The Australian Library Journal

Editorial

The nature, utility and essential unknowability of research in our disciplines: an editor's view

Paradox, paradox, paradox. The more we know, the less we know...

One of the marks of maturity in any profession is that genuine research is one of the contributors to that body of literature which underpins both theory and practice. It is only recently that we in our disciplines have begun to generate significant research with the potential to add to that theoretical base (or 'literature') which is the foundation for their practice: this is now happening to an acceptable degree. More problematic, however, is the extent to which the fruits of research are harvested and made available to the profession as a whole via another cornerstone of that claim to professional maturity, the 'learned journal'.

Despite two decades of approaches, often verging on entreaty, to individual researchers, this editor must confess that he has been less than successful in ensuring that the pages of the Australian Library Journal carry a truly representative sampling or even an indication of the relevant and often excellent work that is being carried out in this country. Another consequence, which confronts the profession at large as well as this editor, is that there are very few ways in which the research agenda can be monitored, and priorities set or adjusted: this is a present concern of the ALIA Board of Directors.

The touchstone of the research process is the PhD. Once a rarity in our disciplines, it is now not unusual for members of the profession to have completed or to be enrolled in a research-based degree at the doctoral level. In addition, and outside the academy, there is a small but effective cadre making its way in applied research either as consultants, by way of attachment to the staff establishment of large institutions, or as a way of intellectual life. In the academy, the thesis is the crown and primary indicator of quality in a research degree. I have now read a number at doctoral and master's levels in our field. It is clear that they compare favorably with work in other fields in the humanities and sciences. The work of 'attached' or consulting researchers is naturally less accessible since the outcome is the property of the sponsoring or commissioning organization: in addition, research carried out at the behest of an institution or organization is naturally more sensitive, often confidential and sometimes controversial. The pressure to publish is, or used to be, more evident in the academy.

An accepted corollary of the academic research process is that the work is open to access, discussion and evaluation by colleagues and peers in the discipline, but the extent to which this occurs in the areas of interest central to our profession and its congeners is not clear to me. Certainly it is rare for articles based on 'work in progress' to be submitted to this journal as part of this process, and my impression is that peer review of research in hand is becoming more perfunctory, and may consist of little more than a departmental seminar: further, one's fellow researchers in the academy may not, in a professional discipline, be as competent to judge or to advise about a particular approach as one's colleagues in the field. My further observation is that research supervisors are now so routinely overloaded that it is as much as they can do to provide even a modicum of guidance and supervision to candidates in the pursuit of their research, let alone having significant input into the publication or peer review processes.There is another issue which may be inhibiting the flow and exchange of views and opinions: it arises partly, I suspect, from a not unnatural inclination to keep secret the nature of the topic claimed by the researcher lest it be intruded upon, or even appropriated by competitors. This adds to the difficulty of establishing the full extent of research planned or in process, especially during the early and formative stages of a project. Then there is the question of research in the contiguous and congeneric fields: Australian literature and that of the many other schools, including the British, which are now part of our heterogeneous culture; history; sociology; psychology; information and information technology - not to mention, much less attempt to grapple with cross-disciplinary and interstitial fields (where does the emergent phenomenon of 'knowledge management' belong?).

A particularly galling factor for me as editor is that many candidates seem to put so much of their available energy into completion of their thesis that it is handed in with a sense of relief verging on aversion or burn-out, and the last thing that they want, apparently, is to be required to revisit their work - least of all to produce articles for publication with its attendant glory and dimly glimpsed dangers. I used to tell my research students that at the moment of handing in their thesis, they would by definition be the world's leading expert in their topic. Such an expenditure of energy, intelligence, and clearly, spirit, the end result of which if it is not published, disappears into the institutional archive! So much excellent and interesting work, which to all intents and purposes vanishes on the day it is handed in. Which leads to the question: why do we 'do' research? If not for publication of the results and extension and enhancement of the shared body of knowledge, then what? For love? Or money? My feeling is the latter, by a factor of about 10. We do research nowadays for the same reasons we went to university in the first place: to get a meal ticket, or to improve one. It's the MBA argument.

One of the problems is that of knowing who is doing what and where: ACHLIS is not readily accessible to me, so I am unable to form an opinion as to its effectiveness in assessing the breadth of work in progress or completed. Nor am I sufficiently in touch with other reference sources which I am sure exist, and which might be used to address some of the difficulties I have referred to. No doubt this is one of the issues that ALIA's LISEKA project is addressing, and I look forward with immense interest to its findings and recommendations.

To reiterate: if the results of research are not published, discussed and made accessible, then what is the point of the exercise? If research is the intellectual engine which drives the universities, it is, at least in our disciplines, running so quietly as to be unheard.

In this issue we follow the path set out by Ian Mc Callum's 'Returning to Ithaca to get on with the mission: defining value in terms of our contribution to our customers and our profession' his keynote address to the 2001 library technician's conference in Hobart last August. Ian's paper, especially in relation to his use of the word 'profession' set me thinking about the term 'library technician' and its implications. I dug up a paper I published in these pages in, ah, 1981; a number of questions rose to the surface, and I went to the conference website to see how the technicians were traveling. The answer is: very well indeed, to judge by the quality and depth of the papers presented. I tender here a small selection, plus a fortuitous paper by Mary Carroll on the education of library technicians. Taken as a whole and individually, they present issues both directly and indirectly, including that by now surely inappropriate descriptor, which all of those with a stake in the continuing health of the profession should consider. The cover quote refers.

More reviews, of course, and if you would like to join Professor Gorman's spirited, entertaining and occasionally acerbic, circus of reviewers, drop him a note at the Victoria University of Wellington, NZ. You don't have to be a 'Roos supporter to get in and it will also help you to build up your professional library.