IOPN Journals (Illinois Open Publishing Network)
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Bridging the Literal Gap to Develop New Research Partnerships
Get PDFThe School Library Media Special Interest Group session offered multiple opportunities to “bridge the gap” between passive listening to the research of others and active engagement in the research of others through collaborations. Developing research collaborations informs future practice through teaching and learning, as well as in practice. As one example of a research project, Dr. Tara Zimmerman presented her study “Awareness and Critical Thinking (ACT) Program: How School Librarians Can Teach Children to Detect and Avoid Misinformation”. Dr. Zimmerman’s project is funded by a three-year early career grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
The spread of misinformation is a recognized threat to democratic societies, and children are particularly susceptible due to increased use of digital technology, particularly in education. The Awareness and Critical Thinking (ACT) Program is a proposed research project to investigate and strengthen school librarians’ role in educating students about the dangers of misinformation, how to detect it, and avoid it. Based on a survey of school librarians, curriculum will be developed and piloted in several states. Finally, the fully scaffolded, flexible curriculum will be made available to all schools, supplemented with teaching tips and examples gained from the program.
This research on teaching children to identify misinformation segued smoothly into more active participation in “Speed Dating a Researcher.” Opportunities to confer one-to-one with other researchers in the field of school librarianship are rare. By "thin-slicing” or using limited information from a narrow period of experience, we can draw conclusions which may be as good as, or even better than, carefully planned and considered ones (Gladwell, 2007). One example of thin slicing is speed dating. Through this matchmaking process, eligible research partners had the opportunity to meet new potential partners in a very short period. Rows of chairs were arranged to seat participants knee-to-knee so that attendees literally needed to “bridge the gap” between to chat about their research. Participants rotated to meet each other over a series of short "dates" lasting five minutes. Participants were encouraged to discuss their own research, research that they have read about and found interesting, or a possible future research project. At the end of each interval, the conveners rang a bell to signal the participants to move on to the next date. At the end of the event participants submitted to the conveners a list of who they would like to provide their contact information to. When matches were made, contact information was forwarded to both parties. Contact information was not traded during the initial meeting to reduce pressure to accept or reject a researcher in person.
Participants were informed of these activities prior to the conference at the SIG business meeting and through the SIG listserv. They were encouraged to bring their ideas and business cards with them to prepare for making new research partnerships. Nametags and forms to request matches were supplied at the event to actively engage participants in this collaborative process
The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Future Workforce: The Case of Advanced Manufacturing
Get PDFThis research examines the extent to which Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology could impact different advanced manufacturing (AM) workforce competencies and technicians’ readiness for AI. A sequential explanatory mixed-method approach is applied to understand what knowledge, skills, and abilities of the AM workforce could be replaced or augmented by AI technology, and how the skill profiles of available AM jobs could change in the presence of AI deployment. The first phase of the research applies natural language processing to examine the competency requirements inherent in AI patents and comparing them to the U.S. Department of Labor’s AM Job Competency Model. The second phase builds upon the findings of the first phase through the expert panel review conducted by the focus group interview. The study found that while there is not complete topical overlap between the AI patents and the AM Competency Model, they do reflect each other in some of the key areas such as data, device, information, and system. Also, AI technology has the potential to perform certain activities related to identify, process, and control. Moreover, AI technology functions overlap with a significant proportion of, academic competencies, workplace competencies, and industry competencies, with 76%, 70%, and 93% respectively. These results suggest that although AI has the potential to perform competencies in various AM domains, it does not necessarily imply the replacement of human workers. The integration of AI in these domains will require careful consideration of the roles of both AI and human workers to optimize process efficiency and quality
iLead: Preparing Tomorrow\u27s Library Leaders
