Dear Colleagues,

I am writing to invite you to participate in a study investigating emotionally adverse experiences among individuals donating personal materials to archives and special collections departments in the United States, as well as the emotionally adverse responses archivists observe during the donation process. By examining the nature and causes of these perspectives, this research seeks to expand the understanding of donor-archivist interactions and inform more empathetic, trauma-informed archival practices.

Survey Details

·       Estimated Time: 15-20 minutes

·       Format: Online survey

·       Eligibility: To qualify as a participant, you must have donated materials to an archives or special collections department in the United States or must be an archivist who has worked with donors in an archives or special collections department in the United States (an archivist can also be a donor). Participants should be between 25 – 75 years of age.

·       Security: The information that you give in the study will be anonymous. Your name and other information that could be used to identify you will not be collected or linked to the data. Raw data will be stored on UVA Box, a secure file storage system managed by UVA IT.

·       Survey period: The survey will close on June 30, 2025.

Begin the survey here: https://virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bxTbH3l64LIPDng

If you have any questions about the study or the survey, please contact me at agreenwood@virginia.edu.

With warmest regards,

Amanda Greenwood

Archivist, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library

University of Virginia

Dear Colleagues,

Special collections catalogers (those who spend at least 30% of their time cataloging special collections and/or rare materials) are invited to participate in a survey related to Integrated Library System (ILS) or Library Services Platform (LSP) migration and special collections data.

To participate, individuals must be over the age of 18 and currently employed as a special collections cataloger. Participants must have migrated Integrated Library Systems (ILS) or Library Services Platforms (LSP) in the last 5 years.

Participation within this survey is voluntary. Participants may stop completing the survey at any time. The survey will be anonymous but not confidential. The survey will take approximately 15 minutes to complete.

osu.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_b8U2I30vUZ49hum

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact

Libby Hertenstein

hertenstein.9@osu.edu

614-247-9802

Office of Responsible Research Practices

hsconcerns@osu.edu

(614) 688-8457

(800) 678-6251

Colleagues,

I’m seeking archivists who have participated, or declined to participate, in rapid response collecting in the aftermath of a tragic event at your institution or in your community to complete an anonymous survey for new research on the archival collecting reflex. 

Do archivists have a collecting reflex, an embedded professional drive to collect material, especially to document tragedies in the immediate aftermath of them. What fuels this reflex? From where does it come? Is it possible to privilege the personal over the professional in situations where the tragedy happened in your institution or community? These are basic questions in my research on how archivists manage their professional obligations to gather and preserve with their personal emotional needs to grieve with their fellow community members in the immediate aftermath of a tragedy.

The following is a link to a Qualtrics survey that launches my research exploring the “archival collecting reflex.” The survey should take no more than 20 minutes to complete. The survey will close on February 23, 2025.

The Qualtrics link: virginia.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9Hs5t4KH6eEd44m
Participants must be 18 years or older to take the survey. 
With appreciation,
Brenda Gunn, Principal Investigator
UVA IRB-SBS 7274

Dear Colleagues,

Special collections catalogers (those who spend at least 30% of their time cataloging special collections and/or rare materials) are invited to participate in a survey related to Integrated Library System (ILS) or Library Services Platform (LSP) migration and special collections data.

To participate, individuals must be over the age of 18 and currently employed as a special collections cataloger. Participants must have migrated Integrated Library Systems (ILS) or Library Services Platforms (LSP) in the last 5 years.

Participation within this survey is voluntary. Participants may stop completing the survey at any time. The survey will be anonymous but not confidential. The survey will take approximately 15 minutes to complete.

osu.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_b8U2I30vUZ49hum

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact

Libby Hertenstein

hertenstein.9@osu.edu

614-247-9802

Office of Responsible Research Practices

hsconcerns@osu.edu

(614) 688-8457

(800) 678-6251

Dear Colleagues,

We would like to request your participation in an online survey on the current state of AI tool use in scholarly peer review. Though the use of AI tools has burgeoned in the past two years, we know exceedingly little about how individuals use these tools for scholarly review, which can have a significant impact on the overall scholarship process, as well as the current structures of editorial boards and academic service.

This research project is being conducted by Principal Investigator Dr. Alex H. Poole, Associate Professor at Drexel University’s Department of Information Science, and Dr. Ashley Todd-Diaz, Assistant University Librarian for Special Collections and University Archives. The questionnaire should take approximately 15 minutes to complete.

The survey can be accessed at this link: https://drexel.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5ssGNm8QOknWOW2

Sincerely,

Alex H. Poole

Ashley Todd-Diaz

Dear Colleagues,

If you are a librarian or an archivists currently pursuing additional degrees, please consider participating in the research study Librarians as Students: A Survey of Librarians Pursuing Advanced Degrees. This study aims to explore the motivations, experiences, and challenges faced by librarians and archivists who pursue advanced degrees while continuing their professional roles. By participating in this study, you will contribute valuable insights into how librarians balance academic and professional responsibilities, manage work/life demands, and shape their career paths. Your responses will also help identify opportunities for improved institutional and community support for librarian/archivist-scholars.

