My name is Bri Watson, and I am a fourth-year doctoral candidate in Library and Information Studies at University of British Columbia iSchool. Under the supervision of my advisor, Dr. Julia Bullard (the Principal Investigator), I am writing to request the participation of self-identified queer knowledge workers in my doctoral dissertation research.
By ‘queer,’ I mean any individual publicly identifying as a member of the LGTBQIA2S+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, Two-Spirit and more) or MORGAI (Margainalized Orientations, Relationships, Genders, Asexualities and Intersex) communities. By ‘knowledge workers,’ I mean individuals engaged in professional, amateur, or community-based technical services work including cataloging, classification, metadata, taxonomy, tagging/folksonomy, and so on.
The project consists of qualitative interviews and focus groups with self-identified queer knowledge workers. The interview will focus on their experiences with and strategies around the use of knowledge organization systems like the Library of Congress Subject Headings or similar. The focus group will consist of a collaborative editing session with terminology from Homosaurus vocabulary.
Research is Canada-based but will be conducted virtually, and participants are outside of North America are welcome to participate. Participants completing the interview will be compensated $35 CAD. Participants completing the focus group will be compensated an additional $65 CAD.
Participation is voluntary and may be discontinued at any time without penalty. You will have the opportunity to review and confirm the accuracy of your interview’s transcript and recordings will be destroyed. Participants in both the interview and the focus group are welcome to participate pseudonymously (changed display name, video off), or choose to be publicly credited in resultant publications.
The initial screening utilizes the Qualtrics software to collect basic information about interested participants. Qualtrics features which collect IP addresses and panel association are disabled and no analytics metadata will be recorded.
If you are interested in participating, please follow the link to the survey: Expanding the Margins, or copy and paste the following URL: ubc.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eyfnZrMHR5WHUZU
If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail me at brimwats@mail.ubc.ca.
bri watson
Publishing in the Archives Profession 