No full text Dr. Anthony Chow, San José State University School of Information, in collaboration with Dr. Sanda Erdelez, Simmons University School of Library and Information Science, has been awarded an IMLS one-year planning grant to design an Information Leadership (iLead) development program. As a national collaboration between LIS educators, state libraries, and national library associations, iLead will identify curricular leadership core competencies for librarians and library staff, emphasizing equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). Libraries and information organizations face increasing and rapidly evolving expectations for supporting EDI priorities within their communities, and recent social and health issues (CBPP, 2022) have raised glaring evidence of gaps within accessibility and inclusion. iLead will help fill these gaps by convening a diverse group of practitioners, educators, and training experts to conduct a comprehensive needs assessment and to identify core competencies, gaps in current leadership formation, and appropriate pathways for closing those gaps. We anticipate iLead will converge on at least two independent training and professional development learning opportunities – a free Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) and a graduate certificate offered through the Web-based Information Science Education (WISE) consortium – with a third option for onsite training programs also in consideration. Ultimately, these planning activities will advance the three goals of iLead: 1) Cultivate an accessible, flexible, cost-effective, and impactful library leadership program that LIS-practitioner and educator experience inform; 2) Strengthen equity, diversity, and inclusion in both the LIS workforce and within the communities that workforce supports; and 3) Establish a better-prepared internal pipeline for tomorrow’s library leaders.As the world considers a post-pandemic future, library leaders face many complex challenges involving new life patterns, work, and information access. Such evolving dynamics increasingly demand new expectations for libraries and information organizations, and staff, especially as an increased focus on equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) is one of the central priorities within our rebuilding society. For example, the draft 2022 ALA accreditation standards prioritize EDI to ensure its significant presence in LIS professional education. As ALA states, equity “takes difference into account to ensure a fair process and, ultimately, a fair outcome” (ALA, 2022); diversity is “...recognizing, valuing, and embracing the uniqueness of each individual” (ALA, 2022); and inclusion is creating” an environment in which all individuals are treated fairly and respectfully; are valued for their distinctive skills, experiences, and perspectives; have equal access to resources and opportunities; and can contribute fully to the organization’s success” (ALA, 2022). While it is easy to support such ideals of EDI, it is much more difficult to apply these complex constructs, especially within the different personal and work contexts coinciding with ethnic and cultural differences and worldviews.The project will be led by Co-PIs Drs. Anthony Chow and José Aguiñaga from San Jose State University’s School of Information and Dr. Sanda Erdelez and Dr. Rebecca Stallworth from Simmons University School of Library and Information Science – together will govern vision, collaboration, and deliverable objectives. To support day-to-day efforts, iLead will be managed by two co-directors, Dr. Sue Alman and Martín J Gómez, and will receive collaborative support from an operational steering committee composed of state libraries (with Nevada and Washington confirmed as of this Phase I proposal and California and Massachusetts likely to join) and national library associations – including the likely participation of the Association of LIS Educators (ALISE) Council of Deans, Directors, and Chairs (DDC) and the Association of Rural and Small Libraries (ARSL). The project will be guided by a national advisory board composed of representatives from various participating state and national library associations, including CLA, WLA, NLA, APALA, CALA, REFORMA, AILA, and BCALA. Current strategic library partners, who will assist with identifying leadership core competencies and recruitment, include the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) in California and the King County Public Library (KCPL) in Washington. Other urban and rural library partners will also be identified in each state by the time of our Phase II proposal.
The project’s planning goals are to 1) Research and identify leadership and EDI core competencies; 2) Design a curriculum outline that specifies measurable learning outcomes; 3) Design a LIS practitioner- and educator-informed accessible, flexible, cost-effective, and impactful library leadership program focused on EDI; and 4) Design iLead MOOC shell. A national coalition will identify and design the iLead leadership development program to achieve these goals. While we will allow for the efforts of the project to finalize our deliverables’ forms based on the needs assessment, we envision delivering a MOOC - a free program that removes traditional barriers such as cost, access, and convenience - a graduate post-baccalaureate certificate, which represents a more traditional and formal professional development opportunity - and, potentially, an in-person program. 
Spectrum Fellows: Catalysts for Change in the LIS Professoriate
Get PDFCritical Race Theory (CRT) is an intellectual framework intended to explain the day-to-day situations that affect the lives of members of minoritized groups. Its main goal is to help bring about revised social and systemic structures, which in turn can ameliorate the detrimental effects of racism and racist systems for historically marginalized and excluded groups. As a framework, CRT stands on a set of principles which serve as a foundation. Although the wording and structure of these principles varies among scholars, some of the ideas presented are stated throughout. For example, some of the main principles for CRT is that racism is ordinary and not aberrational, that race is a social construct which is not objective, inherent, or fixed on any genetic or biological reality, making it a purely social phenomenon, and that CRT due to differences in their historical experiences with oppression, Black, American Indian, Asian, and Latinx individuals are better equipped to communicate their experiences than their white counterparts (Delgado and Stefancic, 2017).
