Editorial: I’m Just Wild about Research

I’m tempted to call this issue of SLJ our “library research” edition, except none of the other editors here will let me do it. For one thing, we don’t do theme issues—few themes will interest all of our readers.

More to the point is the fear that library research is, frankly, dull. And plastering “All about Research!” on the cover is a sure way to send readers fleeing—or to send this issue to the bottom of your “to be read” pile.

Well, I disagree. Sure researchers often use off-putting language and deadly prose (thanks academic writing!). But the major point of library research, at least as I see it, is to understand the impact that we have (or don’t have) on the lives of young people. And that’s anything but dull.

Just take a look at Superintendent Nate Greenberg (“Nate the Great,” pp. 38–41), this year’s SLJ/Greenwood Administrator of the Year. He’s supported a range of action-research projects, including how to get kids to use databases (and not just Google) and how to help third graders survive a biography unit.

We also catch up with Mr. School Library Research, Colorado’s Keith Curry Lance (“The Sower,” pp. 50–53), who has demonstrated how school library expenditures are a key predictor of student achievement. The impact of his research has been both personal (countless school librarians have used it to defend their programs), and political (15 others states have gone on to replicate the study).

Finally, Rutgers’ Carol Gordon takes a hard look (“The Trouble with the Gold Standard,” pp. 54–55) at the Department of Education’s insistence on research that is based on a scientific method called randomized control trials. Is this the only way to determine whether a phenomenon as complex as education works?

What’s missing from this issue? Research about public libraries—because there’s so little of it.

But public librarians use research; in last month’s First Steps column (“The Gift That Keeps on Giving”), Renea Arnold and Nell Coburn gave a terrific example of how evidence-based research about literacy development informs storytime in the Multnomah County Library.

But where’s the research about public libraries? Is there any data out there that goes beyond circulation figures and attendance?

Take, for example, summer reading programs. They’re often statewide initiatives that suck up hours of time and effort (and ice cream). Does anyone know what sort of impact these programs have, or whether they really reduce learning loss?

But it’s not all about learning. What about after-school activities? Most public libraries provide a variety of high-interest programs for kids. Or gaming nights for teens. Can we say anything at all about how these activities meet kids’ developmental needs?

It might seem unfair to compare school and public libraries. After all, school libraries have an avowedly educational mission in a world dominated by high-stakes testing. Public libraries don’t have the same pressures of accountability (not yet, at least).

But good research, which allows us to get inside our users’ lives, offers us two indispensable things: knowledge of how well our programs and services are working, and some solid information about our effectiveness that we can share with the world.

Those are two things that every library, of any type, needs.

bkenney@reedbusiness.com