The session was designed for those librarians who are new at research and publishing in LIS journals.  In order to promote participation in discussion, the presentations were given verbally with/without a handout in a small room.  Partially, this was because of the lack of funding for discussion groups.  But the informal setting and a small number of people around the table made the session much more informative and interesting to both presenters and attendees.  The session provided a wonderful opportunity to gather practical tips and to find encouragement. (In addition, I really loved the fact that in a discussion group there are no committees, no annual membership dues, no officers, and no formality.)

The session consisted of three 10-minute presentations and discussion.

• Writing to Write: Kickstarting the Publication Process by Emily Drabinski
• Best Practices for Beginners: Getting Published-From Inspiration to Publication by Lisa Carlucci Thomas & Karen Sobel
• Targeting Teaching Faculty for Collaborative Publications by Linda Hofschire

Here are a few take-aways from the session I wrote down:

• To get movitated, use deadlines, generate good ideas, write them down right away, set aside time to write–get up 30 min. early everyday.
• To become good at writing, write everyday a certain amount in whatever form.
• To overcome the fear of being published, begin with book reviews and conference proposals and look out for call for proposals.
• To find topics to write, look at research papers and check out the topics for further study.
• Network and collaborate with other colleagues.
• Try to incorporate research into daily work duties sucah as instruction, digitizing, cataloging, etc.
• You can use data sets used for other research.
• Bear in mind the tension between topics of your interests and topics that are more easily published.
• Work with teaching faculty and suggest writing a certain section of a paper such as research method if you gathered and analyzed data.
• Have a particular journal in mind.
• Don’t despair if rejected. Revise and send to a different journal.