Beta Phi Mu/LRRT Research Paper Award for 2013

This award is being jointly presented by The Beta Phi Mu International Honor Society and the American Library Association’s Library Research Round Table to recognize excellent research into problems related to the profession of librarianship. Any ALA member is eligible for this $500 award, and all methodologies and research topics/questions are eligible for consideration. The criteria to be followed for the selection of an award winner are:

. Importance of the research question or problem
. Adequacy of the review of relevant literature
. Appropriateness of the methodology used
. Effectiveness of the application of the methodology
. Addition of the findings to the knowledge and/or praxis in the field of librarianship
. Articulation of the conclusions emanating from the study
. Clarity and completeness

The page limit for submissions will be thirty (30) double-spaced pages plus bibliography. Only complete papers will be considered and submissions should be made electronically to the contact person below. The submissions must not have been published prior to March 1, 2013 and should follow APA style. Individuals may submit only one paper. Jointly authored papers are acceptable, but all authors must be ALA members, and will split the award of $500.

The deadline for submission is March 1, 2013. All submissions that meet the deadline and the criteria (including length of paper) will be considered. The papers will undergo a blind-review process by a joint BPM/LRRT award committee and the winner will be notified by May 1, 2012. Please include a title page with title of paper and author contact information including name, institutional affiliation, mailing address and email address.

The award will be presented during one of LRRT’s research programs at the ALA Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL, June 27-July 2, 2013.

Email Submissions as Word documents only to:

John M. Budd
Beta Phi Mu-LRRT Research Paper Chair
School of Information Science & Learning Technologies
303 Townsend
University of Missouri
Columbia, MO 65211
buddj@missouri.edu

ALA is now offering library vendors their “first round assignments for ALA 2013,” that is, their booth assignments in the exhibit hall. I want to juxtapose ALA’s two summaries of the Annual Conference, one for librarians and the other for vendors:

Librarians get:

The Annual Conference is the best place to expand your network, build your knowledge, and improve your profession.

Vendors get:

Exhibiting at ALA tradeshows provides the best and most comprehensive opportunity to reach decision-makers in the library industry. We look forward to seeing you in Chicago next June.

Interesting that ALA speaks the vendors’ language when talking to them – ALA Annual is a “trade show” for the “library industry.” This despite the fact that libraries seem to be the primary if not one of the biggest markets for almost all of the vendors present. You would think that ALA could have the confidence in librarianship as a social institution to call the conference a conference and the field of libraries a field.

This is another sign of the effects of member dues constituting a small proportion of ALA’s revenues versus a half century ago, when we really could say that it was a member organization. (To be fair, ALA’s justification for this change in revenue patterns – that its transformation into a business came about in order to meet the demands of members – is probably true.)

Wouldn’t it be nice if a Presidential debate was actually a debate on one question, where each candidate took a position on that question and defended it? It might be the question of whether low tax rates for wealthy people are good for the economy – something where the candidates have a well-known, clear difference on a matter that is debatable in a practical sense. That particular question is that economists disagree on and that most Americans have an opinion about as well. We wouldn’t learn any less about the candidates’ actual plans this way, and we would learn more about the qualities that matter. The candidates would know the question in advance and would be expected to prepare. It would be a treat for the audience to see a question like that debated. It would be educational. And it would show television viewers something that they might never know otherwise: That there is more to issues than soundbites and emotional affiliation, that there is knowledge worth knowing, knowledge that makes a difference…