Determining the appropriate subjects

So life has been crazy recently with a huge project at work and a show opening at the theatre, so I have not been able to update my research journal, although I have been planning and pondering my project - just not making any notes outside of my head. This morning as I was continuing to refine my research question, I had a breakthrough of sorts regarding who the subjects of the research should be.

Up until now I have been planning under the assumption that the subjects would the adult education/literacy students themselves, on their perception of the public library, what sorts of programs they would like and could benefit from, or comparing the efficacy of literacy programs offered at public libraries versus those offered at a separate adult education/literacy center. But now I think that might be the wrong angle from which to approach this research. Based on some comments from my classmates in the literacy forum on the discussion board, they have not been able to find many existing programs that link public libraries and adult education and/or literacy programs. Based on this and the more I think about this project, perhaps the more interesting and illustrative study would seek to understand the perspective of public librariens when it comes to adult literacy education.

What do they see as their role in this type of education?
Do they want to offer these types of programs?
Do they have the expertise to offer these types of programs?
Do they have the resource (time, money, materials) to offer these types of programs?
What is their perception of existing adult education centers and other literacy programs in their communities?
Have they tried to partner with them before? If so, what was the result, successes, roadblocks? If not, why not?

Just some rambling thoughts about this that I wanted to get out of my head. I need to do more research to verify that there is not much existing collaboration between public libraries and adult education/literacy programs to see if this is even a valid research question. Then my next step is to continue working on my literature review and focus on articles that examine the relationship, or lack thereof, between these two types of organizations.

A journey of a thousand steps...

Another new semester has started at SLIS and one of my courses this semester is 705 - Intro to Research in Library and Information Science. Our primary assignment for this course is to draft a research proposal on a topic related to Library and Information Science. This research log is a component of that assignment and will serve as a place for me to record my thoughts, process, findings, and notes throughout the writing of the proposal.

In the past, I've often kept a research log of sorts as I was working on larger school assignments. Usually it was just a Word document where I would jot down quick notes of things to remember, keep track of my bibliography, and keep detailed notes of the reading I was doing. I'm interested to see how a blog format will replace this for this semester and if it will be more or less helpful. I think the feedback portion of a blog will make this a more fruitful endeavor than my previous M.O. of a single private document.

So, let's get started ...