The volatile and increasingly resistant environment serves only to highlight the importance of centering CRT, especially for a field such as Library and Information Science (LIS), but particularly for LIS pedagogy. The LIS field has lagged behind on many aspects related to bringing about racial equality, despite a generalized idea that the field is a pioneer of social equality and egalitarianism (Cooke and Colón-Aguirre, 2021; Ettarh, 208; Honma, 2005). As LIS educators, we must focus not only on preparing our students for the work they will perform but also to present the challenges faced by their chosen career.
Buy in from the field at all levels is required in order to bring LISCrit to the future generations of information professionals, and one of the ways to do that is to clearly and consistently demonstrate how CRT undergirds and informs the profession and its teachings. The tenets are CRT are baked into LIS, one only need to look closely and critically through a lens of intellectual and cultural competence and humility.
In this presentation the panelists will discuss their efforts to infuse CRT into graduate LIS curricula (LISCrit). The discussion will focus on three main initiatives geared at bringing about more discussions and enabling the field’s multiple facets to benefit from the contexts and discussions which CRT facilitates. The panel will take place in three parts, including:
Colón-Aguirre and Cooke (2022) will discuss their article that introduces the LISCrit framework and its main propositions,
Colón-Aguirre and Cooke will share their scholarly efforts to produce an edited collection (Advances in Librarianship) and special journal issue (Library Quarterly), which have been designed to enable LIS educators to better include this content in their LIS classrooms,
Harris will present and demonstrate a digital CRT in LIS toolkit developed through an American Library Association Carnegie Whitney Grant
Adopting the 2019 ALA/AASL/CAEP School Librarian Preparation Standards: A Competency-Based Curriculum Revision for School Library Preparation Programs
Get PDFIn 2020, The Utah State Board of Education announced their plan to redesign all educator endorsements to a competency-based model, which would provide certified teachers additional pathways to earning an endorsement in areas such as educational technology and school librarianship. This was a pivotal shift in the landscape of endorsing school librarians in the State. As one of two higher education institutions serving pre-service school librarians through State-approved university coursework, the program director and teaching faculty at Southern Utah University were closely involved in the two-year process of redesigning the endorsement requirements. This work ranged from the State-level committee to the eventual curriculum overhaul and program approval. Our team advocated for the state-adopted competencies to be derived from the 2019 ALA/AASL/CAEP School Librarian Preparation Standards. This paper provides an overview of the collaboration and pedagogical decision-making that took place in order to proactively respond and adapt to this shift
Information Needs of Korean Immigrants in the United States: Selection and Use of Social Media
Get PDFThis mixed-method study aimed to explore the information needs of Korean immigrants on social media and their selection and use of social media platforms for information seeking in the United States. The research encompassed six research questions and employed questionnaires, diaries, and interviews to collect data. 111 Korean immigrant participants completed the questionnaires, and 16 individuals were selected for diaries and interviews. The quantitative and qualitative analysis incorporated descriptive analysis, Chi-Square test, and open coding. The study revealed that education is the top information need on social media. Social Network Services were the most frequently used platforms, with YouTube being popular for specific information needs. The relationship between social media types, demographic factors, information communication technology experience, cultural factors, and information needs was examined using the Chi-Square test, uncovering significant associations. Through open coding, various factors influencing social media selection were identified, such as social network influence, cultural preference, information needs, quantity, and format. Keyword searches and subscriptions were the primary methods for information gathering. Algorithms, features, result relevance, and information delivery speed were key factors in using social media. The study uncovered information needs among Korean immigrants and shed light on their predominant needs on social media. Moreover, the study presented a theoretical model for Korean immigrants\u27 selection and use of social media platforms. It offered practical recommendations to cater to the information needs of Korean immigrants, such as algorithm optimization, improved search functionality, and language support. The study\u27s limitations were acknowledged, and recommendations for future research were provided
Advancing Anti-Racism in Public Libraries for Black Youth in Canada
Get PDFA critical community-based study exploring Black youth experiences in Canadian public libraries and community-based youth programs. Participants were youth, aged 13 to 24, in London that do not often use public libraries and parents of Black youth. Data were drawn from semi-structured interviews with youth and caregivers. An arts-based qualitative tool was also used with youth as an age-appropriate method of expression and verification. The study sought to: understand why some youth use community-based programs instead of libraries and if this relates to experiences or perceptions of anti-Black racism; identify programs that help youth navigate structural challenges and opportunities for libraries to support them; and understand what motivates youth and caregivers to seek library and/or community-based programs. Public libraries were identified as a safe community space and youth feel comfortable visiting and using library services. However, they identify structural concerns (e.g., lack of belonging, performative inclusion, etc.) as barriers to participation. Black representation, identity-affirming programs, and motivational staff are key recommendations for public libraries that arise from this study
Where Are Disability and Accessibility in Library and Information Science Curricula?
