I had an article published in Public Library Quarterly called, “Systematic Marketing Facilitates Optimal Customer Service: The Marketing Audit of a Rural Public Library System”. This actually began as a final paper for Dr. Koontz’s library marketing course I took as a masters’ student. The full article (pre-print) is available here.

October
I published an article in Journal of Education for Library and Information Science entitled (that’s a nice word), “What Do We Mean By Library Leadership: Leadership in LIS Education”. You can check out the pre-print article here.

November and Beyond!!

What am I up to now you ask? An article I co-wrote with an iSchool faculty member, Dr. Lorri Mon, has been accepted to Advances in Librarianship. This article, about successfully effectively using social media in public libraries, should be published early next year.

I recently submitted an article to a major LIS journal. Something I’m very very nervous about. This could either end in tears or more tears or happy tears. I wrote this article as a kind of part one about the small exploratory study I conducted this past summer. I presented this paper at the Library Research Seminar VI back in October. More on that experience in a later post.

But what has recently been consuming the majority of my writing time is my prospectus. In October, I completed and passed my preliminary exam. Now, I’ve officially advanced to candidacy. Go me! The next step is writing my prospectus. In the doctoral world (or at least my corner of the doctoral world), a prospectus is the first three chapters of a dissertation. Basically, these chapters say, “Here’s what I would like to do for my dissertation!”. While the rest of a dissertation says, “Look at what I did!” I’m expecting to defend my prospectus mid-spring. I’m ambitious I know, but it’s worked for me so far.

If all this sounds a bit braggy, it’s because I am being a bit braggy. When I began the doctoral program in 2012, I never thought I would get an article published. It seemed like this unattainable dream, especially when I compared myself with other doc students. I still struggle with insecurities and anxiety over my writing and ability to conduct research. I know I always will. But somehow I survived the writing process, peer review, editing, and the long long wait till publication. When I feel these doubts and fears, I try to remember that a few people out there value me as a writer and believe what I research (and have to say) is worthwhile.

Plus, my parents are super proud.