An Open Letter Regarding LRSIII From a Doctoral Student, To Doctoral Students

Dear LIS Doctoral Students & Doctoral Candidates:

Library Research Seminar III (LRSIII) will be held Thursday, October 14
through Saturday, October 16, 2004 at the Fairmont Hotel, Kansas City,
Missouri. Please mark your calendars and bookmark the developing site:

http://libraryresearchseminar.org/ 

I highly recommend attendance at this conference. It is held only once 
every few years. Please try to plan for it if at all possible. The LRSII
conference format included keynote speakers, juried papers, panel 
presentations, advisory clinics on research methodologies and funding, and 
round table discussions.

One of the nice things about LRSI & LRSII (from the doctoral
student/candidate perspective) was that doctoral student participation was
specifically sought. It was one of the five stated goals of LRSI:

"to showcase the work of doctoral students in all fields conducting
research in subjects related to library and information studies..."

LRSII specifically called for collaborative research (between scholars & 
practitioners and between scholars & students). It was designed to
"foster maximum interaction among scholars, students and professionals.
I attended LRSII and, though I would say that scholars (faculty) formed
the majority of those in attendance, I was pleasantly surprised at the
number of practitioners and doctoral students/candidates who registered
for the event. A few masters students with strong research interests
attended as well. And several doctoral students presented jointly
conducted research!

I found this conference to be very different from the ALISE conference.
ALISE focuses on LIS education issues - which INCLUDE research. This 
conference SPECIFICALLY focuses on research. The founding sponsors of 
LRSI, who again sponsored LRSII are: Beta Phi Mu, Library History Round
Table (ALA), and Library Research Round Table (ALA). It was ALA's LRRT
Steering Committee who accepted a proposal from Dr. John Budd (Missouri)
and Dr. Charles Seavey (Missouri) for LRSIII. We have the Budd/Seavey
proposal to thank for the fact that there is a 3-year interval (rather
than 5!) between the past and the future conferences.

The Library Research Seminars were envisioned by the organizers of the
first seminar to be "a series whose theme is the linking of researchers
and practitioners and the elevation of the status and value of research
in the library community." I have every reason to believe the 2004 seminar
will build upon this vision. Though LRSIII does not yet have a 
title/theme, we will continue to be inclusive of the practitioner (so 
visible at past conferences). 

If you want to know more about what the past two conferences were like,
you can find LRSI & LRSII here:

http://www.dpo.uab.edu/~folive/LRSII/index.htm

Tom Nisonger (Indiana) has written several summaries of LRSII. One may be
found at the LRSII site:

http://www.dpo.uab.edu/~folive/LRSII/nisongerremarks.htm

The other may be found in the current issue of JELIS (Fall 2002, v.43,
no.4, p.308).

Please keep this conference in mind - not only to attend, but to
submit your work for presentation!

Cordially,
Sharon

Sharon McQueen,
LRSIII Planning Committee Member

Lecturer and Doctoral Candidate
School of Library and Information Studies
University of Wisconsin - Madison

Helen C. White Hall
600 N. Park Street
Madison, WI  53706
Room 4256, Box 181

(608) 263-2900 (Dept.)

http://slisweb.lis.wisc.edu/~smcqueen/