Hi everyone!
I am so privileged to have been elected as member-at-large for the LRRT for a three-year term! It's been twenty years since I conducted my first library research topic: a whitepaper on the effects of design choices influencing inappropriate behavior in college library stacks. Most recently I presented a workshop on open educational resources and narrative learning theory at LibLearnX in Baltimore. You can skip to the end if you want my bio but I won't force anyone to read it to get to the good stuff.
I've been asked to present some research ideas currently in progress by different colleagues and friends, and collaboration is welcome on all of these:
- Key Performance Indicators, IPEDS, ACRL Benchmark, and uniform methodology of relevant metrics and data collection across the profession. Better procedural advise would be helpful to paraprofessionals working in small libraries, and reduce the effects of turnover on data collection methods. Since IPEDS has recently proposed removing libraries as a measure of academic value, a focus on data collection methodology and metrics might be of assistance when academic administrations fail to understand the socio-cultural impact of campus library services.
- Revision of LC Cataloging to reduce the effects of past biases on discoverability and belonging. The patrons at San Juan College in Farmington, NM, are majority indigenous. We have observed that the Abrahamic religions tend to go in B, while our own religions go in G with anthropology. Our customs, our health, our nutrition, our medicines tend to go in anthropology while Eurocentric equivalents go in the "normal" sections. Not only does this decrease discoverability of physical collections, but it feels like a reflection of older biases about the ability of indigenous people to merit non-anthropological academic study.
- Research subjects that explore the changing community/academic hybrid mission of community and junior colleges.
- Best practices for inclusion of online/hybrid library conference participants to increase conference participation from marginalized and low-income communities.
I look forward to using this community space as a way to share our desires for library research and I'd love to hear about the research projects everyone would like to explore. I plan to go to the ALA Conference in Philadelphia and Chicago. Hopefully I can Zoom in on the LRRT Roundtable in San Diego - my husband's clan is honored at his nation's pow-wow this year and as luck would have it, it's on the same days as San Diego.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Goodland
The boring bit:
Since July I have served as a Reference & Instruction Librarian at San Juan College in Farmington, New Mexico, but I have also been Library Director at Lamar Community College in Lamar, Colorado; worked in periodicals, paging, and special collections at Auraria Library in Denver, Colorado; I was a tape librarian at Elsevier; and started out as library IT at Penrose Library at the University of Denver. Got my MLIS in 2022 from Indiana University Indianapolis, and I couldn't recommend the program more.
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Jennifer Goodland
Reference and Instruction Librarian
San Juan College
She/Her/Hers
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