Column Announcement 
Holmes 

   

Hypothesis, vol. 30, no. 1, Fall/Winter 2018                                                                          5                                  

 

Coming soon! Hypothesis: Failure 
 

Heather N Holmes, MLS, AHIP  
Associate Director of Libraries 

MUSC Libraries 

Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) 

Charleston, SC 

holmesh@musc.edu 
 

Wait, what? A hypothesis failure? What is that? And why would I want to tell anyone that I 

failed, let alone publish it in a journal with substantial readership? I don’t want my 

colleagues, and especially not my boss, to know that my project didn’t work so no way 

would I want to tell the world. 

Hypothesis is asking you to tell the world! 

From the time we are children we know that we learn by trial and error. Sometimes those 

errors are pretty big, and even life changing. The key is that we’ve learned and we know 

that if we’re in that position again we should try a different approach so as to avoid 

another (or at least the same) mistake. You’d only walk through fire once, right? 

In our professional lives we tend to be more guarded; we do a really good job of 

celebrating our successes, but we tend to hide our failures or things that we didn’t do so 

well. Then the question “How will we learn if we don’t share our failures?” arises. It is a 

question that I’ve asked many times, and also one that I’ve vowed to find a way for others 

to answer. This column has been several years in the making, but it is finally coming to 

fruition and many thanks to Hypothesis co-editors Carol Perryman and Erin Foster, for 

providing a space for us to learn from projects that didn’t go so well. 

So what does this mean? Beginning in 2019, Hypothesis will have a regular column 

dedicated to failures, lessons learned, or mistakes that mattered. Submissions will be 

expected to describe the research, including the methodology and objectives, provide a 

narrative about the experience, and lessons learned or what would be changed if given the 

opportunity to repeat it. Writing style should be casual but informative. Submissions will 

also be subject to peer review. 

We all have plenty to learn from each other regardless of the type of library that we’re in, 

so it is our hope that this column will be filled with submissions from all types of libraries. 

Our colleagues from the American Library Association, Special Library Association, 

Academic & College Research Libraries, Canadian Health Libraries Association, and any 

others are encouraged to submit for publication. 

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