An assessment of the Institute for Research Design in Librarianship (IRDL)

When our second grant for the Institute for Research Design in Librarianship (IRDL) was ending in 2019, we wanted to take the opportunity to look back on the program, through the eyes of the 124 participants who had been through the program. The grant funding had been given to us to devise a model for continuing education for professional librarians and archivists with an interest in conducting research, so part of our looking back was to see if the model we designed had been impactful. We wanted to know about the possible short-term impacts, as well as longer-term impacts, the program had on their career trajectories, from the participants’ perspectives. We used two ways to get at those perspectives. The first way was through a survey to all participants, 89 of whom responded. There were four big findings from the survey, all of which pointed to the design of the program having a positive influence on the trajectories of the participants: 1) the majority of the participants believed that the program helped them complete their IRDL project as well as conduct new research; 2) they reported that participating in the program helped them get tenure/promotions and salary increases, and/or new jobs; 3) they noted that their personal learning networks changed, as well as how they thought of themselves as a result of the program as a “librarian-researcher, and; 4) they reported boosted confidence in conducting research. That research was published (freely available to read) at ht...
Source: Organization Monkey - Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Tags: library Source Type: blogs