Who Are We Missing? Conducting a Diversity Audit in a Liberal Arts College Library

In the spring of 2021, Thomas Tredway Library at Augustana College undertook an audit of the library's print book collection to determine if there were gaps in representation of the voices of authors of differing races/ethnicities; genders; or sexual orientations. With the results of this audit, Augustana College librarians now have a better understanding of which voices and perspectives are missing and/or underrepresented in the print collection. This article documents the audit methodology; shares the results; and provides suggestions and a toolkit for other libraries to use in audits of their own.     

Accommodating institutional audit requirements within a liberal arts college integrated library system

By using an electronic spreadsheet in tandem with accounts payable activities in the fund-level-specific acquisitions module of an integrated library system (ILS), a library can assure itself of meeting institutional audit requirements. This additional step of T-ledger “journal” monitoring at the payee level does not involve a great deal of time when compared with the frustration of audit trail reconstruction relying solely on the limited sorting and proprietary data output capabilities of the ILS. In addition, true reconciliation with the institution's Business Office reports through use of this dual methodology provides the library with an accurate as well as timely cash-balance figure at the close of progressive report periods. It also enables budget-expenditure progress to be measured against previous calendar or fiscal year periods for either a random or cumulative average history.     

One Academic Library—One Year of Web-scale Discovery

Tonia Graves, the electronic resources librarian at Old Dominion University, described her library's discovery environment using Marshall Breeding's 2010 article “The State of the Art in Library Discovery” as a framework for her discussion. She discussed the library website redesign, the creation of a mobile website, the audit and reconsideration of the role of the integrated library system (ILS), and the implementation of WorldCat Local. The objective of the presentation was to highlight the challenges of revamping the art of discovery in the library and the application of usage data to evaluate the success of the program.     

Women Library Users and Library Users of Traditional Women's Subjects

In the studies of general library use, women use libraries more than men. When use studies of particular subjects are done, women nearly always are more likely to use libraries for information on that subject than men. Yet there are few studies on women's information needs or use studies of traditional women's subjects. When women's subjects are written about in the library literature, the articles are nearly always on collection development, not on information needs. Information on women's subjects is primarily requested in public libraries and is not considered worthy of scholarly concern. Five specific categories of women's subjects: traditional women's subjects like needlework, practical information for the home, information related to a change in life like returning to school or to work, information on women's health issues, and information about parenting are reviewed. Current trends in commercial electronic information systems and telecommunications technology make the issue of information needs research and analysis urgent.     

Hospital libraries: stand up and be counted!

Hospital librarians must ensure they are contributing positively to the organization's goals and are proactive in meeting user needs while making the best use of scarce resources. Therefore, effective communication with library clients is essential. Client audits are useful tools, but response rates are often poor as the audit can get lost in the overwhelming amount of unsolicited mail received by clinical practitioners, who quickly become expert at selecting and culling. This column shares lessons learned through conducting the audit, highlights key findings from the audit itself, and examines ways to use the audit process to promote and develop a library's services.     

Crisis negotiations: A Preliminary investigation of facework in naturalistic conflict discourse

This article views crisis negotiations from an interaction goal perspective, with facework constituting a significant and heretofore unexplored dimension of interaction. We present a three‐dimensional model of facework used in coding perpetrator and negotiator discourse for face behaviors within three authentic negotiation interactions. Results indicate that Restore Other's Face and Restore Self's Face were the two predominant facework behaviors. While negotiators were the primary users of Restore Other's Face acts, perpetrators used mostly Restore Self's Face behaviors. No Attack Other's Face acts were observed. However, of five Attack Self's Face behaviors enacted, four occurred in a negotiation which ended in the suicide of the perpetrator. Lag sequential analysis revealed a general cycle of perpetrator use of Restore Self's Face and negotiator use of Restore Other's Face. Implications of these findings for future research and for training crisis negotiators are discussed.     

A comparative study on source credibility and use in multinational nuclear talks

This study examines US and South Korean journalists' use of sources and their perceptions of source credibility in covering the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear ambitions. In particular, this study analyzes the relationship between journalists' perceptions of source credibility and the media's source use in terms of the aggregate and individual levels. Results of content analysis of US and South Korean newspapers are compared with data from a survey of US and South Korean journalists who covered the six-party nuclear talks. Government officials are dominant sources in media coverage of the talks because of their high level of accessibility and credibility. US and South Korean journalists assigned the greatest credibility to government officials of their own country. The two groups showed significant differences in their perceptions of credibility of South Korean officials, North Korean officials, Japanese officials, and Japanese experts. Moreover, this study finds that individual journalists' perceptions of source credibility were as strongly correlated with their individual use of sources as with the news media's aggregate use of sources. Implications of the findings are discussed in the context of media sociology, in particular gatekeeping.     

Sport and the Transnationalizing Media Corporation

This article contributes to the understanding of how transnational media corporations enter, operate, and are structured in different national contexts. Specifically, it provides a detailed examination of News Corporation's use of sport as an instrument for successfully penetrating national television markets within the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. The discussion is divided into 3 sections, focused on (a) the cultural and economic rationales underpinning News Corporation's use of sport as a core aspect of transnational television market entry strategies, (b) examples of News Corporation's use of sport programming to enter and manage local media markets, and (c) the changes wrought in News Corporation's organizational structure and focus resulting from its transnational sporting orientation.     