Get PDFWhile serving all library patrons is a core value of librarianship, patrons with disabilities are often overlooked. A contributing factor to this reality is that many graduates of Library and Information Science (LIS) programs feel ill-equipped to serve disabled patrons. This works-in-progress poster presents preliminary results from an analysis of 241 syllabi from 76 North American LIS programs to determine how often accessibility and disability topics are covered in curricula. The analysis also considers how courses prepare students to effectively advocate for and implement accessibility within their professional practice. Preliminary results indicate that accessibility and disability topics are infrequently covered in foundational or required courses. Consequently, students may never develop accessibility competencies during their programs of study. Preliminary recommendations include creating or revising learning objectives and assessments to prioritize accessibility education. Offering required and elective courses that incorporate service-learning and hands-on experience in topics such as user-centered design, accessible facilities and programming, and services to disabled patrons is critical
Is There a Resource for That? The Development of a Chatbot to Provide School Librarian Professional Development
Get PDFChatbots have become integral parts of society, demonstrating how artificial intelligence can automate everyday tasks. This presentation describes the development of a pilot chatbot designed to provide school librarians with professional development. The first iteration of the chatbot was built using the ChatterBot Python library. It generates responses included in a question bank and utilizes Natural Language Processing, which allows it to learn through interaction. Questions are collected in chat logs and used to train updates. The second iteration of the chatbot was built using Python and OpenAI. It also incorporates responses from the original question bank.
The preliminary chatbot responses originated from questions asked by school librarians who needed assistance with developing programming for English Learners (ELs). An IMLS funded (RE-250111-OLS-21) national forum was implemented to determine how to develop services for ELs. Suggestions from the forum participants were then coded and used to develop examples of queries for the chatbot. Many responses are linked to credible internet resources.
Later, additional questions were collected from pre-service school librarians. Students also volunteered to locate online resources and references to answer questions. These questions and resources were reviewed before using them for the chatbot. Based on current feedback, it has been determined that the chatbot is a cost-effective way to provide educators with on-demand professional development. Because the questions and resources in the chatbot are not all-inclusive, it serves as a way for the researchers to collect additional questions and identify new ways to serve the needs of school librarians
Building Data Literacy Training in College Education: A Survey of Current Efforts and Academic Librarian’s Perceptions
Get PDFData literacy (DL) is increasingly viewed as one of the most important foundational skills in today’s professional market (Reinitz et al., 2022). Although DL definitions differ for different settings and disciplines, the core idea centers around an individual’s ability to locate, understand and use data (ALA, n.d). Despite the variety of online professional development programs and resources, college students could benefit significantly from DL instructions in school before entering the workforce. Instructions and resources from academic libraries are critical in building up students’ knowledge of data concepts and basic data skills. The study thus aims to explore the current landscape of academic libraries’ DL instruction and resources, and to gain a better understanding of how librarians perceive their service provisions in supporting the DL initiatives. We examine the following research questions: 1). What DL instructions and resources are provided in academic libraries, and how is DL defined and approached in them? 2). What do academic librarians gauge of students’ current DL levels and the effectiveness of existing programs and resources in addressing the needs? We adopted a mixed-method research design to integrate data from a content analysis of academic libraries’ DL LibGuides from a random sample of R1, R2, and D/PU universities across 50 states, and quantitative data from an online survey with academic librarians across the US. Insights gained are helpful in identifying gaps in training contents, and may imply effective instructional approaches, creative and cost-effective approaches/strategies for DL training implementation