Focusing Research Question

Now that I have reviewed some of the literature and gathered more information about research through the class lectures and readings, I'm becoming more focused on my research question idea. The question I am looking more closely at is,

"How are digital preservation efforts positively and/or negatively impacting the use of physical archives by the public, researchers, and archivists?"

This question interests me because we are currently in an age where most people communicate and gather information online. I wonder if archives have tracked the changes in the number of in-person or telephone requests for information when they provide it digitally. This study would likely look at archives that have fairly developed digital collections, because the traditional archives with minimal online presence wouldn't see these particular results. Right now, this is looking qualitative and quantitative to me, with numbers and quality of archival use both being looked at. I am planning to use a flexible design, which makes room for changes as the study proceeds. We'll see how this goes as I start developing the proposal further...

Good Research Ideas Already Used

As I review literature on digital archives, I'm finding some interesting research that has already been done - which leads me to think these are great ideas I can use to inform my research, but not follow the same focus, since it already exists.

Here are some interesting studies I'm finding:

• A review of the benefits of digital archives for research by looking at the citations in historical research that include digital archives. Source: Sinn, D. (2012). Impact of digital archival collections on historical research.
• An examination of how libraries, museums, and archives can collaborate to combine forces to better serve their users with digital information. Source: Marty, P.F. (2010). An introduction to digital convergence: Libraries, archives, and museums in the information age.
• Looking at the processes involved in converting original material to digital archives. (also listed on my 9/6 post) Source: Latham, K. F. (2011). Medium rare: Exploring archives and their conversion from original to digital part two.
• Berklee College of Music, investigation of the importance of digitizing material for preservation purposes. Source: Etsy, A. (2012). Berklee college of music archives: Preserving the past and learning for the future

Fixed Designs

There is so much to think about with fixed designs in a research project. After reading chapter 5 in Robson's book, my mind is abuzz with the various options, not only for my research proposal in the class, but also for the assessments we conduct at work. A concept that really interested me were the differences between pre-tests and post-tests depending on the kind of research that is being conducted. I've used some pre- and post-test measures with the work I do as a program evaluator, but it was great to read about the theories behind why one type would work better than another. I also never considered post-only tests, yet I realized I have looked at those types of tests before. I was also interested in the idea that there are different kinds of groups to use in different types of evaluations. Some are the same, some are different, and some are multiple groups who are the same or different. It's almost like a menu of options and you need to pick the right ingredients to have the best results for your study. Having said that, it still boggles me whether any of the fixed designs will apply to my research question. I don't have the answer yet, but I feel like after I've gotten a more solidified question in mind, the rest will fall into place.

Literature Review & Research Questions

Surveying literature on digital archives has gotten my brain working on some research questions that might be interesting, and using this research journal to link ideas to sources could be very helpful for future reference. I'm going to keep the ideas milling around while I continue to do research, but this can be my first go at sources and questions that I come up with related to them.

1-Resource: Gervits, M. & O'Donnell, J. (2011). Digital archive of Newark architecture.
Related research question: How are specific themes, ideas, etc represented to the public in digital archives? Looking at the software, layout, content, etc across multiple institutions. **I would want to pick one or two thematic elements such as artworks on paper, photography, or something else that is represented in multiple digital archives that are web accessible.

2-Resource: Higgins, S. (2012). Cataloging images using CONTENTdm.
Related research question: What is the most useful / least useful software (open source and proprietary) available for digital archives or specifically for cataloging images? Survey resources related to digital archives software, investigate software, possibly survey archivists.

3-Resource: Latham, K.F. (2011). Medium rare: Exploring archives and their conversion from original to digital part two.
Related research question: How to effectively manage the conversion of original archival material to digital?

Research Questions

Trying to come up with a research question has been challenging, and I think I need to research the digital archive literature to see what kinds of questions arise from what has already been examined. Some things I am interested in finding out are the mechanics of a digital archive (software, hardware, etc), usage of digital archives (remotely, on site, students, researchers, staff), selection processes and statistics (number/percentages of material digitized and why), institutional use of digital archives (comparing archives across the US, looking at to what extent they use digital archives).

I think the institutional use of digital archives seems feasible for this research proposal. It is a topic that has the potential to be studied from a distance, since digital archives are primarily web-based. My next step will be to see if there is any literature on the topic and if this issue has already been recently addressed. If that's the case, I may need to reformulate my topic, or the literature may support my research without already answering my question.