flex your info

This was a great session again this year.  I really want to pursue a PhD in library and information science. I’m not sure yet when or where yet, but last year’s session and this year’s have both given me some great perspective on what work is entailed, as well as the impact and importance of having diversity in PhD programs.

To start, Dr. Loriene Roy provided some general advice about pursuing a PhD.  It included:

• know what you want to do with the PhD (research, library director, etc)
• read in the field
• demonstrate that you can come up with good ideas
• recognize the importance of team projects
• be able to express yourself, and information about yourself, in writing
• join committees (helps you get to know people)
• know journal rankings
• look at the resumes of people whose job you like
• look at studies done in other fields
• persistence is best attribute in completing doctorate.

Nicole Cook, a Spectrum Doctoral Fellow at Rutgers University shared advice from herself and other doctoral students:

• make sure to clarify why (example: not taken seriously at academic library because of lack of PhD) and where (example: what type of community/weather is important)
• understand what the process is like – full time versus part time, qualitative vs quantitative, coursework, tied to faculty or not, qualifying or comprehensive exams
• funding: ask about funding availability (Laura Bush Grant, Spectrum, work as TA)
• really have to want this! for better, for worse, up and down
• more about learning to be rigorous

Marisa Duarte from the Information Science program at the University of Washington provided insight into her reasoning for working toward a PhD.  She is interested in making communities stronger by making their stories available. Her work is in the area of libraries and technology in indigenous communities for the purpose of revitalization.  She said that students must be fearless to go into communities and tell them what work they’ll be doing, and that it is important to have researchers who understand the perspectives of indigenous communities.  She recommended reading Research is Ceremony by Shawn Wilson, who explores why we need indigenous researchers.

Cynthia del Rosario, the director for graduate minority recruitment and retention at the University of Washington, also spoke.  She said that the most important thing to have is persistence, and to keep in mind that the process is about the creation of new knowledge.  She said it’s important to gather data that is appropriate and also to do culturally appropriate analysis. Working with diverse groups requires you to engage differently with communities.  The results and benefits of the research should also be shared with the community that is being researched.

My thoughts

This was again an inspiring program. I was particularly inspired by the work that Marisa is doing and her thoughts on the PhD process and importance of working with communities.  I am still trying to decide the areas I want to pursue in my doctoral studies – it’s hard to settle on one area, because I’m interested in oral history, technology, preservation, usability, control of indigenous knowledge.  I need to focus and figure out what type of research I might want to do, as well as where I want to do it.  This panel has once again inspired me and made me realize that I still want to pursue doctoral studies, but I have a lot of questions to answer before I can start applying.

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