2022 CAAL-CBPA Collaborative Research Grant Winners
Courtney Vienneau, Liaison Librarian, Shannon School of Business & Copyright Librarian, Cape Breton University Library; Nicole Marcoux, Academic Librarian, Acadia University; and Nicole Slipp, Librarian for Business, Humanities, & Languages, University of New Brunswick, were awarded $1,000 to help support their project, Business database subscriptions at CAUL-CBUA member libraries and their alignment with institutional values.
In their proposal, Courtney, Nicole, and Nicole propose to investigate business-related database subscriptions in the Canadian context, factors influencing these subscriptions, and alignment with institutional values and other critical alignments.
2021 CAUL-CBUA Collaborative Research Grant Winners
Lindsay McNiff, Learning & Instruction Librarian at the Dalhousie University Killam Memorial Library, and Nicole Carter, Reference & Research Librarian at the Saint Mary's University Patrick Power Library, were awarded $1,000 to help support their project, Investigating the experiences of academic librarians on temporary contracts in Canada before and during COVID-19.
In their proposal, Lindsay and Nicole propose to investigate the demographics of those academic librarians engaged in precarious work in Canada (including age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, years since graduation), in what postsecondary environments they have been employed precariously (college, university, size of institution), the nature of these contracts (reason, duration), and some key questions about their experience in these positions, including those raised in prior literature around training, socialization, and supervision. This is the first Canada-wide survey to investigate these questions with a focus on academic librarians with temporary contracts. The study will also zero in on how COVID-19 has affected the working life of librarians holding temporary contracts in academic libraries.
2019 CAUL-CBUA Collaborative Research & Innovation Grant Winners
Final Report
Jackie Phinney, Liaison Librarian to Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick, and Lucille (Lucy) Kiester, Liaison Librarian at McGill University Library, were awarded $1,000 to help support their project, Are Canadian medicine librarians directly supporting medical student health and wellness? A nation-wide survey.
In their proposal, Jackie and Lucy propose to explore if/how undergraduate medical education liaison librarians in Canada are supporting medical student wellness, as well as if these efforts are being promoted directly to students. Their methodology is intended to provide a current snapshot of what medical liaisons are currently doing in regard to student wellness.
2018 CAUL-CBUA Collaborative Research & Innovation Grant Winners
Nicole Carter, Reference and Research Librarian at the Saint Mary’s University Patrick Power Library, and Mikayla Redden, Librarian at Centennial College Libraries, were awarded $1,000 to help support their project, Student Library Employees: What Are Their Career Plans and What Influenced Those Plans?
In their proposal, Nicole and Mikayla propose to explore the career goals of student employees, as well as the role their employment might have on their future career selection. Their focus is on visible minority undergraduate and college students, with a particular focus on librarianship as a career. Their hope is that through understanding these motivations and influences, we might better position librarianship as an attractive career path for students.
2017 CAUL-CBUA Collaborative Research & Innovation Grant Winners
- Robin Parker, Evidence Synthesis and Information Services Librarian, and Melissa Helwig, Research and Instruction Librarian, at Dalhousie University’s W.K. Kellogg Health Sciences Library, were awarded $1,000 to help support their project, Impact of Research Consults: Develop and Implementation of Assessment Tool.
In their proposal, Robin and Melissa plan to contribute to the evidence base concerning individual research consultations conducted in academic libraries. Their fundamental research question is “how do users apply the knowledge and skills shared in individual research consultations?” The project goal is to validate a research consult evaluation tool to learn more about the impact of research support services that can be shared and adapted by other CAUL-CBUA members.
- David H. Michels, Public Services Librarian, and Hannah Steeves, Instruction and Reference Librarian, at Dalhousie University’s Sir James Dunn Law Library, were awarded $1,000 to help support their project, Inescapable Skills – Using Games to Improve Participation in Research Skills Retention Testing.
In their proposal, David and Hannah plan to use a game format to gather data on student skills retention over the course of their Law School program. They will use an adaption of the popular Escape Room, wherein student teams from all three years of the program will solve a series of research problems in order to “escape.” Observations of the escape room sessions could allow researchers to evaluate research skills. Their fundamental research question is “can gamification improve participation in research skills retention testing in a law school environment?” with the goal to demonstrate the limitations and potential for the use of games to measure research skills retention.
Final Report
2016 Collaborative Research and Innovation Grant Winner
Alison Ambi, Science Research Liaison Librarian at Memorial University of Newfoundland Libraries, was awarded $1,000 to help support their project, Does Library Data Want to be Free?
