CIRI Blog
Center for Information Research and Innovation (CIRI) Blog
iSchool faculty are contributors to the CIRI Blog, sharing their thoughts, ideas, and experiences regarding a wide range of topics. This blog is updated monthly and managed by CIRI Coordinator Dr. Lili Luo. For more on iSchool’s faculty and student research, please visit the CIRI web page.
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Consulting Internships for Bridging Coursework into Knowledge Management Work Environments
Published: September 1, 2020 by Dr. Virginia Tucker
Internships create extraordinarily valuable opportunities for students during their MLIS degree program experiences. For those preparing for careers in knowledge management (KM), an internship in a business environment that draws on abilities, both in design concepts and best practices, can be especially supportive of learning what is needed to onboard rapidly and successfully after graduation (Tucker, 2018). I had the distinct delight of being able to pull together a team of three student-interns as part of a
Exploring the Potential of Blockchain in LIS
Published: August 24, 2020 by Dr. Sue Alman
Our understanding of blockchain and its potential disruption to the information professions, education, and employment has gone from zero to warp speed since Sandy Hirsh and I began our investigation in 2017. However, we still are not experts in the technical aspects of blockchain development, but we have a strong vision for potential use cases. Our initial interest was piqued by the expanding literature that
Assessing Scholarly Communication Services – An IMLS-funded Project
Published: May 20, 2020 by Dr. Lili Luo
I’m a member of a great project team that’s working to investigate the best practices of assessing academic libraries’ scholarly communication services , and make recommendations for better tracking academic libraries’ engagement in supporting research and scholarship on academic campuses. The project is funded by IMLS and led by wonderful librarians from Sacramento State University and San Jose State University.
Wholehearted Librarianship during the Pandemic
Published: April 20, 2020 by Dr. Michael Stephens
Taking the long view, I would say that librarians spent a lot of time in the 1990s and 2000s figuring out how to use rapidly evolving technology to better serve their users. The internet reached the masses and libraries stepped up with classes and access. Later, social networking across multiple platforms and smart mobile devices lead to knowledge creation and learning on the go.
Practices and Representations: Bringing them together
Published: March 24, 2020 by Dr. Mary Ann Harlan
It is not unusual when involved in a research project to be distracted by new ideas, interesting concepts, and potential connections to the research that ultimately are beyond the scope of one’s current project. I find myself often distracted by shiny new research ideas and questions as I read for a literature review, analyze data, and write my own analysis and findings. This could be why I sometimes don’t seem to have a pithy answer to “What are your research interests?”
How We Made the Grade: The Journey from Lived Experience to Conference Presentation
Published: February 24, 2020 by Enid Ocegueda and Michelle Peralta
Introduction
Though online programs do their best to create educational environments comparable to brick-and-mortar classroom settings for its students, the virtual nature of distance learning can be challenging for students on many fronts, especially for those seeking professional networks, mentorship, and a cohort experience. Current research on the experiences of people of color in Library and Information Science (LIS) programs, especially as they relate to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, tended to focus on students in traditional, in-person programs. We were interested in researching if and how our experiences as people of color at SJSU iSchool differed from those in other online LIS programs.
Language Style Matching as a Measure of Librarian/Patron Engagement in Email Reference Transactions
Published: January 23, 2020 by Ann Agee
When two people are deep in conversation, they unconsciously mimic each other. Both will cross their arms, pick up their coffee cups, or touch their hair as they talk. Research shows that this mimicry is a signal of the high level of engagement between the conversationalists (Scheflen, 1964). Using a technique called language style matching (LSM), social psychologists discovered that similar synchronization appears in written correspondence (Niederhoffer & Pennebaker, 2002). Correspondents with a high level of engagement use similar words, down to the level of pronouns, articles, and prepositions. It is these function words that are used to calculate an LSM score. High LSM scores have been shown to be indicative of a sense of perceived support.
Research Methods Course Focusing on Technology
Published: December 4, 2019 by Jason Kaltenbacher
Beginning this current (Fall) 2019 semester, I started teaching a technology management special topics section of INFO 285: Applied Research Methods. This course is designed to support students who are interested in developing a comprehensive research proposal that relates to a technology interest/issue. Like the other research methods courses, students learn the fundamentals of social research design and how to produce a viable and independent research proposal.
Tribal Connectivity via TV Whitespace
Published: November 6, 2019 by Dr. Kristen R. Rebmann
In 2014, the Association of Tribal Archives, Museums and Libraries prepared a report, Digital Inclusion in Native Communities: The Role of Tribal Libraries, which discusses the challenges Tribal Libraries face in bringing basic broadband access to their citizens in addition to creating public spaces that provide Wi-Fi connections. The report illustrates how Tribal Libraries play a critical role as community anchor institutions (CAIs) in providing their community members with access to the internet (ATALM, 2014).
