A Start on Research Questions

Hello, I'm James. I'm in my last year in the LIS and ARM concentrations of the MI program, but as someone who is somewhat more interested in the practical aspects of the program, I have not put very much thought into specific research topics in these areas before entering this course.

Generally, the two things that have interested me most are more purely historical topics, or, going in the opposite direction, the ways in which technology has been changing how users interact with both archives and libraries. In particular, the way that potential users discover resources or even entire institutions is one thing which I would like to learn more about, and so that seems like a good starting point for Luker's exercise. That exercise left me with these questions.

-To what extent are the electronic collections of archives used by people without an academic background in a related area, and how does this compare to the use of print or other physical collections?

-What questions tend to lead users towards libraries and archives, or other similar institutions, rather than to resources like Wikipedia, which are immediately accessible but tend to be less authoritative?

-What role does the internet play in how users discover, and in the case of electronic collections, choose to access the materials available in different collections?

I haven't done any serious examination of the literature on any of these topics in the past, and so these questions remain very broad. There is quite likely an enormous amount of research attempting to answer these questions already, and looking through that would be a good next step in finding a good research question, as more focused questions for which there may not already be a good answer are likely as I learn more.

Research Interests Stream of Consciousness Session

Hi, I’m Bridgette. I’m currently finishing my last semester of the MI program in both the LIS and ARM streams.

Let’s give this a try…

I’m drawing a blank… no wait, there’s something there…

My research interests have changed quite a bit throughout my time at the iSchool. I came into the program with the toolset of a historical geographer and wanted to learn everything I could about the praxis of preventing our collective memory from going down “the memory hole”. My internship work has thrown me into the world of academic librarianship and I’ve had a chance to summarize and analyze qualitative and quantitative user experience data. Whether it’s reference data or collated interactions from the personal librarian program, or way-finding behaviours in the library — I’m becoming very interested in the socio-spatial experiences of library users and how those experiences are expressed in both qualitative and quantitative data sets. I find that the notion of library as site of knowledge production to be fascinating and worthy of more study.

Back to my original interest. Some of the courses that I have taken this year such as appraisal, arrangement and description, and A/V materials have brought me back full circle to my initial interests. The memory hole, the topography of that memory hole and the archival endeavour. I’m trying to think about the why of how all of those interests fit into a potential question. Is it the ephemerality of digital objects and the need to develop better best practices and workflows for metadata capture? Is it the recent political-economic moment in Canada under Harper that has curtailed democracy and access to information? Were some of those measures taken before the Harper regime?

There’s a relationship there structuring that memory hole… the erosion of democratic structures of governance and its effect on access to information under Harper; how those structures operate in both a centralized and decentralized manner; budget cutbacks; the intrinsic ephemerality of digital object, particularly of born-digital objects; a resulting inability to capture adequate and robust metadata to fully describe the provenance of objects that support current and future use… uses that are often tied to our notions of democratic citizenship. 

So: How did changes to democratic structures as they relate to access to information and funding for projects that support access to information across the federal civil service change since 1993 (Chrétien) and how did this changing context of governance affect the ability of government agencies in coordination with the NAC-LAC to capture adequate provenance metadata to support the “total archives” mission in Canada? 

Week 2: My research interests!

Hello everyone ! My name is Catherine and I am a CRO student, which means I am completing both the Master of Information (with a dual concentration in ARM and LIS) and the Master of Museum Studies. With a background in anthropology and French literature, I have very varied interests. Nevertheless, I think what connects my interests (at least with anthropology and French literature!) is how communities, societies and nations at large represent themselves, and particularly through objects, including books (I am leaving non-material means of representations such as oral histories, songs and dances to other researchers J).

I am still uncertain about a more specific topic I would like to explore for this course, but for the sake of the exercise, I have settled on one. During my previous studies in French literature, I developed a passion for autobiography and for the 18^th century. Luckily for me, it is during that period that autobiography, as we know it today, was really born, with the release of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions (which were later followed by two other autobiographies: Rousseau, judge of Jean-Jacques: Dialogues and the Reveries of a Solitary Walker). With his Confessions, Rousseau was the first author to write an autobiography focused on one’s own life, experiences and feelings. Rousseau’ work was groundbreaking and partly for this reason, it has been studied at length. Nevertheless, what I believe is particularly fascinating, and has not been studied at length yet, is how Rousseau stages a prosecution throughout his three main autobiographical works, and which is particularly explicit in his Dialogues. If, in literature, the judicial genre is usually based on a tension between two poles, the defender and the accuser, Rousseau likes to play both roles simultaneously. Thus, his discourse has the distinction of being both an indictment and a plea.

With that in mind, here are the questions I would like to explore:

Ø  How does the judicial discourse is manifested/represented in Rousseau’s autobiographies?

Ø  How does the argumentative system function?

Ø  How does the narration serve the argumentative strategy?

Ø  What are the stakes of this judicial discourse/prosecution on the autobiographical practice?

Ø  Is this judicial discourse/prosecution representative of 18^th century law/society, and if so, how? Or if it is not, why?

With these questions, I hope to situate Rousseau’s autobiographical works in a broader ideological context and see how they changed 18^th century’s imagination.

P.S. You may have realized that English is not my first language. Most of my knowledge about Rousseau was acquired during my French literature studies, and even though I try very hard to translate my ideas as best as I can, I understand some parts may be confusing. Please do not hesitate to ask me questions!

Just to Mix Up the Research Interests

Hello, I'm Elizabeth.