In her proposal, Alison emphasizes that, although libraries spend much time focused on advocating for open data, building infrastructures to support open data sharing by our researchers, and teaching users to find open data; academic libraries themselves seem to be reluctant "to routinely and openly share the data that they collect about the costs and use of their services and resources". The proposed research will explore:
- Understanding of how our current data sharing practices compare to the broader academic library community;
- How/whether our practices could be adjusted to align with the current growing culture of open data; and
- Providing an opportunity for our libraries to lead by example and demonstrate to our faculty and students the benefits of sharing data openly.
2015 CAUL-CBUA Collaborative Research & Innovation Grant Winners
Final ReportSuzanne van den Hoogen, Public Services Librarian at St. Francis Xavier University and Kristel Fleuren-Hunter, Children's Services Librarian at Pictou Antigonish Regional Library were awarded $1,000 to help support their project, At Your Leisure: Providing leisure reading materials to a university community through an academic and public library initiative.
In their proposal, Suzanne and Kristel emphasize "the benefits of leisure reading to the individual are many and include lifelong learning, increased literacy, benefits to mental health, and reading for the simple pleasure of reading". The proposed research will explore the role for leisure reading within the university community.
2013 CAUL-CBUA Collaborative Research & Innovation Grant Winners
- Creighton Barrett, Digital Archivist at Dalhousie University Libraries, was awarded a grant of $1,000 for his proposed study, Investigation of Sponsorship, Copyright, and Intellectual Property Issues Surrounding Helen Creighton’s Folk Song Recordings. Creighton noted that, “The grant allows me to start developing my personal research interests in a more official capacity. I became interested in archives as a career after conducting research on the Helen Creighton fonds as a music student at Acadia University, so I am really pleased to be able to continue that research now that I am in my new role as Digital Archivist.”
Final Report - Ryan Lewis, Jeannie Bail, and Amanda Power of the Queen Elizabeth II Library at Memorial University were awarded a grant of $1,000 for their study entitled Internationalization and the Academic Library: What Are We Offering? Canadian campuses are increasingly internationalized places, due in part to growing enrollments of students from other counties. This research study, based on a survey of Canadian campus libraries, offers a snapshot of what kinds of library programmes and services are being made available to students from other parts of the world, as well as where these students are coming from.
Final Report
CAPAL Session Slide Deck
2012 CAUL-CBUA Collaborative Research & Innovation Grant Winners
- Jennifer Richard, Head of Research Services at Vaughan Memorial Library, was awarded a grant of $1,000 for her proposed study of current practices in the management of electronic resources within CAUL-CBUA institutions. It is hoped that this research will assist in “providing opportunities for greater efficiencies within and between libraries, as well as positioning the CAUL-CBUA office and its members to be better prepared to address new consortial purchasing models.”
Final Report - Nicole Dixon, Electronic Resources Librarian at Cape Breton University Library, was awarded $,1000 for her project, Open Mine: Building a Collaborative Digital Repository for Outreach and Community Development. Using the Library’s Bras d’Or Collection, the project will allow community users to “tag and/or add historical comments to digitized Bras d’Or items, ensuring better keyword and subject searching, engaging citizens, and providing context to Collection items.“
2011 CAUL-CBUA Collaborative Research & Innovation Grant Winners
- Laura Syms, MLIS, and Margaret Dechman, PhD, of Cape Breton University were awarded a grant of $1,000 for their study entitled, Factors Influencing Undergraduate Social Science Faculty Members’ Decision to Use Quantitative Data in the Classroom. The qualitative study will explore why faculty members choose to use quantitative data in research and instruction, with the aim of informing the development of a data literacy program that can be easily transferable to other institutions, including those in CAUL-CBUA.
Laura Syms welcomed the Grant, noting that, “CAUL’s support will pay a student to transcribe faculty interviews and assist with the coding et.al. for thematic analysis. Receiving this funding means that we - Dr. Margaret Dechman is my research partner- will be able to carry out the research using our preferred methodology and do it in a timely manner”.
Final Report - Kathleen Gadd, MLIS, along with the research team of Robyn Butcher, MLIS, Martin MacKinnon, MD, and Denise Leblanc-Duchin, PhD, of the Horizon Health Network were awarded a grant of $1,000 for their study evaluating point-of-care medical applications for mobile devices. A collaborative study involving librarians and medical residents, it aims to determine the most effective point-of-care mobile applications. The researchers hope that both the results and the methodology will be applicable to other CAUL-CBUA libraries supporting a medical program.
"This research grant is an opportunity for CAUL-CBUA to encourage and support our academic librarians in areas of research interests that are collaborative and practice based”, said Lynne Murphy, University Librarian at St. Francis Xavier University and chair of the selection committee. “The inaugural grant awarded this year embodies the underlying philosophy of the award. My congratulations to both recipients."
Final Report