Library Assessment for Research and Scholarship Lab

Introducing the Research and Scholarship Lab

The research and scholarship lab investigates library support for research and scholarship throughout all phases of the research lifecycle, encompassing a range of activities from funding and ideation to dissemination and impact. The library presence across the research lifecycle has implications for staffing and expertise, service design and development, and the continual quest to better understand and reimagine the roles of disciplinary and functional specialists. Evaluating library support for digital scholarship and research data management is of particular interest, given the necessary investments into tools, methods, and analysis.

Project: Support for Qualitative Data Analysis

The University of Michigan Library has a longstanding commitment to support for spatial and numeric data services and has more recently developed services for data visualization and research data management. This project recognizes the centrality of quantitative methods in existing library data services and establishes a goal to develop more inclusive services going forward.

We are engaged in a needs assessment in order to learn about unmet campus and disciplinary needs for qualitative and mixed methods research support. We have developed two interview protocols, based on our review of the literature, and are conducting semi-structured stakeholder interviews with faculty, doctoral students, and librarians. As we code and analyze interview transcripts, we are able to identify opportunities for library support and engagement. Early analysis indicates two key opportunities: 1) facilitation of communities of practice and 2) enhanced access to methods texts and resources through library collections.

Lab Members

Elizabeth Yakel

Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Information, School of Information | Winter 2018; Fall 2018 – Fall 2020

Alexa Pearce

Head, Social Sciences & Clark Library, University Library | Winter 2018; Fall 2018 – Winter 2019

Jacqueline Freeman

Informationist, Health Sciences, University Library | Fall 2018 – Fall 2020

Karen Downing

Education Librarian, University Library | Winter 2018; Fall 2018 – Fall 2020

Jeremy York

School of Information Doctoral Student | Summer 2020 – Fall 2020

Allison Thorsen

School of Information Graduate Student | Winter 2019 – Spring 2020; Fall 2020

Claire Myers

School of Information Graduate Student | Winter 2019 – Spring 2020

Research Assistant | Spring 2020 – Fall 2020

Joseph Muller

School of Information Graduate Student | Winter 2019 – Spring 2020

Digital Publishing Coordinator, University of Michigan Library | Spring 2020 – Fall 2020

Shelby Long

School of Information Graduate Student | Summer 2020 – Fall 2020

Faye Polasek

College of Literature, Science, and the Arts Undergraduate Student | Summer 2020 – Fall 2020

Caroline He

School of Information Graduate Student | Winter 2018; Fall 2018 – Winter 2019

Hilary Severyn

School of Information Graduate Student | Fall 2018 – Winter 2019

Andrea Kang