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1. Introduction
This paper reports on an exploratory application of the critical interpretive synthesis (CIS) method ([9] Dixon-Woods et al. , 2005, [8] 2006) - a systematic qualitative research method - as a tool for improving selector understanding of current research environments and aiding library selection decisions. A new methodology for research synthesis, CIS provides a systematic, empirical method for harmonizing both quantitative and qualitative research. Following is a description of CIS's use to model research trends in a subject area making up part of the lead author's selection responsibilities: the intersection of journalism and popular culture (hereafter referred to as "J&PC").
This report outlines the procedure used to apply CIS to a body of J&PC literature and concludes that, despite limitations, CIS has the potential to generate systematically reached, theoretically defensible conclusions concerning research trends that may lend support to a selector's actions. Recommendations are made for applying the method in a collection development context, specifically CIS's use in environmental scanning/current awareness, collection development training, and formally analyzing local collection strength.
2. The study in context
In order to identify resources for library selection decisions, subject selectors use a variety of traditional tools including magazines, academic journals, professional publications, and publisher brochures ([17] Katz, 1980), interlibrary loan records ([4] Baker and Wallace, 2002), and the input of library constituency members ([14] Hardesty, 1991; [4] Baker and Wallace, 2002; [24] Reynolds et al. , 2010). Recent technological advances have also resulted in the proliferation of additional electronic tools useful for awareness purposes ([32] Yeadon and Cooper, 1995; [11] Feetham, 2006). All of these tools, however, tend to be employed heuristically. Nonetheless, systematic methodologies are available that deserve consideration as potential means of focusing a subject selector's understanding of emerging knowledge in her collection areas and providing sound theoretical underpinning for collection development decisions.
Used from the early twentieth century to the present, meta-analysis is a statistical method for combining the findings of quantitative research studies to achieve more precise results ([19] Kulinskaya et al. , 2011). In the 1980s, [22] Noblit and Hare (1988) developed meta-ethnography - meta-analysis's interpretivist cousin - to synthesize the results of qualitative research studies. [9] Dixon-Woods et al. (2005), and, independently, [3] Bair and Haworth (2005), developed similar methods...