Saturday, November 10, 2007

6.4 Further research

While this study has sought to investigate the public library use of whakapapa researchers and has looked at various aspects such as the library resources they use and the search strategies they employ, there are many more areas of this topic that could be the subject of further study.

  • Although the use of computers in relation to whakapapa research has been discussed here, further study could look at the degree to which public libraries supply access to IT for whakapapa researchers. Do whakapapa researchers have internet access elsewhere that they use or are public libraries the sole source of internet access? Regarding the internet, what is the attitude of whakapapa researchers, given that whakapapa is considered tapu/sacred in traditional Māori culture, to this information being available online? Does this have implications for digital library collections?
  • This study focused largely on urban-based whakapapa researchers, but there may be differences between the information seeking behaviours of urban whakapapa researchers and those based in rural areas.
  • Further study could also investigate the cultural significance of whakapapa and how this may affect how libraries, public or otherwise, provide services to these patrons. How do whakapapa researchers feel about how whakapapa information is treated by libraries and archives? Are the levels of access to information that may be considered sacred by Māori, appropriate? Is the physical environment of the library suitable to the needs of these researchers?
  • This study achieved a comparatively low response rate of returned questionnaires. Future research could employ alternate forms of data gathering such as interviews. Ideally researchers involved in interviews with whakapapa researchers would best be based in the North Island so as to have access to a larger pool of Māori population. Alternately investigation of whakapapa researchers’ interactions with tools such as the library catalogue could benefit from utilising observed behaviour or “experiment-conversations” like those used by Duncker (2002).
  • Future research could also investigate whakapapa research in other library or archives environments. University libraries often hold significant whakapapa resources and the use of archival material has not really been covered here. Future research might also look at the role of tribally based repositories in whakapapa research such as marae-based libraries and the whakapapa units/libraries of tribal organisations.

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