The Mystery Room: discovering the flexibility of an information literacy-based educational escape room

Abstract

The Mystery Room is an educational escape room based on information literacy and applied to multiple audiences, including first-year students and library student employees. In this article, we explain how we developed the game, its theoretical underpinnings, and why it’s a flexible workshop for a variety of audiences.     

Academic health sciences library Website navigation: an analysis of forty-one Websites and their navigation tools.

BACKGROUND: The analysis included forty-one academic health sciences library (HSL) Websites as captured in the first two weeks of January 2001. Home pages and persistent navigational tools (PNTs) were analyzed for layout, technology, and links, and other general site metrics were taken. METHODS: Websites were selected based on rank in the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, with regional and resource libraries given preference on the basis that these libraries are recognized as leaders in their regions and would be the most reasonable source of standards for best practice. A three-page evaluation tool was developed based on previous similar studies. All forty-one sites were evaluated in four specific areas: library general information, Website aids and tools, library services, and electronic resources. Metrics taken for electronic resources included orientation of bibliographic databases alphabetically by title or by subject area and with links to specifically named databases. RESULTS: Based on the results, a formula for determining obligatory links was developed, listing items that should appear on all academic HSL Web home pages and PNTs. CONCLUSIONS: These obligatory links demonstrate a series of best practices that may be followed in the design and construction of academic HSL Websites.     

Build It and They Will Come? Patron Engagement Via Twitter at Historically Black College and University Libraries

This study is a social media analysis on the use of Twitter at Historically Black Colleges and University (HBCU) libraries. While information science researchers have begun examining how libraries use social media, the vast majority of these studies are situated at large flagship research-intensive universities. Additionally, there currently exist deficiencies in research on social media deployment at HBCU libraries. We leverage, the IBM Watson's analytic engine, to systemically examine over 23,000, tweets over an eighteen-month period, around a set of objective measures including propagation of retweets and sentiment to assess follower engagement. The analysis found little evidence of follower engagement with library generated content. However, we observed a substantial volume of library tweets coalesced around institutional boosterism, rather than library related phenomena. This non-library related content represented the vast majority of retweets, but paradoxically was propagated by non-followers. Additionally, tweets relating to institutional boosterism produced the most positive sentiment within the data.     

THE CONTRIBUTION OF SCHOOL COUNSELORS’ SELF‐EFFICACY TO THEIR PROGRAMMATIC SERVICE DELIVERY

Self‐efficacy pertains to individuals’ belief about their capability to accomplish a task; consequently, school counselors’ positive self‐efficacy is a theoretically based prerequisite for their facilitation of school‐based interventions. In addition, school counselor‐led interventions and comprehensive, developmenta l guidance programs benefit students’ personal social, academic, and career development. Therefore, this investigation examined the contribution of practicing school counselors’ (N = 693) self‐efficacy in relation to the frequency of their programmatic service delivery. The findings indicate that participants’ self‐efficacy scores contributed to the frequency of their programmatic service delivery (48% of the variance explained). Implications for school counselors, supervisors, and educational researchers are discussed.     

Interaction effects of teacher enthusiasm and student notetaking on recall and recognition of lecture content

The purpose of this study was to determine whether teacher enthusiasm and student notetaking activity would interact to produce significant differences in students’ learning from lecture. Three modes of student learning activity (listen only, notes, notes plus review) were crossed with two levels of lecturer enthusiasm (less enthusiastic, more enthusiastic) in a 3X2 MANOVA design. Dependent variables were simple recall, complex recall, and recognition of lecture content. Results showed a significant interaction for simple recall. Also, a significant main effect was obtained for learning activity. Findings are discussed with respect to how learning activity and teacher behavior can function jointly in student processing of information. Suggestions for future research are given in light of limitations to the present study.     

Comparison of oil and egg tempera paint systems using time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry

Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) is quickly becoming a critical tool in the field of art conservation. This technique provides high-resolution spatial maps of both inorganic and organic components located within cross-sectional samples collected from works of art. With recent advances in surface analysis, ToF-SIMS can now be used to identify specific amino acids present in protein-containing materials as well as fatty acids in drying oils. For example, the detection of the ion fragment associated with the amino acid hydroxyproline can be used to confirm the use of animal glue in a paint sample. As an analytical technique, ToF-SIMS avoids the need for derivatization/silylation reagents, with no interference by the presence of pigments. Furthermore, the layered systems that are often encountered in historical paint samples remain intact throughout the analytical procedure. This allows for the co-localization of organic and inorganic species in specific layers (e.g. egg yolk paint atop a glue ground). Because of this ability to localize the analytical signal to approximately 6?µm or less, the mass spectral information can be used to produce mass-resolved and spatially-resolve images which can be correlated to previous studies of the same samples. In this study, ToF-SIMS was used to analyze a paint cross section obtained from a painting attributed to Raphael, and another from a painting by the Sienese artist Matteo di Giovanni.     

那一天

When 1,000 words is worth a picture (or story) Every dog has his day.And evidently, so does every minuscule detail of modern society, including the cliché.Not to beat around the bush about it; we’ll just come right out and tell you that, as hard as this fact may be to swallow, today is National Cliché Day.