Giving Back to the Community
An integral part of participating in the scholarly community of LIS An interdisciplinary field that examines how physical and digital information is organized, accessed, collected, managed, disseminated and used, particularly in library settings. research is demystifying and democratizing the often-privileged knowledge that is needed to research and publish in the field. To paraphrase Black civil rights activist and suffragette Mary Church Terrell, it’s important that we “lift as we climb.” As you learn and grow as a researcher, you’ll be able to start giving back to the field by helping newer or less experienced library researchers.
Serve as a Reviewer
One way to engage in this work is by serving as a reviewer. Going through the process of submitting your own original scholarship for publication can be a vulnerable and scary experience your first time. As you gain more experience, it helps to share your knowledge with others in the field and thereby elevate the quality of LIS research. It can be especially important for Black, Indigenous, and people of color to serve as reviewers in order to increase the visibility and understanding of research done by and about library workers from those communities. One of your main goals as a reviewer is centering how your review can strengthen the LIS research community. By elevating research in the field in this way, you can help your peers improve and help promote a culture of growth and learning for library researchers. Keep an eye out on The Library Writer‘s Blog for openings on editorial teams, or regularly check up on any news from journals and publication websites whose work you frequently read. You can also contact those journals directly to ask about openings or see if a colleague or peer who already serves as a reviewer can recommend you. For researchers in the sciences, PREreviews is an example of a website that allows you to be an open peer reviewer for a preprint.
Serve as a Research Partner
As you grow into your research identity and start to build a record of scholarship, consider how you might offer your expertise or findings The section of a research article where researchers share the results from the research. This section takes the results and directly connects them to the research questions or hypotheses posed at the start of the article. Also can be called “Findings.” to help an emerging scholar in the field. Watch for opportunities at conferences or online to engage with those new to the field or starting their research. Strike up a conversation and see if there are ways you can collaborate. See Course 3, Lesson 1 for full strategies related to finding collaborators, networking, and cultivating research partnerships.
Mentor Others
Another way to give back to the community is through mentorship. Whether through an informal structure or a formal institutional or professional organization-led program, being a mentor is a great way to remove the barriers you faced when pursuing research for the first time for those experiencing it for the first time. While mentorship is often between early career and established library workers, peer-to-peer mentorship can also be an important mutually beneficial model of support. Even if you don’t feel “experienced enough” to engage in a mentoring relationship, establishing a peer mentoring cohort can help you and your colleagues going through the research process at the same time to share knowledge, experiences, and support with one another. This can help facilitate a reciprocal relationship to offer brainstorming, draft feedback, and research advice. Because peer mentorship removes many elements of hierarchical power structures in certain institutions, it can facilitate a learning environment where library workers of all experience levels and ranks can learn from one another. This can include writing support, shared knowledge about reappointment, promotion, and tenure requirements, and mutual accountability. LibParlor keeps a list of mentorship opportunities here.
Push for Change
The LIS field has several areas that need advocates for change. Think about your research interests, your role, or your area of expertise — in what ways could you help make these more equitable for everyone to be able to participate and contribute? How can you remove barriers to ensure that your digital and physical spaces are accessible and welcoming to all? What can you do to push for fair labor conditions? How can you advocate for sustainable initiatives and divestment opportunities? Whatever it is that you are passionate about, become an agent of change to make working in the field better for you, your colleagues, and those coming up after you.
However you choose to give back, hopefully it is meaningful for you and helps to improve the LIS research community and scholarship in the field!
Topic 2 References
Cirasella, Jill, and Maura A. Smale, “Peers Don’t Let Peers Perish: Encouraging Research and Scholarship Among Junior Library Faculty,” Collaborative Librarianship 3, no. 2 (2011): 98-109. doi.org/10.29087/2011.3.2.07.
Mavrinac, Mary Ann, “Transformational Leadership: Peer Mentoring as a Values-Based Learning Process,” portal: Libraries and the Academy 5, no. 3 (2005): 391-404. doi.org/10.1353/pla.2005.0037.
Tysick, Cynthia and Nancy Babb, “Writing Supports for Junior Faculty Librarians: a case study,” Journal of Academic Librarianship: 32, no. 1 (2006): 94-100. doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2005.10.005.
Wallace, Jasmine. “How to Be a Good Peer Reviewer.” The Scholarly Kitchen. September 17, 2019. https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/09/17/how-to-be-a-good-peer-reviewer/.
