Ethnographic Research Methods in Libraries

Library UX Chicago is pleased to host Drs. Donna Lanclos and Andrew Asher for an in-person workshop on ethnographic research methods in libraries held at DePaul University's John T. Richardson Library on the Lincoln Park campus.

CARLI and RAILS will sponsor this full-day workshop that empowers participants to think critically about the contexts in which their library’s services and spaces operate. Participants will work together to identify patterns and trends in ethnographic data which they will be asked to collect prior to the workshop. They will learn frameworks for analyzing qualitative data, strategies for identifying and communicating actionable insights with these data, and approaches to developing areas for future inquiry or partnership.

Learning outcomes:

• Participants will gain experience with the use of qualitative methods for data collection in various institutional contexts.
• Participants will connect qualitative methods to important questions about people and practices within and around their institutional contexts.
• Participants will gain experience with frameworks and processes for developing conclusions and recommendations based on qualitative data.

Presenters:

Dr. Andrew Asher is the Assessment Librarian at Indiana University Bloomington, where he leads the libraries’ qualitative and quantitative assessment programs, conducts research on the anthropology of information, and teaches research methods in information science.  Asher’s most recent work examines search and discovery workflows of students and faculty, information fluency development, and the ethical and privacy dimensions of learning analytics data.  From 2019-2022 he was a member of the Data Doubles research team, a three-year IMLS funded study of student perspectives of privacy issues associated with learning analytics initiatives in libraries. Asher holds a PhD in sociocultural anthropology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and has written and presented widely on applying ethnography and mixed-methods research in academic libraries, including the co-edited volume, College Libraries and Student Culture. 

Dr. Donna Lanclos is an anthropologist who has been working with libraries and higher education as her field site since 2009. Her first fieldwork was in the late 1990s in Northern Ireland, which prepared her well for dealing with the fragmented and fractious landscape of universities and libraries, and conflicting and confounding identities, practices, and priorities therein. She writes, thinks, and speaks about the nature of information, digital and physical places, and higher education generally. Her work is relevant not just to libraries or universities, but to conversations about how we as a society make sure that people have opportunities to learn how to think critically, to practice those skills, and to find their voices. She is a methodologist, invested in training people in qualitative approaches to institutional research in education, as well as a qualitative practitioner in her own right.  She runs workshops and talks on these issues and blogs about her work at www.donnalanclos.com.

Registration:

To register, please click on the "Register" tab above.

Please note, completing the registration will add you to a Wait List. Those who are accepted into the workshop will receive an email confirming their spot. This email will include additional information about the day.

This program is open to all Illinois libraries.

Please send any questions to CARLI Support.