A Literacy Center Where? A Public Library Finds Space to Promote and Provide Family Learning Activities

SUMMARY

In the past, mid-sized public libraries left the literacy needs of their patrons to other agencies in the community, preferring to focus on the traditional library roles of being a center in the community for popular materials, community information, reference assistance, life-long learning, etc. As the literacy levels in the community weakened and began to affect both the status of a community and children's ability to learn, traditional services and literacy can be combined into a successful program that benefits all who participate.     

The “Wicked Problem” of Neutral Description: Toward a Documentation Approach to Metadata Standards

Increasingly, metadata standards have been recognized as constructed rather than neutral. In this article, we argue for the importance of a documentation approach to metadata standards creation as a codification of this growing recognition. By making design decisions explicit, the documentation approach dispels presumptions of neutrality and, drawing on the “wicked problems” theoretical framework, acknowledges the constructed nature of standards as “clumsy solutions.”     

The Good Working Mother: Managerial Women’s Sensemaking and Feelings About Work–Family Issues

We use a sensemaking lens to explore how women managers experience and articulate work–life concerns upon their return to paid work following maternity leaves. We focus on 11 women who held different types of managerial positions, including vice presidents, circulation managers, and human resources experts. We found that our participants re‐framed the good mother image into a good working mother role that fit their lifestyles and interests. To accomplish this reframing, participants engaged in three thematic processes supportive of the good working mother image: (a) good working mothers arrange quality child care; (b) good working mothers are (un)equal partners; and (c) good working mothers feel pleasure in their working mother role. These themes and image were both ironic and fragile constructions of working motherhood. Because these themes and images enable participants to make sense of and establish the worth of working motherhood to family members, friends, acquaintances, organizational members, and community members, they provide a reason why middle‐ or upper‐class working and stay‐at‐home mothers may be in conflict about work and family choices.     

Teaching African Studies Bibliography–Information Literacy for 21st Century Scholars

SUMMARY

Indiana University has a long tradition of teaching African studies bibliography. It began in 1964 with Alan Taylor and was taught successively by Jean Meeh Gosebrink, David Easterbrook, Nancy Schmidt, and, for the last four years, by this author. This article discusses developments of the class as they have been implemented over the last four years. In the past, bibliographic tools in African studies disciplines were scarce, and the goal of the class consequently was to introduce the students to those tools. Nowadays, with the proliferation of sources in the field, both in electronic and print formats, the focus of the class has shifted. While various elements of the class have been maintained, the course now has several new elements, primarily in the form of discussion sessions based on the reading of articles and other sources. The focus of the class is no longer on how to find scarce, hidden materials, but rather to develop strategies and techniques to find a wide variety of materials ranging from print sources to oral accounts in libraries worldwide.     

Working Together: Academic Librarians and Faculty Collaborating to Improve Students' Information Literacy Skills: A Literature Review 2000–2009

The purpose of this article is to provide a literature review of articles that include examples of academic librarians collaborating with faculty for the integration of information literacy instruction into faculty members' courses. This literature review is international in scope and reviews articles published from 2000 through 2009. Also discussed are the transition from bibliographic instruction to information literacy, information literacy requirements, and relevant Association of College & Research Libraries documents.     

The Family Environment of “Quick-Witted” Persons: Birth Order,Family Communication Patterns,and Creative Facility

“Creative facility” refers to the ease, rapidity, or fluency with which people are able to formulate and produce novel, appropriate messages. Previous research indicates that people differ in this regard and that the phenomenon is linked to various personality and cognitive-style variables. This study aims to investigate whether aspects of family structure (i.e., birth order) and family processes (i.e., family communication patterns) are related to creative facility. Results indicated a significant interaction between birth order and family conversation orientation such that, for first-borns, higher levels of conversation orientation were associated with slower message production. No effects were observed for family conformity orientation. Among the implications of the findings is the need to assess birth order in studies of family communication patterns.     

