Research The reason I got into librarianship, primarily, is to help other students do research.

I do not mean to seem countercultural or anything when I say that at the moment I do not really care about publishing articles on librarianship or doing anything other than being a practicing librarian. I skipped around in my undergraduate study. I was an English major, an education major, Creative Writing major, Elemementary Education, and then finally I ended up in Philosophy and Religion. I constantly was helping my friends in the library. This is one thing that got me into librarianship; not only did they like me helping, but I was good at it. Learning how to research, however, is one other thing entirely than just liking to do it. Once again, I go back to my action research paper completed in LIS 600. This paper, on pornography and its relation to libraries, got me to look at different articles on the subject, one being an article dealing with Greensboro Public Librarys dealing with patrons looking at pornography in the library. Other articles were reviewing the actual law. The law article talked about how it may be illegal for patrons to view a pornographic image if a child may wander by and accidentally see it. It was interesting to see different views on the subject. Many librarians out there totally felt that any restriction to access would limit vital access to health information, and that it would have unnecessary conflict by providing filters on computers. Others were proponents of filters that would dramatically slow a computers internet feed if one was trying to view a website the filter deemed pornographic, thus not allowing the patron to view a video. In my action research paper, I address issues such as a skewed sample. My sample was obviously a small sample at only 32 surveys. I also sent the survey to people I know. The problem with this is that why I would say in many ways I am diverse, maybe my community is

not the most diverse population. My community is almost solely a few things: white, Christian, middle class, and for the most part conservative in their politics. While I am generalizing, this made me realize that to get an accurate sample size in the future, I would have to ask a much wider audience. This is not to discredit everything I did however. Half of the people I surveyed believed that an individual could view specific material that could be deemed pornographic at their public or academic library. Ten out of the 32 surveys said they had seen people at the library viewing pornography. This does not show the whole societys view on the deemed problem, but does allow me to look at an average North Carolina citizens reaction to what they have seen. I learned several types of research while I was in the program. One of my favorites was during my practicum. I learned how to do genealogical research. I was able to find my own familys history using the resources Bowling Green State University offered. I found out that Heinrich Sonnenberg came over from Germany on June 5, 1866. He came over on a ship called the Europa. He was destined for Ohio, and the general area he arrived is where my grandparents and now my parents live today. This is also where I found out the hard way, helping patrons, that a lot of times during research the library does not have all of their answers. One time I did research assistance for a patron during my practicum. I was helping them research their family history. Their family was in a group of Quakers in a very specific town in Ohio. I pulled books from that particular county, microfilm of the Quaker meetings that we had on file there, and spent over an hour searching for any semblance of a name. I did not find one. I was very frustrated since we seemed to have the materials needed for the research. Fortunately, my mentor, Steve Charter, the University Archivist at BGSU, helped me understand that sometimes these materials just dont exist or they

have to go elsewhere. We told them to contact Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania for further assistance, and we apologized that we could not help them. I also faced further disappointment in search for my own family when Steve Charter was having me do independent research. I found out just because there was a census during a year, does not mean that people had to put information down. We could barely find any information on my grandmothers father, and knowing that he skipped from town to town, and was a drunk and not much of a worker, it makes sense that he did not really seek out to fill census information. I found out during college one particular thing about school. You can have a class on anything, and almost write a paper on any topic. I had classes on Superhuman Powers in Buddhist Literature, Archaeology of Ancient Israel, Religion and the Holocaust, Religion and Popular Culture, The Poetry of Ovid, Death, Dying and the Meaning of Life, and there was even a class which I did not get a chance to take called, Philosophy, Religion and Sex. With nearly infinite possibilities on academic subjects, its easy to see why the organization of a library and professional resources are important. For Dr. Carmichaels LIS 620 class, I developed an annotated bibliography dedicated to horror films. I mention exhaustive books on the subjects, talk about different countries and how they play a role in the horror genre, and even talk about two peer reviewed journals that just recently came into existence. Lastly, one of the most important things I believe that you can do to be prepared to do research is to stay informed on your craft. In LIS 617s professional research paper I describe what I believe the academic value to be of each source. I talk about issues such as who they are published by (i.e. the ALA) and if they are loaded with advertisements. Some journals may be

more for selling than actually providing academic information and they should be analyzed accordingly. Lastly, in my LIS 630 IT Administrator Interview I conducted with Dan Pfohl of UNCW, he told me explicitly that staying on top of your craft and knowing the newest resources was hard to do, especially in something like IT. He told me to use resources like web seminars, listserves, and to read basic journals as well as the ones pertaining to my specialty. This will allow me to provide the best user experience for those doing research. I will be able to keep up to date on current trends, even when I am busy helping patrons.