In this section I provide a priori criteria I developed for selecting the individuals from LIM organisations and LIM schools.
Selecting participants in Libraries and information centres
I used the following criteria for selecting individuals (LIM practitioners) from the LIM organisations. To ensure representation from the different areas of library services, I selected at least one staff member from each of the departments in the organisation. And, to ensure that I obtained rich data, the second criterion was that the staff member had to have at least five years of working experience in the organisation. In addition, the managers of the LIM organisations assisted me by recommending staff who met my criteria. The number of participants is presented in Table 10.
83 Thirty practitioners (9 men and 21 women) from six libraries and one information centre participated in focus group sessions. They worked in different departments in the libraries: information technology departments, information services departments, cataloguing departments, acquisition departments, and reader service departments. Some of them had managerial roles in addition to their library duties, while others had purely non- managerial roles. All participants had from four to ten years’ experience in the library and information field. They had different educational backgrounds, mainly from library science, computer science, and linguistics. All of them had bachelor’s degrees, some others had a master’s degree in library and information science or they were currently in master’s programmes.
In each organisation I also conducted an interview with the manager. Eight LIM managers were chosen from the participating organisations. Six of them were directors and one was a vice-director. Two managers held PhD degrees, five others held master’s degrees. Three of the managers did not have any LIM background, and five managers were LIM professionals who held both library and other qualifications. All of them were over 40 years old and had more than 10 years in the library and information field. The managers have played important roles in this study as authorities and participants. As authorities, they gave me access to the participating organisations. As research participants, they gave me an overview of their organisations, introduced potential staff to interview and organised meetings with their staff. I got useful support from them during the data collecting process. They were the key interviewees of this study.
Selecting participants in LIM Schools
I used three main criteria for selecting the interviewees (lecturers) from LIM schools: (1) they represented one of the school's teaching departments; (2) they had at least five years teaching experience; (3) they were teaching subjects related to DLs and IT. The deans of the LIM schools assisted me by recommending staff who met my criteria. In each school I also conducted an interview with the dean. The number of selected lecturers is presented in Table 10.
Fourteen lecturers from five LIM schools agreed to participate in the focus group sessions. Four of them played two roles: they were both lecturers and practitioners. Seven of the lecturers were over 50 years old, the rest were young lecturers, mostly under 35 years old.
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Twelve lecturers held master’s degrees, and four of them were doing PhD programmes in Vietnam. Five lecturers had completed master’s degrees overseas, and the rest held degrees from the Vietnamese LIM schools. Two lecturers held doctorates.
In each school I conducted an interview with the dean. There were five deans participating in this study. Two deans were doctors and professors, three others held master’s degrees and were doing PhD programmes. Three had backgrounds in library science while two others had backgrounds in linguistics and science. Three deans were over 50 years old and were educated in Russia, and two others were under 50 years old and were doing PhD programmes in Vietnam. The participation of the deans was significant for the study. The deans provided access to their organisations, organised interviews with staff, and supplied relevant documents if required.
I also involved eight students from one LIM school in a focus group to obtain their perspectives. They were in their first to fourth years of study. All of them were full time students. In addition, I also analysed the background and academic record data of 150 current undergraduate LIM students. Note that the information provided to me had been anonymised.
Selecting participants in ministries, associations and the IT company
In each of these organisations I decided to conduct only one interview with a key manager and to collect relevant documentary evidence. The reason for this decision was because my intention was only to examine the roles and effects of these organisations on the development of DLE. For this purpose, the managers and documentary evidence were sufficient for providing the rich information needed.
There were four officials, who were also managers participating the study. Two were directors, one who works in a ministry related to educational development in Vietnam and the other working in a ministry concerned with the development of the library and information sector. The two others were a vice-chairperson and chairperson of LIM associations. The four officials had from 15 to 30 years’ experience in education and library fields.
The IT manager participating in the study was a director working for an IT company that was well-known for its industry leading technologies for libraries. He was director of the
85 department of library solutions, and had more than ten years of experience in IT and library science.
In summary, I conducted 18 individual interviews and 11 focus groups with 70 participants. These participants were selected from 18 organisations. To preserve the anonymity of the organisations participating in the study I have given them pseudonyms (presented in Table 9).
Table 9: Pseudonyms of participating organisations
Organisations Pseudonyms
Libraries and information centres
The seven participating libraries were given the name of a place in Vietnam. Their names are Hoa Binh, Ba Dinh, Thanh Xuan, Kim Ma, Tay Ho, Dong Da and Gia Lam.
LIM Schools Six LIM schools were given names of places in Vietnam. Their names are Hoan Kiem, Long Bien, Cau Giay, Ha Dong, Hoang Mai and Thanh Xuan.
Government Department or Ministry
There were two ministries participating in this study. They were coded as Alpha Ministry and Beta Ministry.
Associations There were two associations. They were given names: Delta Association and Gamma Association.
IT company There was only one, it was named only as an information technology company.
I conducted interviews with LIM practitioners, managers of libraries and information centres, lecturers of LIM schools, deans of LIM schools, and officials who work for the government and LIM associations.
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Table 10: Distribution of participants in the study
Organisations and their abbreviations Participants Total CA AC CI RE IT MA LE DE OFI ST DI Hoa Binh – HB 1 1 1 1 1 - - - 5 Ba Dinh – BD 1 - 1 1 1 1 - - - 5 Thanh Xuan – TX 1 - 1 1 1 1 - - - 5 Kim Ma – KM - 1 1 1 1 1 - - - 5 Tay Ho – TH 1 1 1 1 1 1 - - - 6 Dong Da – DD 1 - 1 1 1 1 - - - 5 Gia Lam – GL 1 1 1 1 1 1 - - - 6 Van Dien – VD - - - 1 - - - 1 Hoan Kiem – HK - - - 5 1 - 8 - 14 Long Bien – LB - - - 2 1 - - - 3 Cau Giay – CG - - - 4 1 - - - 5 Hoang Mai – HM - - - 2 1 - - - 3 Ha Dong - HD - - - 1 1 - - - 2 Beta Ministry - BM - - - 1 - - 1 Alpha Ministry - AM - - - 1 - - 1 Gamma Association – GA - - - - 1 - - 1 Delta Association - DA - - - 1 - - 1 IT company - IT - - - 1 1
Total per category 6 4 7 7 6 8 14 5 4 8 1 70
Note:
CA = Cataloguing staff AC = Acquisition staff CI = Circulation staff RE = Reference staff
IT = Information Technology staff MA = Library managers
LE = LIM lecturers DE = Deans
ST = Students
OFI = Officials at Ministries and Associations
DI = Director at IT company
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Table 11: Codes of participants
Participants Notes
LIM practitioners In this study they were called “staff”. They were coded with their library's name. For example, a librarian at Ba Dinh was coded “BD-Staff”.
LIM managers Managers were coded with their organisation's name. For instance, the manager of Dong Da was coded “DD- Manager”.
LIM Deans Deans were coded with their school's name. For example the dean of Hoan Kiem was coded “HK- Dean”.
LIM Lecturers Lecturers were coded with their school's name. For example a lecturer of Long Bien was coded “LB- Lecturer”.
Officials Officials were coded with their organisation's name. For example an official of Alpha Ministry was coded “AM-Official”.
LIM Students They were coded as Student1, Student2 and so on