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Statement of Competency L

In which I discuss the nature of research, research methods and research findings and my competency in retrieval, evaluation and synthesis of scholarly and professional literature for informed decision-making by specific client groups.

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Every branch of science developed the research methods most appropriate to the field. In some sciences, the focus of the research is on experiments, in others on the data analysis. However, every scientific field of research has similar basic elements.

The research starts by formulating a working hypothesis. That is followed with the research of the best ways to design the experiment that would prove or disprove the hypothesis. In social sciences, the formulation of the hypothesis would be followed with a survey design. The experiment or survey generates data which is then analyzed using quantitative or qualitative methods, and the results are then evaluated. Based on the results at the end of the research, the starting hypothesis is rejected or could not be disproved and it is tentatively accepted until data emerges that prove otherwise.

Historical research does not always have a hypothesis, but has some informational need that needs to be satisfied. My research for the Missale Romanum Glagolitice, my EVIDENCE 3 for this competency, was initiated by an assignment for the History of Books and Libraries course. I needed to find incunabula and gather as much information as I could – about the book itself, the printed text, and the history of its printer. As I was born in Croatia, I decided to use this opportunity to learn more about the Glagolitic script used during the Middle Ages, mainly on the Adriatic coast. The name of the Glagolitic script comes from the Old-Slavic verb glagolati—to speak—emphasizing the connection of the script and the vernacular language which it transcribed. The origin of the script is unclear and the traditional theory is that it was developed from the Cyrillic script used in the countries that adhere to the Orthodox rite.

As the explanation of the incunabula Missale Romanum Glagolitice required understanding of the use of the script, and the use of the script required understanding of the history of the Glagolitic church, I expanded my research from the book itself to the history of script and the history of the church. My initial survey of American sources showed that there is very little information about the Glagolitic script available in United States, and most of what was available dealt with the Glagolitic chant and not the script.

Research on the Internet did not bring much better results. There was one web site extensively covering various subject related to the Croatian Glagolitic tradition, but it had limited scientific value because of the strong nationalistic bias. Luckily, the semester before I took the class, I had the opportunity to travel to Croatia and conduct research in National and University Library in Zagreb. Starting with the history of books and printing in Croatia, I chased every footnote related to the scope of my research. In the process, I learned a lot about the evolution of citations, footnotes and referencing, but I was able to gather substantial amount of the data during that phase of my historical research.

I also had the luck to find a number of relevant books in an antiquarian bookstore. Back home I reexamined my material, evaluated and analyzed the information to form certain opinions about the theories argued by the different authors, and wrote the text for the site. Although I tried to be as objective as it possible and present only the facts and conjectures for which I have information supported by valid arguments, the validity of the arguments was inevitably subjective.

It is very tempting, only in the sciences where we can not directly conduct independent experiments, to find data to fit our initial hypothesis. In historical study, critique of which is my EVIDENCE 1 for this competency, Leonard Rosenband argues that accounts of many early industrial entrepreneurs that left numerous complaints about the bad working habits of their work force, gave the wrong impression and that the early factory production was not as irregular as historians were lead to believe. He uses the example of the Montgolfier Paper Mill production as the case to the contrary, and argues that the mill had a pattern of regular and stable productivity, even though the production process did not use advanced machinery or steam power. Rosenband attributes that work discipline to the good management instincts of the Montgolfier family. They had flexible disciplinary and bonus systems, objective hiring policies, a competitive promotion system combined with the paternalistic customs of the papermaking craft, all of which provided the environment that ensured steady and predictable production output.

The critique points out that Rosenband, in a misguided attempt to relate his research with the other articles in the issue, suggested a general theory based on one isolated and unique example and analyzed data out of the historical context. Rosenband’s own book about the history of the Montgolfier Mill and papermaking tradition in France shows that papermakers were never a part of the old guild system and therefore not comparable in work habits to other artisans. Moreover, in 1781 the mill owners and workers were involved in bitter strike, which the owners, with the help of the French government, eventually won. The data presented in the article covers the period which was a decade later and disregard the fact that, as the result of the strike’s outcome, owners had a rather complete control over hiring and the workers.

However, research methods could be applied in a number of situations, not only for scientific purposes. Often it is necessary to gather and analyze data to support some kind of decision-making. At the time of my internship, the UCR Special Collections library was considering installing an environmental monitoring system in their main stacks room. I was asked to research different temperature and relative humidity dataloggers and present my findings in a report with analysis of the results and a recommendation of the best options.

The research for the report was based almost exclusively on the sources available on the internet. As all dataloggers under consideration were able to record humidity and temperature data following similar technical specifications, most of the differences were in the way data could be inputted into a computer and analyzed. The report reviews the ways information was gathered; explained the basis for the recommended number of sampling stations, and then provided a summary of the results. The paper also brings all gathered data into three appendixes: (1) a list of all considered models of dataloggers with detailed technical information, prices and links to the product information or manuals; (2) a table that compares products by their technical details and prices; and (3) a list of the environmental monitoring literature available on the Internet.