The Adventures of Library Heather

So, I want to do a thing. But I needed to get permission to do the thing. And yesterday I got permission to do the thing!

The thing I want to do is interview some public librarians about innovative public library programs that happen outside the library building and don’t have to do with books.

“Haven’t you already done this, Heather?” I hear you ask, “I remember you writing about this last semester.”

Yes, I have done some exploring on the topic of innovative non-book-related public library programs outside the library building. But when I researched it last time, I didn’t have permission to do proper interviews with the librarians overseeing the particular programs and services. All I could do was ask them for documentation and basic details.

Now what I want to do is find out about even more of these kinds of programs and services. I’d like to have longer conversations with these librarians to learn more about how they run their programs and what makes them successful. (I have a list of 13 questions.) I plan to combine the interviews into an article that I will submit to a library professional journal or share through the iSchool Public Libraries Initiative (IPLI).

Before I could do any of this, however, I needed to run this by my school’s Office of Research and Integrity Protections, which oversees research compliance. I filled out a not-too-long and not-too-scary form called the “Application for Research Designated as Exempt” – for projects that don’t fall under the oversight of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) – and described my proposed plan.

And yesterday they sent me an email saying that my proposal “does not meet the definition of human subjects research… and does not require IRB oversight.” So many negatives in a sentence may sound bad, but it’s actually very good. It basically means that even though I’m doing research and talking to human beings, it doesn’t really count as “official” research on human beings, so the IRB doesn’t need to be involved.

Long story short: I can go ahead with my project.

My next step is to revisit the library programs and services I’ve already investigated to see if the librarians involved are interested in being interviewed. I’m also on the hunt to locate new innovative programs and services.

I can’t wait to see what I find!