Saturday, May 23, 2009

Research Grant!

Thus far my field research on Indian public libraries has been fueled by a couple of small internal grants from the University of Western Ontario. I used up these grant monies by December 2008 and in the meantime I had applied to a couple of large research grant competitions in the fall of 2008. International research and fieldwork is rewarding for a variety of reasons, including the opportunity to challenge oneself in different social and cultural environments as well as the ability to foster intercultural dialogues and exchanges. However, international research by its nature necessitates the procurement of grant funds, often in very large amounts.

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) is the largest grant providing agency in Canada for the type of work that I do and I applied to what is known as the "Standard SSHRC Grant" competition in October 2008. I spent a decent amount of time during the summer putting the grant application together, in anticipation of receiving a 3 year grant award. After a wait of several months, I found out in April 2009 that I did not receive the award. I instead received what is called a "4A" designation - SSHRC terminology for "your research is worthy and potentially fundable, but there is no money to fund it because other grant applications that were ranked higher than yours already received all the money." I was a little disappointed, but apparently receiving a 4A designation is not a bad thing and re-submitting the following year with revisions (based on reviewer comments) is recommended. The University of Western Ontario has also chipped in with some "reapplication assistance" funds for me to start the project during the 2009-10 academic year and resubmit in October 2009. So all in all, not too bad.

On the brighter side, I applied to a grant competition internal to UWO in November 2008 known as the Academic Development Fund (ADF) Major Grant and found out in late April 2009 that I received the grant. This grant provides signficant monetary support to research projects for a one year period, with an extension for another year. I requested funds to begin fieldwork studying the roles public libraries in India can play with regard to community information provision and was lucky enough to receive my whole request. I am excited to begin this project and am planning to base my case study research in and around the Bangalore region. A lot of this summer will be spent with planning the fieldwork, submitting my research ethics application (needed to even get the grant money released to me), conducting more literature reviews, getting in touch with Indian contacts, and figuring out how to allocate work for student research assistants. I am also trying to teach myself some basic Kannada reading and writing, so when fieldwork begins in January 2010, I'll at least be able to have a functional literacy in the language. With research grants come more responsibilities, but I'm not complaining...

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

India trip, January - February 2009

I followed up my research trip to India from January to March 2008 with a return trip to the country from January 15 to February 24, 2009.  The previous trip was my first experience doing actual field work in India, as I interviewed members from the library working group of the National Knowledge Commission (NKC).  This group had given a set of recommendations for the improvement of India's library systems and my interviews allowed me to better understand the dimensions and trajectories of India's library revitalization movement.

The trip generated some ideas about possible future research steps.  One aspect of the NKC recommendations was a focus on making libraries more effective "community-based information systems."  This concept was also echoed in many of the statements of my interviewees.  While this concept had some consensus, it remained fairly vague and general.  In an effort to explore this concept further, I have proposed doing a case study within the Bangalore region.  This case study would assess the community information service models of particular libraries in this region and would provide some insights into the roles of the state and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the development of public and community libraries.   The role of public and community libraries in social development in India is relatively unexplored; part of this project would probe this area further, as well as potential links between a new library movement and wider social movements in the country.  I have applied for a couple of grants to fund the project and will find out by early April about the results.

This most recent trip to India was focused mainly on exploring the feasibility of this proposed study.  I also met some of my contacts and friends from the January - March 2008 trip.  During my stay in Bangalore, I met with some people involved with NGOs doing library development as well as democratic advocacy work.  These organizations include Dream a Dream, which focuses on after-school programs primarily for slum children; Hippocampus, which runs and develops programs for libraries, mainly in government schools and in marginalized communities; the Akshara Foundation, which also runs school and community libraries; the Infosys Foundation, the charity arm of the Infosys Corporation, a prominent business process outsourcing firm in India; and Janaagraha, a civic advocacy group pushing for more responsive local government in Bangalore.  These meetings were all productive and gave me a lot of food for thought in developing further lines of inquiry in this research study.

In addition to meetings with NGOs, I gave six talks at various conferences/seminars and research institutes.  These talks all gave me chances to reflect on my India library research, as well as on some work I have been doing that is exploring ideologies and power dynamics of the "information society."  My talks at the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS) in Chennai and the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC) in Bangalore, in particular, were highly useful in providing feedback for the design of my study exploring the role of Indian public/community libraries in a wider social development context.  

Back on the blog...

After a long hiatus I am back to some periodic blogging about all things related to Indian public and community libraries.  More to come, stay tuned....