Developing a research question and intervention from an action research approach

The seeds of this project can be traced back to the positions of reflection and revision I regularly undertake as a librarian.  An approach that follow’s Marshall’s first principle of action research as an ongoing inquiry, a process of “engaging in repeated cycles of anticipation, planning (perhaps), acting, reviewing”. (Marshall, 2016) Specifically over the summer of 2024 the Library at LCC carried out a thorough review of its print publication collection in preparation for the move to its new building in three-years-time.  A colleague and I developed a model that reviewed item borrowing rates and reading list conditions as principle for deaccession; a strategy informed by my attendance at the 2023 M25 Library Research Conference, where a colleague from the University of Westminster had presented research entitled – ‘Weeding at Westminster -wins, woes, and ways forward’, that used user metrics as a decision making tool.(2023, O’Farrell) However, as we undertook this work, we reflected on the results.  Yes, many items we were removing were old and no longer relevant, however there were items, specifically in the areas of postcolonial theory and postcolonial literature that had not been loaned in recent years, but fulfilled the decolonising and social justice aims of the library – see for example Crilly’s literature review of this work within the library sector  (Crilly, 2024).  We had to revise our strategy and add new criteria to our weeding mandate. It also, as good action research does, encouraged us to reflect on our process, and ask the question why these items were not being discovered, and how we might help our users find and use them.

Parallel to this a second conversation was unfolding in our librarians’ forum, that saw us debating how notions of serendipity as a form of discovery might support our users’ creative practice. A colleague had returned from the LILAC24 Conference and presented to our internal librarian’s group a paper that looked at innovative ways of supporting art students in their engagement with libraries through serendipitous means (2024, Mckinnery). It once again asked us to reflect on our information literacy delivery, rethinking it in terms of supporting creative art students who seek inspiration as well as answers to research questions.  For me, it offered a concrete proposal that might address the discovery question we were encountering in our weeding project.

This began my own research in the area, and the development of a way of thinking that started to formulate a plan to help students engage with and synthesise unexpected sources. Two pertinent books informed this work Gamification in Higher Education (Adare-Tasiwoopa ápi and Silva, 2024) and The librarians’ book on teaching through games and play. (Walsh, 2018) This led me to an idea of a journaling game, whereby something less abstract than serendipity, a set of prompts and rules, could be used to guide and engage students with a range of sources in pursuit of a creative outcome. The next part of the project would need me to develop a “fun” game, which would be able to act as a catalyst for a creative and unexpected encounter with our library sources; ideally bringing together different cultures, forms and voices and “see things from a different perspective as a result”. (Walsh, 2018, p.147)

References