Research Topics for Library & Information
Science (LIS)
This listing is not exhaustive or complete.
Almost all of the topics mentioned can be developed in many ways.
1. Academic library as an essential service on a
campus during emergencies such as fire and severe weather (rain, snow, floods)
2. Accreditation and the role of the academic
library in undergraduate, graduate, and other teaching programs (adult,
community, distance education)
3. Acquisition and deployment of technology in the
library environment
4. Adaptive equipment technology for supporting
handicapped persons in the library environment
5. Administration and leadership of interlibrary
loan departments, consortia, cooperatives, networks
6. Advances in search engine technology and their
impacts on libraries
7. Analyses and your libraryÂ’s use of an analysis,
e.g., cost-benefit analysis, gap analysis, customer-satisfaction analysis,
needs analysis, root cause analysis, SWOT analysis, what-if analysis)
8. Art work display in the academic library to
promote spirituality or to support liberal arts and the humanities among
students/faculty
9. Articulation of an information policy for a
campus
10. Bar codes and RFID tags: types, library and
special collection applications, use in library asset tracking
11. Benchmarking as a means to achieve outcomes;
your libraryÂ’s use of benchmarking and the results, problems, opportunities
12. Campus community's perception of the library as
a hospitable environment for reading, study, and research
13. Challenge of providing library services with
shrinking resources; doing more with what you have to improve programs,
services, and collections
14. Challenges and opportunities in migrating to
Web-based information services
15. Challenges of implementing technology, including
deployment, training, upgrading
16. Change management in the library environment for
organizational renewal
17. Changing nature of circulation in numbers and
ways to stimulate print and media circulation
18. Changing nature of library space requirements to
meet student and collection requirements
19. Changing nature of reference questions in type
and number
20. Changing role and value of union lists with the
availability of electronic full-text journal databases
21. Changing role of the librarian from collection
development specialists to specialists who develop pathfinder guides (subject,
topic) to harness the Internet's unstructured free-form information
22. Clientele expectations as exacerbated by
e-business practices: effect on library's business practices, business
alliances and partnerships, vendor relationships, one-to-one relationship
management with patrons
23. Clientele expectations: librarians generally
view our customers/patrons through the prism of our collections. What are
effective strategies for flipping this to see our collections through our
customer's eyes?
24. Collaboration opportunities (or reports of such
collaborations) with other educational/cultural institutions such as colleges
and universities, historical societies, museums, professional or trade
associations, public schools K-12, social agencies, etc.
25. Collection development strategies for academic
programs
26. Common culture created/supported/enhanced by the
academic library on campus
27. Communications plan as a tool for developing
community relations to connect with faculty and administrators, e.g., how to
write, how to use, how to budget for expenditures for advertising, etc.
28. Consortia delivery systems for continuing
education, books and journals, technical support services, training
29. Cooperative purchasing and shared collections
between and among libraries
30. Coping with tight budgets by eliminating the
overlap between print and electronic subscriptions
31. Copyright issues with interlibrary loan and
electronic reserves
32. Core collections for children's literature in a
higher education library that supports a teacher education program of
instruction
33. Core digital resources for small and/or medium
size libraries (academic, public, special)
34. Core technology and/or emerging technology
trends in the library environment
35. Cost or time study of library programs,
services, and collections, including description of the methodology and
outcomes at your library
36. Cost-drivers and the criteria for selecting cost
drivers for various library activities, e.g., automation, communications,
facilities and physical plant, human resources, public services, public and
community relations, technical services, technology
37. Dealing strategies and outcomes for the
difficult patron in the library environment
38. Describing and giving examples that illustrate
the difference between adequate and excellent library service(s)
39. Developing a written library business plan that
addresses business/technical goals, platform/storage technology requirements,
