Heads-up: Academic survey post coming soon

NB: This message is being cross-posted in five selected LT groups.

In the coming days, member adamworrall4, a doctoral candidate in Library and Information Studies at Florida State University, is going to be posting a link to a survey relating to his research study of LibraryThing and its role in groups and communities.

I'll let Adam explain more in his post about what the study does, but I wanted to give you all a heads-up that this is coming and that we at LT have given Adam permission to post the survey link in the five selected groups. The survey and any follow-up questions are entirely voluntary: you do not have to participate if you don't want to. Adam approached us (about a year ago ... the wheels of academic studies roll slowly, as he'll tell you!) and asked if we at LT would allow him to post the survey, and we wanted to help with his research.

So - watch for Adam's post in a few days, and participate in the survey if you like. It's not spam, so don't flag it :-)

Any questions generally, feel free to ask me. Any questions about the survey or Adam's research, ask Adam once he's posted.

I just received this . . . he seems to think that LT is a "digital library" . . . which it is not. Did he explain that to you before you approved his survey?

Thanks for posting this heads up . . . I missed it when it originally posted, but quickly found it when I received the survey and they searched Talk for "survey" . . . sometimes the system works as it should :)

Adding: I'm also not enticed by the possibility of an Amazon/Barnes & Noble "prize"

Lucinda, in this case I'm seeing LibraryThing as a digital library because of the content it holds. This content is in the form of book data and metadata sourced from libraries and Amazon, as well as user-contributed tags, favorites, collections, reviews, posts in discussions, and profile information. A digital library doesn't have to actually offer digitized books to qualify, under the definitions I'm using for my study. You're obviously welcome to your own opinion, of course, and as Jeremy noted nobody is required to participate against their will; this is entirely voluntary. Hope that explains things a little, though!

Thanks Adam . . . I make a big distinction between LT and sites like Project Gutenberg (where there are actual books to read). And if my local library no longer had any actual content to read, but only data and metadata, I would no longer call it a library . . .

I wish you well with your research, but (speaking now as a former teacher of Research Methods in Psychology) I wish you had defined your terms (especially "digital library") more clearly in the message asking me to participate.