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Article
Publication date: 11 April 2018

Hazel Hall, Peter Cruickshank and Bruce Ryan

The purpose of this paper is to report the results from a study that investigated the extent to which an intervention to develop a community of library and information science…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to report the results from a study that investigated the extent to which an intervention to develop a community of library and information science (LIS) researchers – the Developing Research Excellence and Methods (DREaM) project – was successful in meeting its main objective three years after its implementation. Of particular interest are factors that support or hinder network longevity.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected by online survey/telephone and focus group. From quantitative data, a social network analysis (SNA) and network diagrams were generated. Focus group discussions were recorded and transcribed, and data from these were analysed manually.

Findings

Three years after the end of its formal funding period, DREaM endured as a loose but persistent network. Social ties were more important than work ties, and network members with the highest network centrality held roles in academic institutions. Physical proximity between members was important to the maintenance of network ties. Actor status did not appear to have a bearing on network centrality.

Research limitations/implications

Discussion is limited to consideration of community development amongst core members of the network only. The “manufactured” nature of the DREaM network and unique context in which it was formed have implications for the generalisibility of the findings reported.

Practical implications

Social infrastructure is key to the long-term health of a network initiative. Continued ad hoc support would strengthen it further.

Originality/value

The findings add to understanding of factors important to the development of scholarly and learning communities. They extend contributions of earlier work that has deployed SNA techniques in LIS research and research in other fields.

Article
Publication date: 27 June 2019

Hazel Hall, Peter Cruickshank and Bruce Ryan

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which learning gained through participation in three research methods workshops funded by an Arts and Humanities Research…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which learning gained through participation in three research methods workshops funded by an Arts and Humanities Research Council networking grant was applied in practice.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected by online survey and focus group from individuals who participated in the Developing Research Excellence and Methods (DREaM) project workshops in 2011/2012. The survey data were coded and analysed manually, as were the transcribed focus group discussions.

Findings

Following the conclusion of the DREaM project the participants at the core of the network applied their learning from the workshops to innovate in the workplace and to develop information services, with evident impact on end-users of library and information services. The strongest impact of the DREaM project, however, was found in reports of widened opportunities for the researcher and practitioner cadre members, many of which arose from collaborations. This provides evidence of a second proven strategy (in addition to the provision of research reports in practitioner publications) for narrowing the library and information science (LIS) research-practice gap: the creation of researcher-practitioner networks.

Research limitations/implications

Collaborative interactions between academic researchers and practitioners bring benefits to both network participants themselves and to the wider communities with which they interact. These are likely to be applicable across a range of subject domains and geographies.

Practical implications

Network grants are valuable for furnishing learning that may be applied in practice, and for bridging the research-practice gap.

Social implications

In LIS and other domains that suffer from a research-practice gap (e.g. teaching, social work, nursing, policing, management) the bringing together of researchers and practitioners in networks may address problems associated with misunderstandings between the two communities, and lead to improved services provision.

Originality/value

This study provides an evaluation of network development that goes beyond simply reporting changes in network topology. It does so by assessing the value that network relationships provide to individuals and groups, extending knowledge on mechanisms of collaborative interaction within research networks. It is also the first detailed study of the impact of a UK research council networking grant.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 75 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Abstract

Details

A Circular Argument
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80071-385-7

Article
Publication date: 6 April 2009

Gabriela Coronado

This paper is the result of a reflection on my personal experience while researching the politics of culture and identity in intercultural collaborations in Mexico. It deals with…

Abstract

This paper is the result of a reflection on my personal experience while researching the politics of culture and identity in intercultural collaborations in Mexico. It deals with how autoethnography transformed my relationship with the way of doing research and particularly how a dream at the beginning of my ethnographic research changed my assumptions of my role as interpreter. Using the analysis of the dream as a guide for understanding the dynamics of intercultural organisations in Mexico, I conceptualised organisations as open systems whose meanings are organised and interlinked, forming hypertexts. I considered participants in those organisations, and myself, as quotidian ethnographers, able to create meanings and make sense of them for action. In that light, I listened to the stories from some organisations and ‘read’ their meanings by following the links between multiple representations, in different kinds of cultural narratives emerging from anywhere and manifested in any medium.

Details

Qualitative Research Journal, vol. 9 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1443-9883

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 1 April 2003

Merrill Chandler

Last night, John Coltrane came to me again in my dreams. Trane was playing up in Harlem as I sat in the audience; his spiritual sound and passion filled the room, flowing through…

Abstract

Last night, John Coltrane came to me again in my dreams. Trane was playing up in Harlem as I sat in the audience; his spiritual sound and passion filled the room, flowing through note after note, chord after chord. He played with such tenderness and emotion, never seeming to pause for breath.