and infrastructure topology
40. Developing an annual academic agenda for the
library, including benchmarks and performance measures
41. Difference between serving students as customers
(providing them a product) and serving students as learners whose job is to
learn how to use the library
42. Digitization of local collections and its impact
on scholarship in the library
43. Discussion of information literacy as an
educational reform for utilizing technology in the curriculum
44. Discussion of one or more challenges and/or
opportunities in some area of librarianship or information science
45. Effective allocations strategies for collection
development among academic and non-academic units in an academic, public, or
special library
46. Effective budgeting strategies linked to
outcomes
47. Effective library support for distance education
programs; strategies for equalizing access to library resources for on-campus students
and distance education learners
48. Effectiveness of state and federal library grant
programs (or any single program)
49. Efficiencies achieved through
consortium/consortia affiliation
50. Electronic library reserves, e.g., part of the
OPAC or through commercial software such as Blackboard
51. Electronic resources and their impact on the
academic library as the social and intellectual heart of the campus
52. Electronic resources and their impact on the
academic library: library visits, reference service, and circulation
53. Ethics of information
54. Evaluating a library and useful performance
measurements for evaluation
55. Evaluating the effectiveness of bibliographic
instruction with a focus on the student and/or teacher
56. Fund raising and development programs for
libraries
57. GALILEO and how its impact on its users and the
library as the social and intellectual heart of the campus
58. Game theory’s “prisoner’s dilemma” applied
to academic library problems or situations
59. Good faith communication as an essential
component for strong employee relations
60. Hub library networks
61. Human resource requirements have changed in the
academic library. Describe how staff retooling is happening, costs,
opportunities, challenges since this is not a downsizing strategy; rather, it
is a strategy to allow the library to be responsive to changes in its
environment
62. Identifying the "sizzle" in the
library's programs, services, and collections
63. Impact of demographic and cultural changes on
library services
64. Impact of full-text databases on interlibrary
loan services
65. Impact of library budget shifts toward
electronic resource access
66. Implementing a new integrated information system
in the library environment
67. Implications for the library as accreditation
shifts from an emphasis on library resources to information literacy
68. Integrated information Systems offer advantages
and disadvantages. Identify these and expand on the pros and cons of library
managers supporting single management systems since one size rarely fits all
needs, uses
69. Intellectual property and copyright. Analysis of
the libraryÂ’s role in assisting in understanding intellectual property in a
college or university environment
70. Intellectual property and copyright. Collection
development and intellectual property and copyright in terms of topics such as
what primary and secondary resources should the library own, best book and
journal titles on the topic, identification of commercial databases featuring
the topic
71. Intellectual property and copyright. Collection
development in terms of topics such as what primary and secondary resources
should the library own, best book and journal titles on the topic,
identification of commercial databases featuring the topic
72. Intellectual property and copyright. Create a
summary or annotation of the best websites, or legal research guides, or
colleges/universities that have a position devoted to this topic, or list of
blogs, or newsletter
73. Intellectual property and copyright. For
intellectual property and copyright, create a summary or annotation of the best
websites, or legal research guides, or colleges/universities that have a
position devoted to this topic, or list of blogs, or newsletter.
74. Intellectual property and copyright. Listing and
summary of the major cases in the area of intellectual property and copyright
argued in front of courts, such as the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Court of
Appeals, etc.
75. Intellectual property and copyright. Listing and
summary or annotation of the major cases in the area of intellectual property
and copyright argued in front of courts, such as the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S.
Court of Appeals, etc.
76. Intellectual property and copyright. The
libraryÂ’s role in assisting in understanding intellectual property in a
college or university environment.
