What We Learned along the Way: Librarian Experiences from K–12 and How They Aid in University Library Instruction

This article shares the perspectives of two former high school and middle school librarians who moved into academic libraries. The move from the K–12 sector to higher education offered them unique insights into working with first-year students as they started their college careers. Existing literature discusses the importance of collaboration between high school and academic librarians. The authors of this article have firsthand experience of how students work in the middle and high school realm, and they demonstrate how to apply that knowledge and experience with college students.     

From the Other Side of the River

Summary

Loyal to long-held convictions of what undergraduates need intellectually, academic librarians ignore the critical signs that they may be failing students and faculty. Unless librarians are willing to question assumptions about how students think, what they value, and how external incentives shape their behavior in the information environment, they will find themselves increasingly at the margins of students' academic life. If there are important questions that beg for answers before librarians can redefine the teaching role of libraries, librarians have probably never been in a stronger position as a profession to engage in the research necessary for meaningful solutions.     

Isn't Being a Librarian Enough?

ABSTRACT

The issue of college and university librarians teaching credit-bearing courses is studied by describing its historical background and providing an overview of the literature. The debate is framed by summarizing the fundamental issue: the degree to which academic librarians benefit when they assume classroom-teaching roles. The roles of academic librarians as teachers and faculty are analyzed in the context of classroom teaching. While academic libraries and their librarians do benefit from expanded teaching roles, there are some qualifying factors.     

When Librarians Hit the Books: Uses of and Attitudes Toward E-Books

Librarians offer a unique perspective on e-books: on one hand they collect these resources and train users as part of their jobs, while on the other hand, they may be users of e-books themselves. With recent increases in research expectations for Canadian academic librarians, this study aimed to discover: when librarians do research, do they use e-books and how often are they using them? This study examines the results of a survey of 392 academic librarians from across Canada. The survey generated data on librarians' use of, and attitudes towards, e-books. While a number of studies examine the use and opinions of e-books among other user groups, this study examines how librarians search for or use e-books differently than other user groups. Results will help librarians to improve their liaison work and make more informed collection development decisions at their own institutions.     

The Effect of Information Brokers on Reference Services:

Twenty-four public and academic reference librarians were surveyed for the purpose of obtaining information about the services if any, that they currently provide for information brokers, the appropriateness of providing reference services for those who market the information obtained, and whether or not reference departments of public and academic libraries should provide competing fee based reference services. Few public or academic librarians objected to providing reference services for information brokers. Academic reference librarians expressed the view that service should not interfere with services for their primary clientele. Public reference librarians generally held the opinion that their services should be available to all and had already been provided for with public funds. Both public and academic reference librarians expressed concern about qualifications of some commercial suppliers of information as this effected their relationship with them. Public reference librarians were of the opinion that information brokers did not compete with the library and the library should be hesitant about providing fee based reference services. Academic reference librarians were divided in their opinoins about the latter.     

The Professor-Librarian: Academic Librarians Teaching Credit-Bearing Courses

Many academic librarians have ideas or opportunities for teaching information literacy courses for the library, outside the scope of their regular positions. Some additional librarians are asked to consider teaching credit-bearing courses for other departments at their institutions, based on graduate degrees they hold in fields besides library science. Academic librarians who face either option are often asked to provide detailed information on how colleagues at other institutions handle arrangements: payment, coverage of library services while they are teaching, and proving their suitability for teaching in a given subject area. Unfortunately, the data available on their work is both scant and scattered. The authors surveyed librarians at 350 academic libraries across the United States to gather and analyze data on these and numerous related aspects of librarians’ teaching for departments outside the library. They also collected and analyzed comprehensive background information on these “professor-librarians.”     

Challenge of Ukrainian academic librarians in an evolving scholarly publishing landscape

Faced with a prolonged economic crisis, Ukrainian research institutes are under pressure as a direct result of limited funding. This has also had a direct negative impact on the functionality of librarians who have seen increasing limitations to acquisitions. Despite economic difficulties, Ukrainian academic librarians are trying to offer their end-users specialized services that involve active librarian mediation in the preparation and dissemination of the results of these users' scientific work. One notable function is to offer aid to users on how to detect pseudo-scientific journals. In this paper, based on a survey of librarians from leading Ukrainian universities, we studied for the first time, the main information resources and tools used by Ukrainian experts to test the validity of scientific journals so that they may be recommended to library users as reliable channels for disseminating research results. These are tools and resources include Scopus, Web of Science, Beall's blacklists, the DOAJ, Think. Check. Submit., and the Norwegian Register. We describe the benefits and limitations that Ukrainian academic librarians may encounter when each of these resources is used. Modern reformation to Ukrainian science has opened up new opportunities for Ukrainian academic librarians. As a result, if they are able to successfully implement such services, they can regain a prominent place in the scientific life of institutions and on the global academic platform.     

