National award recognises the Platform to Platform project: British Records Association Janette Harley Prize 2022 runner-up

Posted on January 16, 2023 by Bruce Ryan

The Platform to Platform project that I led, and which transformed Lorna Lloyd’s Diary of the war into a podcast series has been highly commended as a runner-up for the British Records Association’s (BRA) 2022 Janette Harley Prize. This prize, awarded in memory of archivist Janette Harley (1951-2015), is intended to generate interest in archives, and raise awareness of research and achievements in the world of archives.

Huge thanks to team-mates who worked so hard on the production of the podcast series: Co-investigators Hazel Hall and Iain McGregor; student production team members Alex Gencs, David Graham, James McLachlan, Andras Peter, and Michael Suttie; performers Bethany Ray (Lorna Lloyd), David Monteath (Theo Lloyd), Richard Godden (newsreader), and Katherine Stephen(announcer).

We are very grateful for the support of the wider community in bringing Lorna’s writing into the public domain, with special thanks to Jake Berger and Emma Gibbs (BBC Archive); Faith Renger (Malvern Museum of Local History); Marianne Wilson (researcher on the sister HOPSS project); Stella Wisdom (British Library); P2P project board members: David Darlington, David Monteath, Guy Puzey, Sarah Ames and Sue Dumbleton; the Blipfoto community; the project team at Creative Informatics; and the Lloyd family.

What has Bruce been up to in the second half of 2022?

Posted on January 10, 2023 by Bruce Ryan

I write these pieces every 6 months. This one will be my ‘about my research’ contribution to the Applied Informatics research community gathering on Wednesday 11 February. (At previous Centre for Social Informatics all-centre gatherings I’ve been incapable of speech by the time it’s my turn to report.[1] But this is mostly because I hate public speaking.) Click this link to see all the pieces in this series.

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‘From a network model to a model network: strategies for network development to narrow the LIS research–practice gap’ published online

Posted on November 17, 2022 by Bruce Ryan

The paper by Hazel Hall, Rachel Salzano, Katherine Stephen and me, about the impacts of the 2019 to 2021 RIVAL events, and the plot even in 2018, has now been published online. Here’s the abstract:

Purpose

The purpose of the empirical study was to examine whether strategies shown to work well in one model of network development for library and information science (LIS) practitioners and researchers could be applied successfully in the development of a new network and contribute to the narrowing of the research–practice gap in LIS.

Design/methodology/approach

Overall, 32 members of a new professional network were surveyed by a questionnaire following the completion of a programme of four network events held between 2019 and 2021.

Findings

The analysis demonstrates the transferability of the existing model of network development to a new network and that it can be successfully adapted for online delivery of network events and activities.

Practical implications

The criteria deployed for the evaluation of the new network could be used in other similar settings. Funding bodies can also use these findings as demonstration of the value of their investment in network grants.

Originality/value

This contribution on means of growing collaborative networks to narrow the LIS research–practice gap stands out in contrast with prior research that tends to focus the support of research productivity of academic librarians in North American universities for the purposes of career development. Here wider aspects of research engagement are considered of value for LIS practitioners from a range of sectors and institutions, beyond North America, for purposes that are broader than personal advancement.

Citation: Hall, H., Ryan, B.M., Salzano, R. and Stephen, K. (2022), “From a network model to a model network: strategies for network development to narrow the LIS research–practice gap”, Journal of Documentation, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-04-2022-0088

Published: ‘Practices related to diabetes information in a group of Finnish adults living with Type 1 diabetes’

Posted on October 31, 2022 by Bruce Ryan

My research fits within the broad field of information science, so you might think that I’d be fascinated by information anywhere, all the time. But as far as my Type 1 diabetes is concerned, I’m an information avoider. I was curious to know more about this, especially after a presentation by Gunilla Widén.

Edinburgh Napier University funded a short project, supervised by Gemma Webster, to investigate information avoidance in young UK adults who have Type 1 diabetes. Some initial findings are on this poster. At the same time, Kristina Ericksson-Backa and Gunilla used the interview questions we’d devised to investigate this phenomenon in Finnish adults.

They have just published this paper (in which I’m third author) about their participants’ information behaviour – including avoidance – around diabetes. We all hope to undertake a larger study, and I really hope this would enable me to visit Finland!