77. Interlibrary loan of specialized materials such
as audiovisuals, CDs, DVDs, VHSs, items from e-subscriptions, legal materials,
medical materials
78. Interlibrary loan service enhancement through
use of technologies such as Ariel, Illiad, BlackBoard, or other open-source
software
79. Interlibrary loan statistics used for acquisitions
(books, journals, digital, audiovisual materials) or collections management
(discarding materials)
80. Internet-based services, products, technologies
and their impact on library management, service, and utilization: challenges
and/or methodology to meet patron needs as libraries migrate to a
digital/virtual environment
81. Knowledge management and its application for
developing a learning organization
82. LibrarianshipÂ’s changing definition: In 2001,
Steven L. Baker is credited with writing that librarianship is the discipline
that promotes an integrated approach to preserving, identifying, capturing,
evaluating, retrieving, and sharing the significant knowledge and information
assets of society. In 1964 Louis Shoreswrote that librarianship is
the profession dedicated to the preservation, dissemination, investigation, and
interpretation of the knowledge most significant to mankind.
83. Libraries and life-long learning: what this
means and steps to take to bring about
84. Library as place and access mechanisms to repositories
of collections whereas large research libraries continue to struggle with
providing print-centric and digital access to information
85. Library implications of the growing power of
information technology to transform the means of research, teaching, and
scholarly communication
86. Library in higher education as an economic
engine (agricultural stimulation, company/corporate creation and development,
human capital development of hundreds of thousands of people, stimulation and
enhancement of the lives of people within its sphere of influence)
87. Library instruction and training for students
and faculty who are remote to the campus
88. Library presence in spaces such as the campus
portal, Facebook, iTunes, learning management systems such as Blackboard,
MySpace, etc.
89. Library search tools in environments such as
learning management systems (e.g., Blackboard) or social network infrastructure
90. Library services for disabled persons:
facilities, equipment, funding, staffing
91. Library services for virtual high schools, virtual
colleges and universities, home schooled students
92. Library services in a linguistically diverse
community
93. Library staff as emergency responders, e.g.,
organizing and running resident information centers during storms and
emergencies
94. LibraryÂ’s value to society in digitalizing
unique collections
95. LibraryÂ’s value, strengths, and shortcomings in
an electronic society?
96. Library's changing role in the information
economy
97. Library's effective learning environment and its
importance (e.g., research, socializing in the use of information resources,
promotion of a common culture, safe and relatively quiet study hall, a social
sphere for meeting people and being seen, etc.). Many librarians have focused
on collections and information technology to the exclusion of the many other
positive things that take place in an academic library)
98. Literacy programs in the library environment
99. Management and operation of information systems
100.
Marginalization of the
library (academic, public, special)
101.
Marketing of library
services, i.e., positioning the library as a destination for research,
learning, and friends
102.
Maximizing the value of
(new, emerging) information technology in the library environment
103.
Measuring the quality of
library services
104.
Metrics for evaluating
library performance and services and when to use them -- such as input and
output measurements, quality assurance measurements, impact and outcome
measurements – should both qualitative and quantitative components be included
and how
105.
Mobile library services
(problems, challenges, opportunities, technology) through using smart devices
with small screens such as laptops, Pocket PCs, BlackBerrys, Palms, and
data-enabled cell phones
106.
Models of library
service through the use of computers, networks, and the Internet
107.
Open-access data/collections
and its value for providing context to local collections
108.
Outsourcing of services
(cataloging, janitorial, reference, serial check-in, etc.)
109.
Pareto's 80-20 rule
applied to library problems and situations, and application of Chris
AndersonÂ’s The Long Tail (2003) as a statistical concept applies to library
collections
110.
Position paper on a
controversial topic, e.g., do we need academic libraries? or that libraries of
the future were distinguished from one another only by their ownership of sole
copies of locally-produced digital content not accessible elsewhere since books
and journals were accessible digitally via fee databases and content publishers
111.
Programming to attract
students to the academic library (art exhibitions, book swaps, comfortable furniture,
expresso bars, hosting campus meetings and conferences, lectures, poetry
readings)
112.
Providing academic
library services in an environment where faculty are increasingly teaching a
curriculum that draws less and less on library resources
113.
Quality assurance,
efficiency studies, and best practices – how they impact the library
114.