Data Mining for Service Planning and Management in Libraries
Published: October 3, 2019 by Dr. Geoffrey Liu
With operation being increasingly computerized and services becoming interactive online, libraries – like other business organizations – are accumulating huge piles of data. Such data include not only operational/circulation records and online transactions on web platform, but also textual information generated by library virtual communities and data collected through service programs. In this sense, the “Big Data” movement did not leave libraries out.
SJSU’s Student Research Journal: Supporting Teaching and Research at iSchool
Published: September 12, 2019 by Margaret Snyder, Editor-in-Chief, Student Research Journal
Want to be dialed-in to career trends, up your research game, and contribute to the library and information science (LIS) conversation? Look no further than the Student Research Journal (SRJ), San Jose State University’s (SJSU’s) only graduate student-run, open-access, double-blind, peer-reviewed academic journal featuring graduate student research and inviting contributions from prestigious researchers and movers and shakers in the LIS field. SRJ is about to celebrate their 10th birthday after an amazing 2018 milestone year eclipsing 100,000 downloads (read the issue here) and thrilled to introduce a new student resource blog to support SJSU MLIS and MARA students.
The General Data Protection Regulation and the “Right to be Forgotten”: A Primer for Information Professionals
Published: August 11, 2019 by Dr. Lisa Daulby
The European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which took effect on May 25, 2018, is designed to protect the privacy rights and freedoms of individuals residing in the EU. GDPR is a comprehensive regulation encompassing 99 articles with provisions for data collection, consent, breaches, processing and security. GDPR was developed to reflect changes to personal information governance in an interconnected and virtually borderless world. Organizations that collect personal data about EU residents including customer and employee information must comply with
Searching for LIS Student Success at the SJSU iSchool
Published: June 20, 2019 by Dr. Anthony Bernier
“It’s not that people haven’t been inclusive. It’s just… a feeling I have in myself. You feel like an imposter. Like, especially when you go back into your family life.”
In Fall 2018, the American Library Association awarded Dr. Anthony Bernier a Diversity Research Grant (the committee’s top pick from among 30 proposals) to study the experience of the iSchool’s First Generation (FG) students. The project defined FG students as people coming from family backgrounds in which neither parent earned a professional degree.
Blockchain for Identity Management: Can a Case be made to Begin at Birth?
Published: May 2, 2019 by Dr. Pat Franks
Some of you may be familiar with blockchain technology (learn more about the basics of Blockchain from this CNN post and Dr. Franks’ presentation) because of Bitcoin, but it’s important to understand that Bitcoin was the first generation of blockchain technology with only one use case: financial tra
Exploring Tribal Library Opportunities and Challenges via Information Visualization
Published: April 4, 2019 by Dr. Michelle Chen
I met former iSchool student Tawa Ducheneaux (who is currently an archivist at Oglala Lakota College) in one of my Information Visualization classes, and the idea of using information visualization to further assist tribal library operations emerged from there. After the semester, Tawa approached me with an abundance of data from Oglala Lakota College Library and, with tremendous help from Tawa and her colleagues at Woksape Tipi Library and South Dakota State Library, we analyzed the data and eventually published a paper in Library Management [1]. In this blog post, I would like to share a little more about our research.
Exploring the Possibilities of Discourse Analysis for LIS Research
Published: March 5, 2019 by Dr. Deborah Hicks
I recently had the opportunity to speak with students enrolled in the iSchool’s Gateway PhD program about one of my favorite topics – discourse analysis. I thought I’d give a brief overview of my talk here to hopefully help others trying to understand the ins and outs of a great and useful methodological approach to LIS research.
Student Driven Inquiry: A Personal Research Journey
Published: February 5, 2019 by Dr. Shelly Buchanan
The first months of 2018 presented me with significant professional shifts when I joined the iSchool full-time faculty and shortly thereafter in March earned my Ph.D. for my dissertation titled, “The lived experience of middle school student engaged in student-driven inquiry: A phenomenological study.”
Cultural Memory and National Archives on the African Continent
Published: January 4, 2019 by Dr. Pat Franks
Introduction
Between September 2016 and November 2017, 46 students and alumni of the iSchool participated in a research project that resulted in the publication of the first ever International Directory of National Archives.
Value of Libraries: Measuring the Impact of CA Libraries
Published: November 18, 2018 by Dr. Cheryl Stenstrom
The California Library Services Board is funding and supporting a project called the Value of Libraries. Work on this project is being carried out by the California State Library under the direction of state library consultant, Dr. Natalie Cole, with assistance from iSchool faculty member, Dr. Cheryl Stenstrom and iSchool alumna, Rachel Hanson.
Resources for Planning Research and Writing
Published: October 14, 2018 by Dr. Michele A.L. Villagran
photo credit: Søren Mørk Petersen)
Over the summer before officially beginning as a new faculty, I had to prepare myself for the research and writing expectations of a tenure-track position. I spent at least one to two months seeking out resources beyond those I was aware of years ago when I was a doctoral student.