Critical Reviews • Inquiry and Research 63

Inquiry and Research: A Relational Approach in the Classroom

Reale, Michelle. Inquiry and Research: A Relational Approach in the Classroom. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2019. 136 pp. $56.00. Paperback. ISBN: 0838917848.

How can we as librarians ignite curiosity and wonder in researchers? In her third book, Michelle Reale, Associate Professor and Access Services and Outreach Librarian at Arcadia University, explores how the age-old concept of research can be expanded to include inquiry. She begins this exploration by naming the power of curiosity and its potential to propel research. Sadly, many times, because of expediency or impatience, researchers often bypass this stage and move directly to identifying resources to inform their research. By skipping this step, they miss the opportunity to question and wonder about their research query, and as a result, their final product suffers. Reale argues that librarians should intentionally reclaim this vital part of the research process by partnering with students and professors to promote the value of patiently engaging the research process and thereby establish meaningful relationships with researchers. This will likely require all involved to change the ways that they have traditionally understood research and their roles therein; however, this effort will be worth the effort in the long run, because researchers will produce a better product, will gain invaluable transferrable skills, and will be empowered in the process. It will also require all to be reflective and open to transformation during the research process.

Throughout the book, Reale engages with numerous educational theorists, exploring how concepts like questioning pedagogy, learning-center learning, reflective teaching, and inquiry-based approaches can inform and transform the ways that librarians approach information literacy instruction in its different forms, both inside the classroom and in the library. Each chapter of the book contains helpful suggestions and relevant anecdotes from the author’s own experience as a teaching librarian. At the end of each chapter, there are strategies that relate to the chapter’s topic and provide helpful tips and suggestions for implementing the topic, while also offering nuggets of wisdom and words of caution from a seasoned practitioner. The overall structure moves from a broad exploration of the role of inquiry in research to a much more focused examination of the ways it can be applied to specific educational contexts and practices.

In many ways, this small text accomplishes a lot. The book is based on the author’s reflection on her experience, but it is practical and approachable. She is knowledgeable about how different educational and information behavior theories inform and support her argument. Her hope for the book is that it “will be the catalyst for many to take the first step in changing the approach to research from a tools-based focus to one in which thinking, curiosity, and the search for questions (not answers—at least initially) is the driving force in research” (xi). Her approach is focused on “the need to reorient ourselves to a new way of teaching through our own reflection and adaptive stance of inquiry and the need to be more student centered with our goals” (115). By exploring the different ways librarians can integrate these new ways of being and doing into our approaches to information literacy, Reale offers concrete suggestions and possibilities for teaching librarians, while acknowledging the potential difficulties and resistance that may arise from implementing some or all of