@flexnib Wish I'd blogged more of course! It felt more communal to me than last year - so many great ideas & conversations #blogjune

— Sam Searle (@datalibsam) June 25, 2015

Well, the end of the month came around quickly! Thanks as always to Con (@flexnib) for kickstarting and thanks to all the other participants. I've loved reading all your posts over your month and hope to see more from you in future.

This year I wrote just six posts (plus this one) compared to thirty last year. But I'm not beating myself up about it as I was really pleased with the posts that I did write; a couple of them (Times a-changing in library systems and linked open data and my contribution to the imposter syndrome discussion "I'm not a technical person, but...") have been viewed more than usual and are already my second and third most viewed posts on this blog.

One of the nicest things has been contributing to some of the shared discussions through the blog and on Twitter. It seems that these will continue through a new collaborative blogging venture that must surely be the most positive outcome of #blogjune.

Ironically my top two takeaways from this year's experience aren't about blogging at all. Kate (@katiedavis) wrote a great piece about the many ways that it's possible to contribute to this inspiring, messy, rewarding, complex, frustrating and wonderful profession of ours:

Blog. Comment on blogs. Tweet. Speak at conferences. Ask a question after a conference presentation. Write journal articles. Then tweet about your journal articles. Contact your nearest ‘library school’ and offer to speak or make a short video or write a blog post or host a tour for their courses. Write a short piece for inCite. Start or join a journal club. Kick off conversations on an elist (okay I’m stretching here. Do people still use these? I have to say I’m not subscribed to many and most get filtered straight to trash). Find an interest group on Facebook and stoke some conversation. Tweet links to the blog posts you’re reading, even (especially!) non-LIS ones. 

Contribute big: write meaty content. Or contribute small: make a comment here and there.

So I'm currently most enthused by my #blogjune experience not about writing more blog posts, but about finishing a journal article (meaty content!) that will be a more scholarly write-up of my conference presentation at last year's eResearch Australasia on scenario-based learning and in-house data management training for library staff. I started this in October 2014 but never finished it: it's time. The other thing that I am fired up about is a possible research project. I don't know yet how feasible this is but I am going to think more seriously about it.

Maybe by the time the next #blogjune rolls around I will be able to report some progress on both these activities. Until next year, adios amigas!

Credit: Andy McGee, 2011. https://flic.kr/p/9Sb4Ut. 

Licence: CC BY-NC 2.0.

I'm hoping to register tomorrow to attend a workshop that is coming up as part of the 8th International Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (EBLIP) Conference, which is being held here in Brisbane at the Queensland University of Technology.

The workshop is called Quantitative vs Qualitative Research Methods: Determining the Best Method for Evidence Based Research and it's being delivered by Dr Sandra Hirsh, the Director of the School of Information at San José State University. According to the blurb, the workshop

will provide participants a thorough understanding of the difference between qualitative and quantitative research, including how to choose the best method for performing effective evidence based research. Participants will also learn about various techniques within each research approach, expanding their ability to determine not only the best approach, but the best and most practical technique for performing their evidence based research. 

My reason for wanting to attend this session is that I have a research project in mind. I've undertaken substantive research projects previously for an MA by research way back in the 1990s before I was even a librarian, and then again for my MLIS (metadata nerds and insomniacs are welcome to check out my dissertation in VUW's institutional repository, Gaining Expertise in Creating Metadata: An Exploratory Study!). But it's been a long time since I did research methods coursework and I'm wanting to avoid falling into the trap described in a really good In the Library with the Lead Pipe article a few months back urging librarians to #DitchTheSurvey:

This article is a call to arms: it is time to ditch the survey as our primary research method and think outside the checkbox [....] Our field is ripe for rigorous research, but our over-reliance on the survey is limiting the depth of that knowledge. With the survey method dominating most LIS studies, we strongly recommend that librarians increase the diversity of their methodological toolbox. Determine the methods that will most appropriately answer your research question and even go so far as to seek out questions that can be best answered by less frequently employed practices.

I was considering applying for an ALIA Research Grant Award (maybe next year - no way I will meet the 30 June deadline for this year now!) and initially I was tempted to stick with the tried and true survey, despite the fact that my topic would likely be better suited to qualitative methods like interviews or focus groups. I'm hoping that attending Sandra's workshop will help me expand my toolbox as the authors of the article mentioned above suggest.

I haven't talked much about my idea for a research project with anyone except a couple of trusted colleagues. It seems a good idea to me but I'm uncertain about committing to it as I know that it will be a substantial piece of work that will likely have to be done in my own time. (This is not because my place of work would be unsupportive of the research - in fact, my supervisor has specifically asked me to include in my performance plan some activities that are just for my own interest and development - but it's hard to see how that would work in practice.) I've been pondering whether the project would be a good chance for me to collaborate with someone from another institution. It might mean the workload of doing the actual research work could be shared (though often collaborating takes more time!); it might also ensure that I'm not caught up in my own bubble-view of the problem that I'm interested in exploring.