Giving Back to the Community
An integral part of participating in the scholarly community of LISLibrary and Information Science An interdisciplinary field that examines how physical and digital information is organized, accessed, collected, managed, disseminated and used, particularly in library settings. research is demystifying and democratizing the often-privileged knowledge that is needed to research and publish in the field. To paraphrase Black civil rights activist and suffragette Mary Church Terrell, it’s important that we “lift as we climb.” As you learn and grow as a researcher, you’ll be able to start giving back to the field by helping newer or less experienced library researchers.
Serve as a Reviewer
One way to engage in this work is by serving as a reviewer. Going through the process of submitting your own original scholarship for publication can be a vulnerable and scary experience your first time. As you gain more experience, it helps to share your knowledge with others in the field and thereby elevate the quality of LIS research. It can be especially important for Black, Indigenous, and people of color to serve as reviewers in order to increase the visibility and understanding of research done by and about library workers from those communities. One of your main goals as a reviewer is centering how your review can strengthen the LIS research community. By elevating research in the field in this way, you can help your peers improve and help promote a culture of growth and learning for library researchers. Keep an eye out on The Library Writer‘s Blog for openings on editorial teams, or regularly check up on any news from journals and publication websites whose work you frequently read. You can also contact those journals directly to ask about openings or see if a colleague or peer who already serves as a reviewer can recommend you. For researchers in the sciences, PREreviews is an example of a website that allows you to be an open peer reviewer for a preprint.
Serve as a Research Partner
As you grow into your research identity and start to build a record of scholarship, consider how you might offer your expertise or findingsResults The section of a research article where researchers share the results from the research. This section takes the results and directly connects them to the research questions or hypotheses posed at the start of the article. Also can be called “Findings.” to help an emerging scholar in the field. Watch for opportunities at conferences or online to engage with those new to the field or starting their research. Strike up a conversation and see if there are ways you can collaborate. See Course 3, Lesson 1 for full strategies related to finding collaborators, networking, and cultivating research partnerships.
Mentor Others
Another way to give back to the community is through mentorship. Whether through an informal structure or a formal institutional or professional organization-led program, being a mentor is a great way to remove the barriers you faced when pursuing research for the first time for those experiencing it for the first time. While mentorship is often between early career and established library workers, peer-to-peer mentorship can also be an important mutually beneficial model of support. Even if you don’t feel “experienced enough” to engage in a mentoring relationship, establishing a peer mentoring cohort can help you and your colleagues going through the research process at the same time to share knowledge, experiences, and support with one another. This can help facilitate a reciprocal relationship to offer brainstorming, draft feedback, and research advice. Because peer mentorship removes many elements of hierarchical power structures in certain institutions, it can facilitate a learning environment where library workers of all experience levels and ranks can learn from one another. This can include writing support, shared knowledge about reappointment, promotion, and tenure requirements, and mutual accountability. LibParlor keeps a list of mentorship opportunities here.
Push for Change
The LIS field has several areas that need advocates for change. Think about your research interests, your role, or your area of expertise — in what ways could you help make these more equitable for everyone to be able to participate and contribute? How can you remove barriers to ensure that your digital and physical spaces are accessible and welcoming to all? What can you do to push for fair labor conditions? How can you advocate for sustainable initiatives and divestment opportunities? Whatever it is that you are passionate about, become an agent of change to make working in the field better for you, your colleagues, and those coming up after you.
However you choose to give back, hopefully it is meaningful for you and helps to improve the LIS research community and scholarship in the field!
Topic 2 References
Cirasella, Jill, and Maura A. Smale, “Peers Don’t Let Peers Perish: Encouraging Research and Scholarship Among Junior Library Faculty,” Collaborative Librarianship 3, no. 2 (2011): 98-109. doi.org/10.29087/2011.3.2.07.
Mavrinac, Mary Ann, “Transformational Leadership: Peer Mentoring as a Values-Based Learning Process,” portal: Libraries and the Academy 5, no. 3 (2005): 391-404. doi.org/10.1353/pla.2005.0037.
Tysick, Cynthia and Nancy Babb, “Writing Supports for Junior Faculty Librarians: a case study,” Journal of Academic Librarianship: 32, no. 1 (2006): 94-100. doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2005.10.005.
Wallace, Jasmine. “How to Be a Good Peer Reviewer.” The Scholarly Kitchen. September 17, 2019. https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/09/17/how-to-be-a-good-peer-reviewer/.