Humanities and Social Science Dissertations Published by University Presses: 2010–2014, Exploratory Observations

This study of humanities and social science dissertations published by university presses considers revised dissertations [RD’s] and their salient characteristics. Often dissertations in the humanities and social sciences become the sine qua non for advancement in academia; therefore, it is instructive to ascertain the ecology of dissertations published by university presses. Only revised dissertations [RD’s], and English language presses were surveyed from proprietary data provided by a North American book distributor [Yankee Book Peddler, Inc.] and were triaged for bibliographic aspects as well as for intellectual coverage. Disciplinary alignment, subject specializations, geographical distribution, as well degree of interdisciplinarity, and series publication highlight findings. Library of Congress Classification further articulated disciplinary orientation. Oxford and Cambridge University Presses, but presses are specialized by subject emphases. A significant number of RD’s are interdisciplinary, Eurocentric in subject and geographical coverage, historically oriented across LC Classes, and appear as titles in monographic series.     

Using a Blended Group Learning Approach to Increase Librarians’ Motivation and Skills to Publish

While there is considerable research on interventions to support academic staff in writing for publication, there is limited literature on writing interventions for librarians. This article explores the potential of a blended learning approach to support librarians to develop the motivation and skills to write for publication. The program combines three elements: a formal writing seminar; a structured series of online exercises and mentoring support; and two peer-feedback days. The article suggests that the combination of online and face-to-face activities has the potential to be a sustainable model for helping to develop librarians as academic writers. It suggests that this type of model could provide a context, which is currently lacking, for librarians to develop their identity and skills as academic writers.     

The Irish ‘Working Group on Information Literacy’ – Edging towards a national policy

The authors of this paper provide an overview of the activities of the Irish Working Group on Information Literacy (WGIL) and its role in advancing a national policy for information literacy in the Republic of Ireland.The study focuses on the work of the group during its lifetime including the various activities, marketing and advocacy initiatives and some of the challenges and issues the group faced, in particular, the diversity of the Irish library and information sector and the lack of an integrated approach for information literacy development.The study presents the findings of the report produced by WGIL entitled Library Association of Ireland: Working Group on Information Literacy: Review of Cross-Sector Activity 2006–2008 and Initial Recommendations for Further Action which reviewed best practices and information literacy activities in the various LIS sectors in the Republic of Ireland during a two-year period. The key recommendation of this report is for the leadership of the Library Association of Ireland to develop a national information literacy strategy that advocates for the importance of information literacy as a lifelong and transferable skill.     

"The Farmer's Friend": Radio Comes to Rural America, 1920–1927

Nowhere did the coming of broadcasting have more social impact than in America's rural areas. With radio, farm families that were once isolated by vast distances and poor roads were brought into immediate and continuous contact with the rest of the nation. The United States Department of Agriculture was quick to seize the potential of the new medium and began producing weather forecasts, market reports, and other agricultural programming at an early date. Commercial interests also built stations and designed programming to serve the rural audience. This article examines the arrival of radio on America's farms during broadcasting's earliest years, from the introduction of radio in 1920 to the passage of the Radio Act of 1927.     

The broadcasters’ duty to editorialize

No matter how many years a person has worked in the broadcasting industry, he can only become acquainted with the organizational structure of a very limited number of stations—and his knowledge of these stations goes rapidly out of date. Although there are basic similarities in most stations—the division into programming, engineering, administrative, and sales for example— it would be unusual to find two stations with exactly the same functions, problems, and personnel. The need to know some of the variations of station organization is particularly acute among those students and others who are planning to find employment for the first time in a particular type or size of station. To assist these individuals, their teachers, and all those interested in broadcast management, the following report on some “typical” and atypical stations was prepared.

Both Lawrence W. Lichty and Joseph M. Ripley earned their Ph.D. degrees at The Ohio State University, and have contributed to the Journal of Broadcasting a number of times in the past. At the time this research was conducted they were Assistant and Associate Professor respectively in the Department of Speech at the University of Wisconsin. As of the fall of 1967, Dr. Lichty will be Associate Professor at Wisconsin and Dr. Ripley will be Chairman of the Department of Radio‐Television‐Film at the University of Kentucky.     

The rescinding of the ACRL 2000 Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education—Really??

This is an opinion piece about the decision by the ACRL Board of Directors to rescind its “Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education” in June 2016.     