I'm currently in my second and final year in the MI program concentrating in ARM and LIS. Rather than thinking of a research question related to libraries or the program in general, I've decided to use the topic I will be presenting on at the Book History and Print Culture Colloquium: Lollard texts during the English Reformation. In fifteen minutes I came up with:

• What is the influence of books and literature on Lollard practices?
• How did Lollards affect and/or influence the book trade during the height of their notoriety as well as during the English Reformation?
• What was the influence of Lollard ideology on later reform movements?
• How were Lollards able to produce and transmit manuscripts throughout such a large geographical area without the printing press?
• Were Lollard texts printed during the Reformation?
• Were Lollards involved in the introduction of the printing press to England?
• What was the influence of Lollard texts on Reformers and their texts?
• How did the Lollards emphasis on communal practices, such as communal study of faith and group ownership of books affect the Reformer's use of texts?

I too, created a word cloud using my above questions and actually found it extremely helpful when writing my research question. Just looking at it to see what the common topics are in my questions gave me a new perspective on my topic, and made me glad I gave my colloquium presentation a very long and broad title. (It also generated in this super cool and totally relevant font!)

Based on my above questions and word cloud, I believe my research question is:

How did Lollard ideology on literature and their reading practices influence the textual transmission of dissenting ideologies in the Reformation?

Finding the question in all the noise

"Write about what question concerning the ... research world you would like to investigate if you were absolutely guaranteed you would not fail." (Luker, 21)

The timer is set. Let’s see how this goes…

• What are some of the main characteristics of early codex-form books in Japan?
• Why was the switch from scroll to codex made? What cultural influences led to this change?
• When studying the materiality of the early Japanese book, it is observed that many elements are taken from Chinese bookbinding. Would a study of the materiality of these books tell us more about the similarities and differences between Chinese and Japanese binding practices in the early 1600’s?
• Around the end of the 1500’s, there was an introduction of movable type to Japan and multiple systems developed within Japan to make use of this technology (Kornicki, 128). How do these systems differ? What evidence have the different systems left through the different books printed under each method?
• In what ways do the Japanese-created methods differ from the Korean and the Jesuit technologies and practices surrounding movable type?
• Though these works printed from movable type set a standard in terms of the style of illustrated and printed works for the next several hundred years, printing returned to the use of woodblock for books (Kornicki, 134). Why was this necessary? In what ways did the unique combination of alphabet and ideograph writing systems shape the feasibility of different technologies for published works?
• Looking at the privately designed wooden movable type created for use in the Sagabon books in particular, who was involved in the actual type creation and printing? What were the responsibilities and methods of the different workers and craftsmen involved in the creation of these books? Is there any evidence remaining in the printed works themselves to provide further insight into the creation of these books?
• While collation as a method is not strictly useful for woodblock printed books, can it be applied to wooden movable type, even though these works do not follow the same strict western format of books from the hand-press period? What elements of collation are useful for studying these printed works? What can this type of analysis tell us about the books and the people who made them?

That wasn’t quite 15 minutes, but I think I’ll pause there.

I noticed a colleague make use of a word cloud, and I thought I’d dump my questions into one, just to see what major ideas span across the different ‘research’ questions I thought up. [If you’d like to try it too, it’s right here and can be a lot of fun to play around with!]

 I love how word clouds can give you a quick overview of some of the main themes of your thoughts. What's jumping out in all of this are my interests in early printed books, movable type, Japanese books, the systems in which books are made, and the differences between these works.

From all of this, I think the question I am most interested in answering boils down to:

What can western-style collation methods tell us about the people, cultures, and methods involved in the production of early Japanese books printed with movable type?

Sources:

      Kornicki, P. F. (2001). The book in Japan: A cultural history from the beginnings to the nineteenth century. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. 

      Luker, K. (2008). Salsa dancing into the social sciences: Research in an age of info-glut. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 

Week 2- Potential Research Questions

Hello, my name is Lilian Le-Dang and I am a first year student in the MI program, in the Critical Information Policy Studies (CIPS) concentration.

My current interests are in the use and regulation of various information communication technologies (ICTs) and more generally of the internet and the virtual/digital world. For this first blog post (assigned, as suggested by Luker at the end of Ch1) I will be specifically examining copyright infringement in YouTube videos.

------

In fifteen minutes and without any aids (to recall references):

1)      Issue: YouTube videos are quickly taken down thanks to algorithms, programmed to detect the contextual meta-data.* However, the main issue is that these algorithms do not screen for the actual content of the video. As a result, parody videos may be taken down, DJ mixes of copyrighted songs, among other content used in accordance to fair use regulations (e.g. non-profit, for education/ideals of freedom of information/open access etc.) also get taken down in the process.  

2)      Some potential research questions:
           

·         What do these ‘big data’ sorting algorithms, as seen on video sharing websites, have implication on the value of human labour in ‘sorting’ videos by copyright infringement?

·         Who does copyright affect in this new medium (e.g. on the internet; video sharing platforms/sites like YouTube, Vimeo, Daily Motion)? In particular, paying attention to the affected who may consider the internet as a space for democracy, accessing information (open access) and the freedom of speech and expression, as opposed to other actors such as those claiming copyright infringement.

After this brief exercise, the missing citation indicated by the * would have been attributed to the reference below:

Reference

Agrawal, S., & Sureka, A. (2013). Copyright Infringement Detection of Music Videos on YouTube by Mining Video and Uploader Meta-data. In Bhatnagar, V., & Srinivasa, S. (Eds.), Big data analysis: Second International Conference, BDA 2013, Mysore, India, December 16-18, 2013, proceedings (pp. 48-67). Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.