Academic librarians: Their understanding and use of emotional intelligence and happiness

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to understand the interrelations between emotional intelligence and happiness through an exploration of academic librarians. The researchers' premise was that academic librarians who rated themselves as more competent in the emotional intelligence dimension would also rate themselves highly in satisfaction with life.Results from the study show that academic librarians self-reported levels of happiness and competence with emotional intelligence that are within average range, however, they struggled to apply emotional intelligence and happiness skills when asked to demonstrate with examples. Limitations are discussed with reference to the survey data, timing, respondents' understanding and concerns around bias. Implications for practice and future research are also presented.     

Collaborating in Research: Embedded Librarianship in the Learning Management System

Academic librarians engage students in the learning management system to provide information literacy instruction and answer individual reference questions related to scholarly research. When collaborating with faculty, embedded librarians deliver the library’s authoritative electronic resources to students working on research projects. Trends in academic publishing and technological innovations make possible online search for a generation reliant on mobile devices. Although students are able to access much digital content available through academic libraries and open access initiatives, they still appreciate guidance from embedded librarians who visit their learning management system courses to explain the complexities of scholarly research and suggest solutions.     

A New Look at the Background and Work Experience of Business Librarians

This study examines the current state of business librarianship. What are the educational backgrounds of business library and information practitioners? Where and in what manner are they providing business librarianship? How do they interact with their peers? Is business librarianship a field which is attracting new librarians? Perhaps most importantly, are business librarians happy in their profession? Past articles have focused specifically on academic business librarians. However, a significant amount of business librarianship occurs outside of academia. This survey benefited from data gathered from librarians from all types of libraries.     

The Academic Librarian: Buying Into,Playing Out,and Resisting the Teacher Role in Higher Education

This article reports the findings of a small-scale study in a UK university. The research investigated how academic librarians experienced the processes of becoming a teacher. As more librarians are drawn into a teaching role, understanding these developments becomes crucial. A narrative approach revealed the challenges faced as they participated in a program of teacher education. Institutional agendas and a diverse student population complicated these processes. This produced a complex interplay between identity and pedagogy, resulting in a lack of legitimacy in the teacher role. This has implications for the way in which academic librarians are supported in such transitions.     

The academic library: Structure,space, physical and virtual use

This mixed-methods study aims to characterize the appropriate structure of the academic library in the information age according to the perceptions of the faculty members who use the library and the academic librarians operating it. Two main issues were addressed: centralization versus decentralization, and the provision of physical versus virtual services. The study population included members of the faculties of Humanities and Social Sciences in three academic institutions in Israel and academic librarians working in these institutions. Qualitative data was collected through interviews with 20 faculty members and 15 librarians, while quantitative data was collected through questionnaires filled by 191 faculty members and 50 librarians in the above-mentioned institutions. Analysis of these data reveal that faculty members generally prefer a concentration of materials—rather than decentralization—and they show a similar preference toward a faculty library model, a combined faculty/departmental library model, and a central library model. Similarly, the academic librarians prefer either faculty or combined faculty/department libraries, but their preference toward a central library model is lower than that of the faculty members. The decentralized, departmental library model was the least favored by both groups. In addition, our findings indicate that both the faculty members and the librarians appreciate the virtual services that the library provides as well as its physical presence, although fewer faculty members than librarians perceived the latter as an important role of the library. Taken together it appears that the preferred model for the academic library in the information age is of large, multidisciplinary libraries that contain materials from a variety of fields and provide comprehensive virtual services.     

