Beginning ETL567 Research in Practice is seemed daunting, especially when I received the heavy copy of my textbook (I love a physical book and love taking to it with a pencil, ruler, and post-it tags). I was struggling to see how the content of this subject was going to relate to my role in a small primary school library. I was challenged with the new vocabulary and understanding of how the concepts linked but were continually assured that it would all fall into place. I have some big goals to achieve in my little library and as I look back, I have already begun some of these research practices without even realising. Including both qualitative and quantitative techniques, such as end-of-term borrowing statistics and voting on CBCA books. I have also conducted research to find out how the library is meeting the needs of the school community. In the future, I intend to genrefy the fiction section of the library. This has involved background research to justify this decision, involving the students in what genres they love to borrow, experimenting with some genrefication to see how borrowing statistics changed.
Research takes many forms and as I begin to embark on the first assessment, critiquing completed research, things are beginning to fall into place. Now for some more reading and research in practice.
