Archivist and Coordinator of Archives & Special
Collections at Ryerson University. Curtis holds a Masters of Information
Studies (MISt) from the University of Toronto, and a BA in philosophy from the
University of Guelph. Curtis' current research interests include the Canadian
cultural donation/tax credit system and the increasing encroachment of private
sector paradigms and practices into the library sector. He tweets at @RU_Archivist.
Good for you for taking this approach. I think it shows a lot of integrity, and is very cool.
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