This conference focuses on researchers in libraries, both original research being supported by librarians and original research being performed by librarians. The conference goal is to bring research supporters and research creators together in one forum to share and discuss insights about original research. Empirical Librarians 2016 will be held on February 29th, 2016, in Greensboro, NC, in the library at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. Our keynote speaker will be Dr. Barbara Wildemuth, author of Applications of Social Research Methods to Questions in Information and Library Science.
We seek submissions from library professionals and LIS students on the two conference topic tracks (1) library support for original researchers and (2) research by and about libraries. We are particularly interested in hearing about the techniques and methods used! This would be a great forum for presenters to revisit an already-presented project but develop the focus on technique instead of outcomes. Topics may include but are not limited to:
Track 1: Librarians supporting original research, such as:
- Data librarianship and the support of data-intensive social science
- Graduate student support and information literacy for theses/dissertations
- Undergraduate research program support and science librarianship
- Data archiving and support for the data lifecycle
- Research development, grant, or sponsored programs support in the library
Track 2: Librarians performing original research, such as:
- Qualitative or quantitative methodological insights from research projects
- Outcomes-setting and outcomes-measurement of projects in libraries
- User Experience librarianship and usability analysis
- Rigorous library assessment techniques and methods
- Spatial and behavioral approaches to user insights
- The science of science and other bibliometrics and altmetrics
Presentations can be in one of three formats:
- One-hour break-out sessions with 45 minutes for presenting and 15 minutes for Q&A. These may be instructional sessions, presentations, or panels.
- Lightning sessions (5-7 minutes of talk; Q&A will be included afterwards)
- Poster sessions with practical take-aways
Both lightning sessions and poster sessions are especially suited to basic refreshers for your colleagues! Suggested topics for these smaller sessions include introductory “how to” or “what is” overviews, literature-based methods synopses, summaries of emerging trends in a specific field of librarianship, discussions of pilot projects, explanations of smaller user-insight projects, etc. Presenters are asked to plan a learning object for attendees’ future use. This could be a handout, lesson plan, tutorial video, link to a LibGuide reading list, an assessment diagram, worksheet, or any other format as long as it will help attendees to apply your ideas.
Proposals to present can be submitted at http://www.library.ncat.edu/
Thanks,
Nina Exner
