Design activities are fundamental to technological progress. Current design research holds tight to positivism, abandoned and critically opposed to by philosophers, mostly those outside the U.S. Maintaining the positivist view when conducting research leads to significant deficiencies in the quality of research, and to problems in transferring research results to practice. In spite of significa...

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Librarians are being urged to conduct research as one of their professional responsibilities. Many librarians, however, avoid research, because they believe it is beyond their capabilities or resources. This paper discusses the importance of conducting applied research-research directed toward solving practical problems. The paper describes how one library conducted practical research projects,...