May-hem

How weird, it is the end of May and I feel like I have been living in dissertation limbo. Oh, yes, that's right, I HAVE been living in dissertation limbo. :-P The IRB approval for the data collection methods changes came through this past week and so I am back to recruiting. I have an interview lined up for Wednesday and that is a very good thing. Motivation breeds motivation and hopefully things will start to role once I see how the new questions work. I am feeling a bit conflicted about not including the direct observation of their searches, since it means I will loose all that rich data. Nevertheless, if the artists and architects don't seek out images in a planned manner, the observation is just going to make the study impossible. Perhaps a future study... one where I have the luxury of time on my hands.

This past month has been pretty spectacular when I think back on what I have managed to do. I have been TAing for a course and taking a course and those two things alone have sucked up a great deal of time. I have managed to do some work toward the dissertation (or should I say I have managed to get it back into my daily routine). I have lined up two participants for the study - an archaeologist and an artist. The first I will interview this coming week and the artists will be done in a few weeks. I am also going to start contacting possible recruiters. I won't know until at least next week if the data collection methods will work for this one group and it will be another week or so to know if they will work for the other group. I should have a sense of how well the data collection methods are going to work once I get these two done. If all seems to be ok, I will set dates with participants. :-) Yipee. I just hope it isn't too late to grab the faculty before they flee for their summer locations.

This summer I am going to teach a course in info science and I am very happy about this. I love the course I will be teaching -- it is right up my interest alley since it deals with the information behaviors of users. Drool. Can it get any better? I will be re-reading (some probably for the 4th or 5th time) lots of the standard literature in this area. Dissertation motivation will keep me very focused on the material and I hope this enthusiasm will spread to the students. It looks like it will be a small course in terms of the number of students. That is a perfect way to begin teaching a new course. The fall will be more challenging with INFO622. It is such an important course filled with some very difficult theoretical and conflicting readings. Plus it is online which means there are no boundaries... it is all coursework all the time.

For right now I need to work on the paper for the course I am in -- it is due on Friday. For once I would like to have it done on time!