Guest Blogging: “Transforming Teen Services: Getting Teens Passionate About Civics (It can happen!)”

Posted on April 28, 2017 by Abigail Phillips

My monthly YALSA blog post is up! This time about it’s about something that is particularly relevant to what’s going on in the world around us. Check it out on the YALSA blog or read it below! Don’t worry. I’m … Continue reading →

Top 5 YA and Libraries Research in 2015 (But Mostly from Pew Research Center)

Posted on January 1, 2016 by Abigail Phillips

Recently, I did a guest blog post for YALSAblog – the official blog of Young Adult Library Services Association. Here what I said in the post, and here’s a link to the original post. Happy New Year! In the world of … Continue reading →

How I’m Dealing With Burnout and My Progress So Far

Posted on November 9, 2015 by Abigail Phillips

I’m in the home stretch of my dissertation (and that is the lone sports reference you’ll find in this blog). Currently, I working on the final chapter of my dissertation and set to defend in early February. Of course I’m also … Continue reading →

Guest Posting for Letters to a Young Librarian!

Posted on September 20, 2015 by Abigail Phillips

On Thursday morning, my guest blog post, “Worrying About My PhD Life“, for Letters to a Young Librarian went live. I received so many wonderful comments from fellow librarians, library directors, and doctoral students through the LTAYL blog, Tumblr, Twittter, and Facebook. … Continue reading →

I’m Going to the Gym! Or, Why I Exercise

Posted on March 4, 2015 by Abigail Phillips

I get a lot of questions about my exercise habits, but recently it feels like people are slightly more curious. During the past six months, I’ve become more active in long distance running and posting about my training and races … Continue reading →

Writing Stuff. All the Time.

Posted on November 17, 2014 by Abigail Phillips

In case you missed it, I’ve been writing quite a bit since the beginning of summer. Some of which has actually been published! Here’s a round-up in case you missed them.

June

I contributed a bit to Julia Skinner’s post for Hack Library School “Why We Decided on the PhD“. Just a couple of sentences from me about (obviously) why I decided to pursue an doctoral degree. There are many reasons NOT do go this route. Julia is a doctoral candidate in my program; and she’s very knowledgeable about so many things!

July

I wrote a guest post for the Letters to a Young Librarian blog called, “Politics Schmolitics! What Does Politics Have to do With Libraries?” My first librarian position was in a small rural library system. My MLIS program didn’t prepare me for the amount of politics (local and state) involved in public libraries. Only working in a library can teach you that.

September

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.

Lurking as a Social Media Researcher

Posted on June 10, 2013 by Abigail Phillips

I feel I must make a confession as someone who is just beginning to do research on social media. I am a bit of a reluctant social media contributor. I’m more of a hardcore lurker. I post infrequently to Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr (although I’m trying to do better). I believe my reluctance to update/post/tweet comes more from a personal hesitancy than a professional/research hesitancy Being a naturally private, shy, and quiet person, I’ve never felt the need to publicly announce what I’m doing/thinking/eating/feeling. I hope there are others out there like me who cringe a bit after posting on a social network site. Will it be liked or retweeted?? Part of these may come from working in a public library in a conservative community, part of it is just my introverted self. But I realize that there are many people who do not share this tendency and who feel quite comfortable updating their status with anything and everything. I’d like to find a happy medium between these two extremes: rarely posting and posting every five minutes.

I am currently working on a literature review of cyberbullying, focusing on how public librarians can be a source of support for victims.As a beginning social media researcher I need to make myself known with the community of social media researchers. From what I’ve been told the best way to do this is to put myself out there through blog posts, Tweets, Tumblr posts, etc. This is part of my attempt with this blog. By posting about once a week to this blog, I becoming more comfortable as a producer of online content. I’ll get there. Baby steps.You may ask yourself: Why is does she want to research social media if she doesn’t seem to be actively engaged with it? Since I started using social network sites back in the early days of MySpace and LiveJournal, I’ve been fascinated with how people use these sites. My interest in the effect social media has had on the way we all, especially young adults, communicate and interact on a daily basis has led to my summer research collaboration with Dr. Mardis. I am currently working on a literature review of cyberbullying, focusing on how public librarians can be a source of support for victims. Social media appears to be a research area that is wide open for investigation.

As a beginning social media researcher I need to make myself known with the community of social media researchers. From what I’ve been told the best way to do this is to put myself out there through blog posts, Tweets, Tumblr posts, etc. This is part of my attempt with this blog. By posting about once a week to this blog, I becoming more comfortable as a producer of online content. I’ll get there. Baby steps.

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Dr. Abigail Leigh Phillips

Tag Archives: blogging