The relationships between work roles and information gathering of the faculty at SUNY,college at Fredonia

A survey of the faculty at the State University of New York (SUNY), College at Fredonia provided data for an investigation into the effect of faculty work roles upon information gathering. Faculty roles of teaching, research, and service are the key components of academic work. The extent to which these roles influence the faculty member's use of six categories of information sources forms the basis of this investigation. The findings indicate that there are discernible patterns in the faculty's use of various sources of information and that one's commitment to teaching, research, and service are factors that influence information gathering, although not always in the manner that had been predicted. Additional investigation of the research role reveals that the faculty member's age, possession of a doctoral degree, and quality of the doctoral degree have a relationship with commitment to research.     

Student participation in a DEI audit as High-Impact Practice

During Spring 2021, eight students at the University of the Pacific participated in an internship where they performed a DEI audit of the library's book and music score collection. An internship is one documented type of High-Impact Practices and research studies show that High-Impact Practices lead to higher retention and graduation rates. Deep learning occurred as student interns participated in developing the methodology, evaluating book and music score collections, reading assigned articles pertaining to DEI in librarianship and publishing, and providing recommendations on closing identified collection gaps. To evaluate their learning, the interns were asked to complete three surveys at the beginning, middle, and end of the project. These surveys were evaluated by a mixed methods research approach to incorporate qualitative and quantitative data in assessing the student interns' understanding of library collections, the publishing industry, and academic DEI issues. This study contributes to the literature on High-Impact Practices in academic libraries by describing a unique and valuable way to involve students in diversifying the library collection.     

The Rural-Urban Gap in Community Newspaper Editors' Use of Information Technologies

This is an analysis of the social structural context of community newspaper editors' use of a variety of information technologies, including technologies that can be conceptualized as being (a) compatible with and (b) incompatible with the routine production of the newspaper. Findings were that newspapers in more pluralistic, more urban communities were more likely to use all varieties of information technologies than were newspapers in less pluralistic, rural communities. Nationally, the gap between rural and urban communities with online newspapers was widening. Other indicators of social resources, the editor's education level and the newspaper's organizational complexity, did not explain the newspaper's use of information technologies that are compatible with normal news gathering operations.     

The “80/20 Rule” and Core Journals

This column examines the 80/20 rule, also termed a Pareto distribution, and explains these terms' historical origins. The column focuses on this pattern in the use of print serials, downloads from electronic databases, and citations to journals. The rule's relationship to Bradford's Law is explored, and some of the research pertaining to the 80/20 rule is reviewed. The pattern's utility for defining the core collection and serials collection management is discussed, whereas a number of limitations are pointed out. Some questions for further research are suggested. It is concluded that the 80/20 ratio (80% of use is derived from 20% of the titles), when found as an approximate pattern, is a valid method for determining the core concept in journal collection management.     

Knowledge and Utilization of the United States National Library of Medicine's Biomedical Information Products and Services Among African Health Sciences Librarians

The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) has the largest collection of biomedical information products and services in the world. Little is known of the extent to which librarians in sub-Saharan Africa are aware of and use these resources. The study's aim was to assess knowledge and frequency of use of NLM's biomedical information products and services among African librarians. Forty-three of the 50 delegates at the 11th biannual Congress of the Association of Health Information and Libraries in Africa (AHILA) participated in the study. The findings showed that participants' knowledge of NLM information products and services was low and that there is a need for increased awareness and training in the use of NLM's information products and services in order for users on the African continent to effectively benefit from them.     

Audiences,metaphors, and the Persian Gulf war

This paper examines George Bush's Persian Gulf war addresses as a representative anecdote of Bush's campaign to build an international military coalition. The paper argues that in war rhetoric international audiences should be considered. A theorization of the international audience is offered. George Bush's public speeches are then analyzed as they use two metaphoric clusters. The SAVAGE cluster is used to justify a response to Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The CIVILIZATION cluster is used to justify an American‐led military response. The metaphoric clusters are shown to be persuasive to the international audience as they are adopted and recirculated by this audience. Conclusions and implications of the interaction of these two metaphoric clusters for future war rhetoric are offered.     

Cohesion in children's discourse: Assessment of cognitive development

This study examines the cohesive ties that children and adults use when offering verbal explanations to resolve incongruent discourse information. Age‐related changes in the participants' use of adversatives and causal connectives were observed. The results also revealed that preschoolers were less likely than the older children to use personal referents and demonstratives. Although fewer preschoolers than subjects at the older grade levels used ellipses, by first grade children were using this device to connect discourse information. Unexpectedly, the children's use of additives and temporal connectives did not decrease with age. The findings are discussed in terms of children's ability to retain information in working memory and to perform the necessary integrative processes. The connectives children use to link contiguous sentences reflect their reasoning about how story events go together.     

Marketing Strategy for Children's Services

The survey was conducted to further substantiate and extend knowledge of the vital role of children's sewices in ublic library sewice. The findings are compared with two studies ofsimi- lar inquiry. It was determined that frequent childhood use portends adult use. Family interest, school media center access, sex, and education are significantly associated with adult library use. Adult patronage is principally for personal rather than work or other pur- poses. The findings gu~de the formulation of marketing strategy, par- ticularly market develo ment and promotional policy, designed to live patrons. i increase the use of chi1 ren's services and to develop long-term aclive patrons.