Self-Efficacy of Academic Librarians: Implications for Public Services Managers

The question of academic librarian status has resulted in academic librarians approaching relationships with faculty as one of deference, where they cede power to disciplinary faculty regardless of their own expertise. To date, no research has explored why academic librarians engage in deference behavior when working with disciplinary faculty. Self-efficacy, a person's beliefs in their ability to perform a task, may be an appropriate theoretical framework to begin exploring this behavior. This pilot study explores the perceived self-efficacy of Colorado academic librarians holding an instruction and/or liaison role (n = 68) in order to examine academic librarians' levels of perceived self-efficacy and its relationship to faculty status and years in profession. Results indicate that there is not a significant relationship between perceived self-efficacy and faculty status or years in profession but that gender is significantly associated with perceived self-efficacy. Results also indicate a change in self-efficacy as library faculty progress between faculty ranks. Avenues for future research on academic librarian self-efficacy are suggested and implications for public services managers are discussed.     

Reexamining the benefits of librarians' professional writing

While academic librarians are dedicated to continuing education in the form of information consumption, they rarely view writing for publication as a way to improve job performance. This article introduces the basic tenets of the Writing to Learn movement and applies them to librarians' writing for publication to provide an argument as to why more librarians should contribute to the scholarly literature. If the primary benefit of publication becomes what librarians and their institutions gain through the writing process, more librarians and their supervisors should be able to justify the time and effort spent on writing.     

Weed 'Em and Reap? Deselection of Political Science Books

Weeding academic library collections is widely acknowledged as a necessary and beneficial, but difficult, task. Little research has been done on how librarians approach weeding for a particular academic subject area and how they apply general weeding plans and criteria to a specific subject. This project examines the weeding practices of librarians with responsibility for managing book collections in political science and related disciplines through the use of a survey about their weeding experiences and perspectives. While survey respondents expressed similar motivations for weeding, the obstacles they encounter, and their approaches to developing weeding projects to those outlined in the literature, respondents were more confident about weeding and do it more frequently than one would expect from prior scholarship. Open text responses gave insight into how librarians apply broad and subjective weeding criteria, such as currency and relevance, to their politics-related collections.     

On Open Access Evangelism

As librarians take on the responsibility for promoting Open Access (OA) publishing at their institutions, they face many doubts and misconceptions about OA. This article reviews common misunderstandings about OA and reflects on different methods academic librarians can use to address researcher doubts and convince faculty to commit themselves to publishing their works in OA venues.     

Student artists in the library: an investigation of how they use general academic libraries for their creative needs

Although academic librarians may not be fully aware of how student artists use library collections, information obtained from focus group interviews reveals how student artists use academic libraries to support their artwork, what these students seek, and how they feel about their experiences.     

Academic librarian's transition to blended librarianship: a phenomenology of selected academic librarians in Zimbabwe

This paper explores the shared experiences of practices of blended librarianship among Zimbabwean academic librarians to identify how adequately they comply with their dynamic roles and functions. The paper relies on the theoretical constructs from Bell and Shank's (2004, 2007) blended librarianship and Lave and Wenger's (1991) Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP) to understand how Zimbabwean academic librarians practice blended librarianship in the workplace through engagement in legitimate work tasks. The investigators used phenomenology to explore academic librarians' experiences of blended librarianship. They selected a sample of 101 academic librarians and delivered a semi-structured questionnaire to the sample, conducted document research and interviewed key informants from the sample. The researchers collected data from the Bindura University of Science Education, Chinhoyi University of Technology, Lupane State University, Midlands State University, the National University of Science and Technology, and PHSBL80 Library which chose to be undisclosed. Each institution adopted blended librarianship in its way. Four (4) different categories of blended librarianship emerged from the experiences; that is “transcending blended librarians”, “partially blended librarians”, “intermittent blended librarians” and “aspiring blended librarians”, displaying each institution's level of instructional technology and instructional design roles. The study proposes that the “Academic librarian's transition to blended librarianship” two-by-two matrix that developed was in this inquiry needs further refinement. Further enquiries may test the matrix within the same sites or other locales altogether to corroborate if the results are replicable.     

高校图书馆虚拟参考咨询服务对学生信息查询行为的指导策略

高校图书馆虚拟参考咨询服务是支持学生学习的一个重要途径,文章基于教育学原理总结出一些参考咨询员可以用来提升学生信息查询行为的指导策略,在提供咨询服务的同时,激发学生的学习积极性和实践能力,从而提升其信息查询能力。