References

Eriksson-Backa, K., Widén, G., & Ryan, B. (2022). Practices related to diabetes information in a group of Finnish adults living with Type 1 diabetes. Informaatiotutkimus, 41(2–3), 29–33. https://doi.org/10.23978/inf.122558

Ryan, B. M., & Webster, G. (2020, June). Information avoidance and diabetes – a preliminary empirical study. Poster presented at Information Science Trends: Health Information Behavior, online

RIVAL paper accepted for publication

Posted on October 7, 2022 by Bruce Ryan

The final paper from the RIVAL project has been accepted for publication. In this paper, Hazel Hall, Rachel Salzano, Katherine Stephen and I examine whether strategies shown to work well in one model of network development for Library and Information Science (LIS) practitioners and researchers can be applied successfully in the development of a new network. The first model was centred the DREaM network, while the second was RIVAL.

We show that the model was indeed transferrable, and that it can be successfully adapted for online delivery of network events and activities. (I’m sure you remember all those moves to online as lockdown kicked in!) We believe that the strategies we tested can be used by yet further networking programmes, especially those aiming to bring together researchers and practitioners.

The paper can be downloaded from Edinburgh Napier University’s repository, via the outputs on my Napier web-page, or via the link on my publications and outputs page in this blog. There’s a personal/chatty description of the network model in my post about presenting at CILIPS conference 2021.

Time to be honest: while I did most of the grunt work in organising the RIVAL events, gathering the data reported in this paper and then analysing it (oh the joys of UCInet!), Hazel was the leader who made RIVAL happen and wrote the paper.

What has Bruce been up to in the first half of 2022?

Posted on June 22, 2022 by Bruce Ryan

I write these pieces every 6 months, usually for the Centre for Social Informatics’ all-centre meetings. (I’m usually incapable of speech by the time it’s my turn to report.[1]) Click this link to see all the pieces in this series.

Continue reading →

‘Platform to Platform’ update

Posted on March 21, 2022 by Bruce Ryan

This entry is more about my feelings than most posts on this blog.

This weekend I listened to all of Lorna Lloyd’s World War 2 diary entries recorded by Bethany Ray and the team for the Platform to Platform project I’m leading, after reading through a colleague’s nearly-finished PhD thesis. I’m wryly amused that after each recording ended, iTunes started playing songs from The Chemical Brothers’ Surrender or The Clash’s Combat Rock. From horribleness in the early twentieth century to either (sometimes brooding) dance music or depictions of the Vietnam War, U.S. foreign policy, and American society in moral decline. What would Joe Strummer make of today?

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Thank you Vladimir Agafonkin!

Posted on March 1, 2022 by Bruce Ryan

I’ve been using LeafletJS to create online maps since 2013:

Scottish community councils (2013):
Edinburgh community councils (2013)
Highland community councils (2013)
GCRF-funded projects (2019) – I can’t publish this without the data-owner’s permission
members of the RIVAL network (2020)
Places mentioned in a World War 2 diary (2022) – still work in progress.

None of this would have been possible without Vladimir Agafonkin. LeafletJS enables easy creation of online maps. An ecosystem of plugins enables use of different background maps and images, lines and shapes, different markers, overlays, clusters, heat maps, data visualisation, events and so much more! Much of this free and open-source. There is also a free WordPress plug-in, but you’ll need a paid WordPress instance to use plugins. Hence this map is elsewhere:

Click the image to get to the actual map!

Anyway, thank you Vladimir. I hope you and yours are safe, and that Mr Putin just stops!

Bruce's IT-ish world

an adjunct to my Edinburgh Napier University web-presence

National award recognises the Platform to Platform project: British Records Association Janette Harley Prize 2022 runner-up

What has Bruce been up to in the second half of 2022?

‘From a network model to a model network: strategies for network development to narrow the LIS research–practice gap’ published online

Purpose

Design/methodology/approach

Findings

Practical implications

Originality/value

Published: ‘Practices related to diabetes information in a group of Finnish adults living with Type 1 diabetes’

References

RIVAL paper accepted for publication

What has Bruce been up to in the first half of 2022?

‘Platform to Platform’ update

Thank you Vladimir Agafonkin!