The library's going through a budget crunch this year (along with everyone else) and among other things, I've been told I have to cut a rather large percentage from my serials budget.
Problem: my budget only has 5 serials left. Most computer science stuff is available online in some form or other, and our database coverage is pretty good. And a year ago, when we weren't in crunch condition, I conscientiously went through my journal list item by item, and cancelled everything that we were getting in some other form. Leaving myself with absolutely zero wiggle room this year, and I'm pretty sure every item on that list is the favoured stepchild of some faculty member or other, or they wouldn't have lasted this long.
Not many sensible ways I can see to decide which to drop. I could do it by Volume (keep the favourite of the faculty member who yells the loudest) or, as a colleague suggested, alphabetically. Being a computer science type possibly I should come up with something fancier - a fibbonacci sequence algorithm? Not that anyone would notice... there's only five of them. For several months after I was first given the computer science funds I didn't even notice that I had a serials budget.
In a way it might have been smarter to cut less last year. That's a side effect of how our budgets are allocated: the base amount is what was spent last fiscal year, with increases or cuts made on top of that. Another side effect is that we have an odd practice of spending as quickly as possible - having invoices sent so we can pay them months ahead of time - all so the money will be spent before that all important fiscal year-end date. I wonder how much the University loses in interest because of that.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Friday, January 2, 2009
Software Paradigm
Last month I took a one-day class on a qualitative data analysis software package, NVivo. Qualitative data has long been something of a problem for me as a person who is expected to deal with data. I've played with the software, gone through the tutorials, and even helped a student with file import problems, but none of that got me past this basic question: what, exactly, does qualitative analysis software do?
The answer came to me during this class. It doesn't do anything.
Let me unpack that a little.
With statistical software, the quantitative stuff like SAS, SPSS and Stata I'm familiar with, there are all sorts of tools for editing and manipulating and looking at your data, but the point of all this data manipulating is to get it into shape so you can use the software to run a statistical procedure or two. At that point you're done: you inspect your results and go write them up. (At least in theory. My husband the former grad student discovered that one can spend years trying to perfect a model.) But the point of the exercise, the whole reason the software exists, is to run that model. All the other functionality is subservient to that.
With qualitative software, there are likewise all sorts of functions for editing and manipulating and looking at data, many of which I'd noticed previously and some of which I'd even figured out how to use. My problem was that I couldn't figure out what the point of it was: I'm manipulating the data to get it into shape so that I can use the software to do what, exactly?
But the software doesn't do anything - there is no final step, no reason for editing and manipulating the data. Or rather, editing and manipulating the data is the whole point, at least as far as the software is concerned. The final step, making sense of the data, test ing theories and drawing conclusions, has to take place in the qualitative researcher's own head. It's a curious and initially somewhat worrisome concept.
The answer came to me during this class. It doesn't do anything.
Let me unpack that a little.
With statistical software, the quantitative stuff like SAS, SPSS and Stata I'm familiar with, there are all sorts of tools for editing and manipulating and looking at your data, but the point of all this data manipulating is to get it into shape so you can use the software to run a statistical procedure or two. At that point you're done: you inspect your results and go write them up. (At least in theory. My husband the former grad student discovered that one can spend years trying to perfect a model.) But the point of the exercise, the whole reason the software exists, is to run that model. All the other functionality is subservient to that.
With qualitative software, there are likewise all sorts of functions for editing and manipulating and looking at data, many of which I'd noticed previously and some of which I'd even figured out how to use. My problem was that I couldn't figure out what the point of it was: I'm manipulating the data to get it into shape so that I can use the software to do what, exactly?
But the software doesn't do anything - there is no final step, no reason for editing and manipulating the data. Or rather, editing and manipulating the data is the whole point, at least as far as the software is concerned. The final step, making sense of the data, test ing theories and drawing conclusions, has to take place in the qualitative researcher's own head. It's a curious and initially somewhat worrisome concept.
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