Details

Studies in Symbolic Interaction
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-76231-009-8

Book part
Publication date: 12 September 2017

Merethe Skårås

This chapter explores how marginalized youth, specifically former child soldiers in South Sudan, struggle to access education that is crucial in their reintegration process. The…

Abstract

This chapter explores how marginalized youth, specifically former child soldiers in South Sudan, struggle to access education that is crucial in their reintegration process. The chapter draws upon data from a study focusing on the reintegration process of school boys formerly associated with armed forces and groups in South Sudan, and is based on ethnographic fieldwork including interviews and observations of 20 former child soldiers in Malakal, Upper Nile State. The study identifies a number of external factors that inhibit educational opportunities for the boys in their reintegration process. These are their life experiences, the impacts of war, their socioeconomic background and the lack of educational structures due to ongoing conflict. This study describes how the living conditions that motivated the boys to join the armed group are still present after their demobilization. Thus, they not only still find themselves in poverty but the time spent in the armed group and the impacts of war have put them in an even more marginalized position today than prior to their recruitment. The study argues that access to education is crucial in order to prevent recruitment and also re-recruitment to armed groups.

Book part
Publication date: 3 September 2021

A. Pereira, C. Frias and A. P. Jerónimo

Brand love is a notion where feelings are developed towards a specific brand. This notion is more than just a preference, it is an emotional attachment with the consumed product…

Abstract

Brand love is a notion where feelings are developed towards a specific brand. This notion is more than just a preference, it is an emotional attachment with the consumed product and the brand that represents it. In tourism, destination marketing will increase the relationship between tourists and places using certain kind of messages and images whose goal is to stimulate their senses and feelings. In crisis management situations, it acts as a mediator, by assessing tourists' risk and safety perceptions, and helps mitigate lasting negative effects.

However, can destination brand love be promoted during these pandemic times? To get an in-deep understanding of the connections that exist between love and safety in tourism, this study explores two concepts through an extended literature review and a qualitative methodological approach using content analysis procedures that will focus on international marketing strategies during the ongoing pandemic crisis.

The qualitative approach was conducted through a survey composed of a set of open-ended questions (N = 31) where respondents were asked to identify their feelings after viewing the promotional tourism campaigns released after the significant increase in cases of COVID-19 worldwide.

The main results demonstrate the existence of brand love antecedents – brand trust and a sense of community, and an overall positive reaction to the images and messages promoted. Also, the existence of brand love antecedents demonstrates the brands' capacity to adapt to crisis events and its ability to outline the kind of paths that have to be defined for tourists to remain passionate about destinations.

Article
Publication date: 1 January 1995

Dmitry Shlapentokh

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the French Revolution in Russian intellectual life. One could even make the claim that the French Revolution has had a more…

69

Abstract

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the French Revolution in Russian intellectual life. One could even make the claim that the French Revolution has had a more significant impact on modern Russian history than it has had upon modern French history! Indeed, since the end of the nineteenth century, the French Revolution has become passe in France in the sense that no Frenchman has looked at it as a blueprint for current political development. While there have been cases in which some of the old revolutionary images were invoked to bolster support for certain political activities (such as support for the war against Germany), it has never been wholeheartedly re‐embraced and there has been a sense of detachment about the revolution, a sense that modern conditions were somehow different.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 15 no. 1/2/3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Book part
Publication date: 17 October 2005

Arthur P. Bochner

Carolyn Ellis and I have been partners for more than a decade. Shortly after we met in 1990, Carolyn sent me a draft copy of a book manuscript she had written entitled Final

Abstract

Carolyn Ellis and I have been partners for more than a decade. Shortly after we met in 1990, Carolyn sent me a draft copy of a book manuscript she had written entitled Final Negotiations (Ellis, 1995). The book described in detail the history of Carolyn's nine-year relationship with Gene Weinstein who died of emphysema in 1985 (Ellis, 1995). As I read through the chapter in which Carolyn told the story of her brother's death in an airplane crash, I felt as if all my senses were being pricked. I had never before read a social science article in which the researcher wrote from the source of her own grief, openly expressing what it felt like to be stricken so suddenly, refusing to gloss the layers of conflicting feelings, the exciting rush of adrenalin countered by the deadening fog of numbness, the waves of hope and despair, and finally, the struggle first to choke down, then to grope toward an understanding of the meaning of her suffering and loss.

Details

Studies in Symbolic Interaction
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-7623-1186-6

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 2 March 2017

Abstract

Details

The Imagination Gap
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-207-7

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