RanganathanÂ’s (1931)
fifth law of library science is “A library is a growing organism”; explain
the meaning today as libraries become part of growing networked organisms such
as OCLC
115.
Renovating the library
specifically to enrich its atmosphere to attract students
116.
Restructuring access on
Web pages to the libraryÂ’s programs, services, and collections on the basis of
frequency-of-use rather than library organizational structure or alphabetical
arrangement
117.
Rethinking the academic
library's functions not to provide print collections but for its media center
and computer labs for access to digital environment
118.
Revenue opportunities
for libraries, e.g., advertisements on computer screens
119.
Role of consortium
membership for expanding access and resources
120.
Role of electronic
text-based collections with multimedia content
121.
Role of the homepage as
“The” platform for delivering library programs, services, and collections
122.
Role of the library as
an information resource in globalization
123.
Role of the library as
an information resource in promoting human rights
124.
Role of the library in
the ubiquitous computer (information technology) environment
125.
Search engines: how
those that charge allow those that pay to rise to the top
126.
Search engines: making
the libraryÂ’s Web pages (page titles, descriptions, article summaries) more
friendly for indexing and retrieval by Google and Yahoo!
127.
Shared storage
facilities
128.
Significance and
strategic value of written procedures and standard operating procedures (SOP)
for library operations
129.
Strategic
communicationÂ’s plan for enhancing the role of the library in its parent
organization
130.
Strategic planning in
the library environment
131.
Strategic role of the
library on the college/university campus
132.
Strategies and
applications for bring bibliographic instruction into the classroom using
Web-based resources
133.
Strategy for libraries
to evolve as a modern technological workplaces (staff skills and training
issues)
134.
Student acceptance of print
vs. electronic resources and observations regarding students being willing to
wait for digital resources that may be temporarily unavailable, such as the
server is down, rather than use print indexes, abstracts, or journal articles
135.
Students in the academic
library: client, customer, or patron and the difference it makes in how we
refer to our users and community of student/faculty scholars
136.
Successful outsourcing
activities: what they are, why they were successfully outsourced
137.
Survey of consortia
across the country: what they do, how they are organized, who belongs
138.
Survey of libraries for
emergency or disaster plans, e.g., fire, weather (hurricane, snow, tornado),
flood, etc. (Model paper is by Kalyan, S., Xue-Ming Bao, and Marta M. Deyrup.
"Academic Libraries' Emergency Plans for Inclement Weather," Library
Administration and Management 15(4), 223-229, 2001.)
139.
Survey of students and
faculty as part of a quality assessment program
140.
Survey of where students
turn when they have a paper to write and what type(s) of resources they use
141.
SWOT (Strengths,
Weakness, Opportunities, Threats) analysis methodology and interpretation for
an academic, health science, public, or special library
142.
Three fundamental
problems that libraries must solve in the next five years (identification of
those problems and how to approach?)
143.
Trends (administration,
budget, collections, customer service, staffing, staff supervision and
management, technology)
144.
Use of specific
electronic resources (e.g., Dow-Jones, Gale Resources, etc.) in support of an
academic program
145.
Value and importance of
library websites and importance to be as simple as Google to navigate
146.
Value and ongoing
usefulness of book collections in the library in face of trends toward
electronic collections
147.
Value or significance of
remote access to the library's electronic resources (academic, municipal,
public libraries)
148.
Value proposition
statement for libraries: what it is and how it is best determined and
articulated
149.
Virtual reference: what
it is, how to do it, examples, types of questions
150.
Web-based bibliographic
instruction
151.
White paper on a topic,
such as outcomes assessment, future of cataloging, interlibrary loan, e-journal
usage, fines for students and faculty, etc.
152.
Wireless connectivity:
its transformative impact on the academic library
153.
Writing a plan (action
plan for some activity, advertising plan, communications plan, gap analysis and
customer service quality plan, marketing plan, strategic plan, technology plan)
for an academic library
Ref:
No comments:
Post a Comment