- PhD scholarship to be supported by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project grant
- Scholarship holder will have an academic and/or professional background in the Library and Information Studies field
- Project will investigate the role public libraries play in remote and outer regional communities
- The scholarship will cover tuition fees and provide a stipend of $35,000 per year
- Three-year project will begin in early 2025 and end in late 2027
- Admission as an online student, based off campus, would be possible
Expressions of interest are invited for a full-time PhD scholarship based at Charles Sturt University to be supported by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project grant, entitled ‘The Role of Public Library Services for a Changing Rural Australia’ (DP250100677), recently awarded to Prof Philip Hider and Dr Simon Wakeling at Charles Sturt University (CSU) and Dr Amber Marshall at Griffith University (GU). The project will investigate the role public libraries located in remote and outer regional communities play in narrowing the socioeconomic gap between rural and urban Australia through seven ethnographic case studies. The PhD student based at Charles Sturt University will focus on two of these case studies and conduct fieldwork in two communities in rural New South Wales, with a particular focus on the role and impact of their mobile library services. The student will be supervised by, and work closely with, the three chief investigators on the Discovery Project to deliver integrated research outcomes, including a research monograph and several journal papers, a national roundtable on rural and remote librarianship, and a set of recommendations for future policy and practice, as well as their own PhD thesis and related publications. The three-year project will begin in early 2025 and end in late 2027. It is planned that the fieldwork will be undertaken by the student mostly in the second year of the project and that they visit both of their two field sites for 3 three-week periods.
The scholarship (subject to finalisation of the relevant documentation with the ARC) will cover the tuition fees for a minimum of three full-time years and provide a stipend of $35,000 per year for the same period. It will also cover all costs associated with the requisite fieldwork, while additional funds and tuition fee coverage may also be available. It is intended to support full-time study beginning in March 2025, although a later start may be negotiable. Admission as an online student, based off campus, would be possible, with funds available to travel to one face-to-face project team meeting in Wagga Wagga, NSW a year.
Eligible applicants would normally hold an advanced academic qualification (e.g., a Masters or honours degree) with a research component. However, applicants may also be eligible if they have authored two or more peer reviewed publications. It is expected that the scholarship holder will have an academic and/or professional background in the field of Library and Information Studies.
If you would like to submit an expression of interest, please do so by emailing Prof Philip Hider at phider@csu.edu.au, providing a current CV and a one-page EOI, by Friday 24 January 2025.
If you would like more information about the project and scholarship, please email Prof Philip Hider at phider@csu.edu.au.