I'm sorry to be missing what is sure to be another highlight of the EBLIP conference, Kim Tairi's keynote on research practitioners and role conflict. As Kim writes in her abstract, "one of the trickiest things to do is be an active researcher and a practitioner. Embedding research into your work life with the competing pressures of a professional role is often a juggling act." I'm looking forward to seeing Kim's slides after the event to pick up on some tips about keeping those balls in the air!

References
Halpern, R. et al., 2015. #DitchTheSurvey: Expanding Methodological Diversity in LIS Research. In the Library with the Lead Pipe. Available at: http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2015/ditchthesurvey-expanding-methodological-diversity-in-lis-research/ [Accessed June 28, 2015].

Impostor syndrome seems to be emerging as a theme in posts and comments this #blogjune: both Kate Davis and Kathryn Greenhill have written great pieces about this. I appreciate people's willingness to share their vulnerabilities in this way. There is something reassuring about knowing other people feel the same way, even if it's a little dismaying to see how these feelings hold us back from contributing fully in our workplaces and developing as professionals.

A few months ago I spoke to my supervisor about some insecurities I had about my new role. My place of work has a fully converged library-IT structure, so much so that we do not even have "the library" as an organisational division, just library services that are delivered out of different groups  in ways that (hopefully!) maximise the use of central infrastructure and encourage innovation and collaboration by different types of information professionals. As a middle manager within this unusual organisational structure, I'm expected to contribute to operations, planning and strategy for systems and services that are well outside my own area of expertise. This was implicit in the position description for my job but it has still been a surprise and a challenge.

Although the primary focus of my team is on library systems, scholarly repositories and publishing platforms, I represent my director and my portfolio in a range of forums where IT infrastructure, application and support across all areas of the university is discussed. In these forums I often feel nervous about speaking up. I worry about making a fool of myself and about making my director or my colleagues look bad and this can affect the way I contribute. What I had observed, and what I talked to my supervisor about, was a tendency to start any comments I was making with something along the lines of "I'm not a technical person, but..." Obviously if you want to build credibility, being tentative and giving people a reason to dismiss what you say before you even get started because you obviously don't even believe in it yourself is not really a great start.

I know that this is not rational. I know that I have successfully managed complex projects with technical aspects and have learned enough of the lingo to be able to effectively work with software developers, business analysts, systems administrators, storage analysts and other types of IT professionals. I know that I have skills and experience that other people in these groups do not, including an understanding of critical legal and regulatory requirements like copyright, recordkeeping and privacy. I know that there is a need for people who can build bridges between hard core IT professionals and other groups of users and stakeholders, and that is one of my strengths. I know that IT managers come from a variety of backgrounds and cannot have in-depth knowledge of everything, and that by the time they reach middle or senior management their technical skills must necessarily give way to other types of expertise anyway. I know that succesful IT programs need more than just technical understanding and that the soft skills that librarians have can make all the difference. And I know that my seat at the table has not been given to me by accident because someone failed to notice I am a complete fraud.

But knowing all this doesn't always make me feel any better, and I am trying to understand this so that I can change it.  I do think that diversity is part of the problem: I went to a meeting this week where I was the only woman and there were eighteen men: I have joked in the past that this will be the closet I will ever get to feeling like Julie Bishop! Librarianship is a female-dominated profession and being visibly in the minority in workplace situations rather than in the majority must affect me somehow. Being an introvert makes some of these situations challenging, and being a perfectionist can also lead to unconstructive behaviours like failing to speak up for fear of making a mistake.

Anyway, here's what I am doing to try to address this. I would love to hear from you if you have any strategies of your own that you think I should try!

1. I've acknowledged this is a problem that I need to address. I've talked about it with my supervisor and other colleagues and I'm talking it about it here. No regrets.
2. I've identified this as a professional development need and am considering how best to build my IT skills and knowledge through internal training courses, external events (the CAUDIT Leadership Institute might be a possibility) and self-directed learning.
3. I am preparing for meetings well in advance, so that I can think through and write down my concerns rather than try to verbalise them on my feet during the meeting. If you are responsible for organising meetings, please people, send out agendas and papers in advance to help everyone make their best contribution.
4. I've had positive feedback from a senior staff member about my participation in at least one of these groups, and I have tried to take this on its own merit, and to consider that how I come across to others and how I feel on the inside could be quite different. I've realised that I can help others that might be feeling like me by preparing them for what the meetings will be like, trying to make them feel comfortable during the meeting (it isn't hard to give someone presenting to a committee a warm smile and your attention) and providing positive feedback after meetings about the contribution someone has made. Doing this for other people helps me be less hard on myself too.
5. And finally, I'm removing the phrase "I'm not a technical person, but..." from my vocabulary. I am a technical person, and I need to start seeing myself that way and presenting myself that way to others.