Catalog Users “In the Wild”: The Potential of an Ethnographic Approach to Studies of Library Catalogs and Their Users

An increasing number of library user studies are employing ethnographic techniques as an alternative to more traditional qualitative methods such as surveys. Such techniques, however, are only beginning to see significant application to catalog user studies. Beginning with a discussion of the applied ethnographic method and its current usage within the field of Library and Information Science research, this article will assess methods that have traditionally been applied to studies of catalog users and present the case for the potential of an ethnographic approach for future catalog evaluation and design.     

“Here be Dragons”: A Wayfinding Approach to Teaching Cataloguing

Teaching cataloguing requires instructors to present and integrate information about the variety and complexity of the field while providing an adequate theoretical foundation for practice. A problem solving pedagogy called “wayfinding” that focuses on instruction about ways to navigate the structural features of rule sets is described. It enables students to learn not only about common rules but also about less well known cataloguing problems (“dragons”), embedding this knowledge in the theoretical foundation of the rule sets underlying cataloguing practice. It provides both pragmatic and pedagogical benefits that mitigate differences between face-to-face and distance learning environments.     

The functional approach to presidential television spots: Acclaiming,attacking, defending 1952–2000

This study examined the impact that instructional technology use, course design, and instructor and student sex differences have on students’ initial perceptions of affect toward the course and the instructor. Participants included 864 students who were randomly assigned to read one of 16 scenarios that manipulated the amount of instructional technology use across two types of courses with either male or female instructors. A factorial analysis of variance revealed a significant main effect for technology use on students’ initial affect, as well as a significant two‐way interaction effect of technology use by student sex. Planned cell comparisons revealed that technology use has primarily a curvilinear effect, whereby students in the minimal and moderate technology use conditions reported higher levels of initial affect than students in the no technology and complete technology conditions. For the two‐way interaction effect, planned cell comparisons revealed that female students reported higher levels of affect as the amount of technology use increased from minimal to moderate amounts of use, whereas male students reported lower levels of affect across the same two conditions. Overall, the results highlight the importance of using instructional technology within a framework of pedagogical methods designed to achieve specific instructional objectives.     

The Way to Open Access - French Strategies to Move Forward

In France, the movement in favour of open access to scientific research output is getting increasingly coordinated and supported at the political level. The CNRS, a leading research organization in Europe and signatory of the Berlin Declaration, has an evident strategic role to play in this development. Various initiatives that have emerged in the French academic world in recent years have led, for example, in early 2005 to the joint announcement, by four major research institutions, of a common policy to promote open access to published material and other types of digital resources, and to set up institutional archives. The article highlights some key issues of this policy, gives an overview of the current and past CNRS involvement in open access and describes the principal functions, as well as the related challenges, of the future institutional repositories.     

Square Peg in a Round Hole? The Framework for Information Literacy in the Community College Environment

Column Editor's Note. Community college libraries are deeply underrepresented in the professional literature and organizations of academic librarianship. As a result, the challenges and successes that take place in the community college world are largely invisible to others. This JLA column lifts the curtain to reveal the uniqueness of community college libraries as described by their most passionate advocates: the librarians who work there. Articles in this column pay tribute to the commitment and creativity of community college librarians by providing a platform where they can share their professional perspectives and stories. Want to write for this column? Interested authors are invited to submit articles to the editor at kimreed@cwidaho.cc.

Standards, frameworks, or threshold concepts? The Association of College &; Research Libraries’ efforts to update and revise the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (2000) have opened extensive dialogue not only about the content of the new standards, but about the very nature of the document. Its proposed replacement, The Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education (2014) took a more theoretical path to describing what an information literature individual understands and how they behave. One common objection to the Framework, however, is that it is too advanced to be applicable in the undergraduate environment, and particularly in community colleges. In this essay, a community college library director takes a critical approach to the Framework to assess its relevance to the two-year college curriculum, grounding the discussion by mapping Knowledge Practices to Performance Indicators in the original Standards. The author recommends that community college librarians take an à la carte approach and integrate relevant elements of the Framework where they are useful without trying to address the entire document.