Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Research Publication




Finally, some good news for a change! I'm super excited to announce my research is going to be published!

You may (or may not) recall that I conducted a survey of child development knowledge among new children's librarians back in February of this year, distributed through this blog as well as the "Storytime Underground" and "Library Think Tank" Facebook groups, and some of you may have even participated in it. This survey was conducted as part of my MLIS Capstone project (basically, a mini-thesis project).

I made good use of the time off work because of the pandemic, expanding on the original research and doing some revisions and edits, and submitted the final manuscript for publication in May. This morning I was very pleased (and a little surprised) to get the notification that my manuscript had been accepted for publication, with no required revisions! I was prepared to have to do revisions, or even submit to 2 or 3 journals before getting accepted, so I am very proud, thrilled, and relieved to get it accepted by my first choice on the first try!

The purpose of this study was to assess the preparedness of new children’s librarians in the area of child development, by investigating the following research questions:
  1. How much knowledge of child development do new children’s librarians have? 
  2. How have new children’s librarians acquired knowledge of child development? 
  3. Do new children’s librarians feel their level of child development knowledge is adequate? 
  4. In what areas of children’s librarianship is having knowledge of child development helpful?

The title is "Child Development Knowledge Among New Children's Librarians in U.S. Public Libraries" and it will be published in the Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, Vol. 62, Issue 2 (April, 2021). 

*UPDATE - Frustratingly, my article got bumped and ended up being published 9 months later than I was originally told it would be, so it actually appears in JELIS Volume 63, Issue 1 (January, 2022).*

It is my hope that this research will contribute to more continuing education opportunities and a redesign of LIS youth services curricula to better reflect the knowledge and skills needed by today's children's librarians with a more significant and intentional inclusion of child development coursework, thus better preparing children's librarians to meet the needs of their patrons.

Once again, thanks to all those who participated!

Related posts:  "And The Survey Says..."     "Child Development Knowledge Survey"

2 comments:

  1. Congratulations Jen! Looking forward to reading this!

    Jessica
    Storytime in the Stacks

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! I hope it can help lead to some needed changes in LIS curricula for public librarianship and youth services tracks.

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