Friday, March 2, 2007

Dr. Aree Cheunwattana's Library Science class, March 1 and 2











When I first arrived at SWU, I met Dr. Aree, a faculty member in the library science program for bachelors and masters students. She's another delightful colleague. Aree got her PhD in library science at Indiana University-Bloomington and did her dissertation research on rural libraries in Thailand.

Right away she asked me to meet with her students and faculty to talk about research in our profession. Yesterday and today, I met with them in the mornings, lecturing for a little more than one hour, followed by discussion and team work. I had them pair off to design research projects they want to pursue, either for their degree programs, or for their practical work in libraries. My primary motivation was to inspire and encourage them. I think it worked.


The results presented Friday, March 2 were impressive indeed. Metholology included experimental designs with control and experimental groups, as well as surveys and other qualitative techniques. Topics included information literacy, accuracy & efficiency in the online catalog, analysis of SWU education dissertation citations to see whether this library is adequately supporting the graduate students' research. Lots of fun!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Dear Scottie,

May I request for a tiny bit of correction. My dissertation is about rural libraries in Thailand, not Malaysia. But the idea of doing this topic was hatched out during the conference about rural libraries held in Malaysia.

aree

PS-I am a big fan of your blog. Enjoy reading it very much :)