The survey is anonymous and should take approximately 10-15 minutes to complete. The anticipated sample size is 100 subjects. If you are interested in participating, please click the link below to access the survey: 

Link to survey: rutgers.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1NerrXH33GeE7Qy

Your participation is entirely voluntary, and you may withdraw at any time. If you have any questions about the study, please feel free to contact me at lily.todorinova@rutgers.edu.  

Thank you for sharing your experiences and contributing to this research.

——–

Lily Todorinova

Undergraduate Experience Librarian, Open Educational Research

Rutgers University-New Brunswick

lily.todorinova@rutgers.edu | Meet with Zoom“

Dear Colleagues, 

I am part of a group of authors that are co-authoring a book on U.S. copyright that explores how copyright has evolved over the centuries and in what types of ways authors, users, and libraries and archives are impacted by it. As part of the project, we are conducting surveys of each of these groups. The survey for libraries, archives and other cultural heritage organizations asks what copyright issues you have encountered and how you’ve managed them. The surveys for general users or users of ephemera ask about how users perceive copyright and use copyrighted works.

I am writing with the hopes that you will: 

1) complete the survey for cultural heritage organizations, and 

2) share the survey for users with your researchers. [I can provide QR codes to the surveys for easy distribution.] 

Note:researchers may fill out either survey, but the ephemera survey is targeted explicitly at those researchers who are utilizing archival collections containing unpublished works. 

A standard disclosure page at the start of each survey provides more information for respondents. The surveys have been evaluated by an IRB and are determined to be exempt. The survey(s) will run through December 9, 2024.

Many thanks to J. Christine Park, Law Librarian in Residence at Gallagher Law Library (University of Washington School of Law) for leading the empirical team handling the survey design, implementation, and analysis. 

Thank you for your time. If you have any questions or problems, please do not hesitate to contact me at hbriston@ucsd.edu

With all best regards,

Heather Briston 

You are invited to participate in a survey with the goal of gathering information about policies that describe criteria for the selection of Special Collections resources (i.e. rare and unique archival photographs, manuscripts, ephemera, rare books, and donated born-digital items) for digitization and publication in open access digital libraries. These policies are often known as “digital collection development policies.” This study is being conducted by two librarians at the University of Utah’s J. Willard Marriott Library, representing a cross-departmental collaboration between Digital Library Services and Special Collections.

Please click on bit.ly/digcolldevp  to take the survey. 

This survey should take 10-15 minutes to complete and will be open until Monday, November 25th. If you would like additional information about the study, please contact any of the people listed below.

We appreciate your time and participation. Please excuse any cross-postings.

Thanks,

Jessica Breiman, Digital Archives Librarian, University of Utah (jessica.breiman@utah.edu)

Rachel Wittmann, Metadata Strategies Librarian, University of Utah (rachel.wittmann@utah.edu)

The University of Utah’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) has approved this study. Contact the IRB if you have questions regarding your rights as a research participant. Also, contact the IRB if you have questions, complaints or concerns which you do not feel you can discuss with the investigator. The University of Utah IRB may be reached by phone at (801) 581-3655 or by e-mail at irb@hsc.utah.edu.

Greetings!

We would like to invite you to consider participating in a short survey that focuses on recruitment of information professionals in academic libraries. It will examine how elements of an academic job description are perceived by participants. The purpose is to identify if any patterns exist in how features of the advertisement are perceived by participants, based on factors including the participant’s work experience, educational background, and individual differences. Anticipated benefits of this study include the potential to identify the most widely appealing factors of academic library advertisements to improve diversity in applicant pools. 

Anyone over the age of 18 who identifies as a librarian and/or archivist is eligible to participate. If you decide to participate, you will be asked to answer approximately 50 questions, which should take approximately 15 minutes to complete. The informed consent and survey are available at: https://towson.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5z1qFAZvYKqs0Vo

Please do not put any information in your response that could be used to identify you. 

The survey will be live for 4 weeks until November 24, 2024. If you have any questions, please contact the Principal Investigator, Ashley Todd-Diaz (atodddiaz@towson.edu). 

Thank you in advance for considering,  

Ashley Todd-Diaz, Towson University, Principal Investigator  

——————————
Ashley Todd-Diaz
Assistant University Librarian for Special Collections and University Archives
Towson University

Dear colleagues:

We are seeking participants for a research survey to assess the uptake of Linked Data technologies for cultural heritage description in the Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (GLAM) community. The results from this survey are intended to capture the degree to which Linked Data is being implemented or used by different constituencies, to identify perceptions on added value or pain points of LD, and to infer risks and opportunities for further development in the areas of domain modeling and software development.

This survey will take 5-10 minutes to complete depending on the specific responses. It can be paused at any time and completed at a later point. Your responses are collected anonymously and cannot be tied to your name or email address. No demographic information relating to your person other than your occupational role will be collected. The data collected in this survey will only be shared in aggregate for research purposes.10 respondents to this survey will be drawn at random to receive a $30 Amazon gift card. The survey can be completed here.

If you have any questions, please contact one of the study’s investigators listed below.

Thank you,

Kate A. Bowers (Harvard University, kate_bowers@harvard.edu)

Regine I. Heberlein (Princeton University, heberlei@princeton.edu)

Stephanie M. Luke (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, smluke2@illinois.edu)