My problem statement for LS502 - Research Methods (for librarians)

No one is quite so likely to feel the full punch of the digital revolutions as libraries: ebooks cataloged next to hardbound copies, e-journals replacing yearly volumes, JPG folders becoming archives, PDFs taking over microfiche, tags encroaching on subject headings, and XML getting cozy with MARC standards. While for and against camps argue over the nature of books and the meaning of shiny-new-things, practical questions remain: questions of copyright and budgets and access, as well as questions about the impact to the learning environment.

How does the e-revolution change retention rates? How does it affect leaps of intuition and analysis used to learn and develop? How does it change one's ability to critique a document, to spot gaps in information? The current generation of students grew up with or near computers, but were those devices just a plaything? If so, what impact does that have on continued use? Are digital sources even better for the new student? As universities see class readings digitally distributed, and as online programs expand, how is education altered? How do libraries, the repository of these upstartdigital texts, fit into the new campus? What can they do, and what do they need to know, in order to help students and better prepare faculty for the transition?

Initial studies into retention rates can lay down a foundation. Students of varying groups can be given sets of documents, randomly mixed digital and print collections, and then answer questions and have their responses analyzed. This will set the stage for later studies, more complicated, using similar random groups, all of which can help libraries to understand the difference between e-learning and traditional models.