Humaniora har de senaste åren befunnit sig under debatt: utmanats, ifrågasatts och tvingats att förtydliga sina positioner och anspråk. Det har ökat möjligheterna att visa kraft och bredd, angelägenhet och förnyelseförmåga.
I En ny sits – humaniora i förvandling illustreras denna förnyelse via olika rum i Engelska parken vid Uppsala universitet: huset i både symbolisk och bokstavlig mening med sin egen historia, sina fakulteter, undervisningssalar och sitt vackra bibliotek; de enskilda rummen bebodda av institutionerna och forskningen; det särskilda framgångsrika genusrummet eller Centrum för genusvetenskap och sist men inte minst framtidsrummet representerat av de unga forskarna.
Över allt detta har dekanus Margaretha Fahlgren hållit sin kreativa och starka hand.
Purpose
This paper is about a pedagogical experiment which will be implemented at Uppsala University, with research groups at masters level. The aim is to better integrate research and education at the department, give the tutors a chance to conduct research and get research merits also on the basis of their tutorial work, stimulate research cooperation and create more interesting master thesis topics for the students.
Methodology
The groups will have 3–4 students, working with individual sub studies connected to a major joint research project. Their tutor will be the leader and the main responsible for this project and has to write a final report where the conclusions are drawn. This report is supposed to be published and presented at an international conference. An important aim is also to create projects with close connections to library practice in order to bridge the gap between LIS research and library practice.
Findings
Since this experiment has just started, nothing can be said about final results. 13 students have declared their interest in participating and three research groups will start working in September 2010. The work will be completed in June 2011.
Value
In Uppsala LIS is a part of the Faculty of Arts. In the Humanities research is still conducted generally as individual projects, both at masters and PhD levels, but also when it comes to senior researchers. Hopefully this experiment will show that research groups can be another fruitful way of working. Hopefully it will also result in a strengthening of the ties between LIS research and library practice.
This publication presents the results from five projects in a research circle conducted 2008-2009 at the Department of ALM, Uppsala University. The participants in this circle are all active school librarians or librarians at county libraries, working with school library issues in central Sweden. The work in the circle has focused on a general theme chosen by the participants and the leader of the circle: "Does the school library matter?" In their five projects, the participants have carried out small surveys in order to get an extended knowledge of their local school library situation.
The first research circles were created in Sweden during the 1970s, but the method used is based on the study methodology which originally developed within the free educational work of the Swedish popular movements in the beginning of the 20th Century. Research Circles have during the last decades been tried in various fields with the purpose to strengthen the ties between practice and research, but not yet in the library field. This school library circle has been an attempt to see how the research circle works as a method for evidence based library and information practice, EBLIP.
Introduction. This paper discusses research circles as a method for competence development in the library field. Method. In a research circle practitioners and an academic researcher meet to study an issue or a problem together which they all find important. Research circle work is considered as a kind of action research. Analysis. In this project two circles were put to work in order to try the method in a library context and the practitioners conducted several small studies related to the general problem of the circle, using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Results. The circle work gave opportunities to discuss library matters with colleagues from a distant perspective. It also generated important discussions about how to formulate workable research questions and how to choose the right methods in order to answer them. Furthermore, the results showed that the practitioners possessed knowledge of great importance for the circle's work. Conclusions. The research circle was a working method with great flexibility, with appeal to practitioners both with and without research experience. It also brings academic researchers and practitioners together and creates social networks based on the general problem of the circle.
Vad menas med folkbildning? Den korta men mångbottnade frågan utgör stommen i denna bok. Folkbildningsverksamheter, i form av studiecirklar och folkhögskolekurser, samlar årligen stora delar av Sveriges befolkning. Eftersom folkbildningen anses ha stor betydelse för demokratin i landet ges den ett betydande statsbidrag. Men folkbildning förstås ofta också som något mer än en beteckning på det avgränsade område som staten beviljar anslag. Begreppet kan laddas med en rad olika innebörder. Det kan dyka upp när någon försöker beskriva ett kunskapsförmedlande TV-program eller en forskare som lyckas göra sig hörd bland allmänheten. Det förekommer när biblioteken och andra kulturinstitutioners samhällsroll kommer på tal.
I boken presenteras fyra forskares synsätt på folkbildning med syftet att bidra till en diskussion om begreppets innebörder. En rad olika frågor behandlas: Vilka innebörder kan vi spåra hos begreppet så som det används i politik och folkbildningsverksamhet? Hur kan man tänka kring folkbildning som studieobjekt i forskning? Hur kan forskare inom dagens akademiska system, med dess fokus på artikelproduktion för smala prestigefyllda internationella tidskrifter, förhålla sig till folkbildning som ideal? Hur kan vi förstå skönlitteraturens betydelse för folkbildningen?
Boken vänder sig till forskare, folkbildare, studenter och andra som har ett intresse för folkbildning.