Reflecting on my research project and process

It’s now about six weeks ago that I’ve started blogging and this will be my last post – so time to share my experiences with you!

The feelings I've been going through while working on my research topic about the “German National Library” can be compared to a rollercoaster:

On the one side I was excited to learn about this new web tool and once I got into it, I really wanted to keep going. It was good fun to set up the blog, to choose the layout and to download the images and videos. It was also interesting to see how the own blog and the blogs of fellow students were developing over the time.

But then on the other side there was also some frustration. First of all I found it really difficult to find a variety of different material about my topic, even if I have been using all the research tools we have learned in ‘Research Skills 1’. The main problem - in my opinion – was the language barrier. When I was searching through the catalogues of the “Victoria State Library” and “Libraries Australia” I found matching material in the form of books, but they were mainly written in German. My research on databases like “EbscoHost” had the same result; most articles were written in German or not available as a full text. So I ended up doing most of my research with “Google”. I have even consulted the German Google site and had some of the web sites I found translated into English which is probably not the first choice. My favourite web site - where I got most of my information from - is still the website of the “German National Library” itself. I was also a little bit disappointed that I couldn’t find a suitable video about the “German National Library”, but at least I found one that relates to my third post. Another thing that annoyed me a was finding out that some of my links didn’t exist any more when I checked them. Especially the online encyclopaedia “Reference.com” didn’t work for me. I think I have fixed this link at least five times, but then gave up and replaced it with “Wikipedia” which is more reliable in that sense. The web site of “The European Library” was also removed since I had saved the link, but it was easy to establish again.

Finally some thoughts on my reflecting skills during the research process. I have to admit that I found it quite difficult to write down my experiences and feelings during my research process, because I’ve been concentrating very much on the content of my blog. I’m obviously a quite organised person and I “couldn’t” start my blog, unless I had a clear structure about the whole thing in my head. Even if I knew that reflection was part of the whole project, it was hard for me to change the way I work.

In the end I have enjoyed this journey because I have learnt a lot about the “German National Library” and blogging.