The Australian Library Journal

Editorial

The nature of research in 'our' profession

Kirsty Williamson Research methods for students and professional: information management and systems [Topics in Australasian Library and Information Studies number 16] Centre for Information Studies, Charles Sturt University Locked Bag 660 Wagga Wagga NSW 2678. ISBN 0 949060 89 5 A$55 inc GST

As I type that word 'profession' in the title of this editorial I confess to a slight feeling of unease. Not on the customary ground of whether we are or aren't a profession. In my view we [whoever we are] crossed that particular semantic bridge a long time ago. No: it's simpler than that. What is causing the neurones to twitch is that attached little personal possessive pronoun our, and the now confused question about what qualities, and which people now comprise 'our' profession, which is perhaps why spokespeople occasionally tend to prefer the much more diffuse and inclusive 'industry'. This concern finds reinforcement in the catholic nature of the book in hand.

Twenty years ago, we would have been in no doubt, and indeed on several notable occasions we went into battle under a banner which bore as its 'strange device' a single word: librarian. As an upcoming article by Professor Ross Harvey puts it: the 'L' word. I don't propose to steal Professor Harvey's always interesting and provocative thunder here, where I am supposed to be discussing the nature of research in a particular discipline: but as it happens, he - or at least his very active Centre for Information Studies [no 'L' word there] has given me a book to read and review.

It is number 16 in the series Topics in Australasian Library and Information Studies and it is primarily authored by Dr Kirsty Williamson and a near-dozen of associated luminaries. It is called Research methods for students and professionals: information management and systems. The CIP entries reflect its mixed nature and audience giving it entries under 'Documentation', 'Library Science' and 'Information Science', which exactly reflects the concern expressed at the beginning of this editorial. Curiously, however, there is no entry for the parallel disciplines of archives, or records management, although one of the major contributing authors is Professor Sue McKemmish an acknowledged world leader in creative thinking and research about her discipline, archives. The content of the book could be equally useful to students and mature researchers in those disciplines.

Professor Don Schauder, a catalyst in the compilation of the book, chairs a department at Monash University [located significantly in the Faculty of Computing and Information Technology and called, interestingly the School of Information Management and Systems] which embraces the disciplines of librarianship, archives and records management as well as those implied in its title. The point I make here is that the notion of 'our' profession is blurred in places other than the musty regions in which my neurones play. This fact, curiously enough, disturbs me less for its implications for our [no: make that 'my'] discipline than for the fact that it appears to be occurring without any conscious discussion or acknowledgment.

We - the members that is - of ALIA, recently confirmed that it should continue to retain the title of which those initials are the acronym, whilst the Association was in the process of changing itself to something more like a corporation. The possibility of reversion to a body based solely on the 'L'-word was not, so far as I am aware, canvassed: but any extension of that title to reflect what seems to be happening out there 'in the real world' was also, by omission, scouted. By opting for the retention of the word 'information' in our title, we have deliberately left open the door to the inclusion of members from other disciplines. It does not matter that not many of these have actually sought admission: it is our intention that matters. We have chosen to be a body representing, as well as librarians a potential assortment of related but hitherto unidentified disciplines.

Yet these disciplines share much in common, as the book in hand demonstrates. If I had set out to review the question of professional maturity at the outset of this discussion, I could well have rested my argument on what it addresses in relation to librarianship, and the highly professional and informed way in which it does this. Despite the title, the chapters are, quite laudably, addressed to students, and in language and concepts which are clear, comprehensible and relevant, which reflects the author-in-chief's considerable experience both as a teacher [which is different from being a lecturer] and as a researcher with a substantial body of work behind her.

'Research methods' is now commonplace [as it should be] in the curricula of those schools with a post-graduate component, but it is a complex, often confusing and obscure area for students, who up to now have had, perforce, to rely in the main, with one or two notable exceptions, on overseas texts which rested largely on statistical method as the only apparently respectable research method. This book not only clears the obfuscation, but is written across a wide spectrum of research methods by contributors who have been there and done it. It is entirely readable, and in fact, I have been conning it over my morning coffee and in the evenings just for the intrinsic pleasure of watching its ideas unfold. It also has a considerable potential, belied somewhat by its limiting subtitle and CIP cataloguing, in other areas [not necessarily concerned with the nature of the phenomenon: document] of the social and reflective sciences.

There are seventeen chapters, only one of which is concerned with the dreaded 'statistical methods', ranging from the formulation of the hypothesis to the evaluation of published research. There is an informative Introduction by Ross Harvey which defines what the book does, and does not cover, and which offers the interesting guarantee to student readers that the 'contents of this book have been road-tested with students from several disciplines who are studying in several universities' and whose input has been incorporated. Those 'several disciplines' are not defined.

There is also a valuably humane Postscript by Professor Don Schauder: Seven questions for information management and systems researchers which concludes with the question: 'Do I have the humility always to stay alert to the ideas of our [that word again] colleagues and to honour their contributions to the advancement of our common research quest? A good conclusion. The book, is, as I have hinted, highly readable: it could, with advantage, be studied by its nominal audience of students and practitioners alike, and across many more disciplines than its modest subtitle suggests. Which takes me back to my opening concern: which disciplines?

In this issue Christine Bruce takes us on a survey of contemporary research and programs in information literacy, on which Jillian Dellitt offers a workface review of EdNA Online, its raisons d'etre, the challenges it faces, and its hopes and ambitions. Anne Galligan looks at the National Library of Australia from a different perspective to that which she offered in an earlier article. Robert Barnes may approve. A trio of investigators from Curtin University - Paul Genoni, Maggie Exon and Kit Farrelly [how nice it is to see a student being inducted into the arcane world of genuine research] bravely survey a cohort of graduated Curtin students to ask some fairly confronting questions about the courses they completed, and their utility. Sally Skinner [another student] and Professor Bill Martin from RMIT examine one of the less pleasant aspects of the WWW and finally, Ruth Sladek reviews a major opportunity for librarians 'to define and assert their roles in the health care industry. A score or so of excellent book reviews rounds off the issue.

The Journal is 49 years old: watch this space.