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Scoping Reviews in LIS: A Process for Collaboration and Learning
No full textScoping reviews, which offer a broad look at the published literature while maintaining rigor, are increasingly common in library and information science (LIS), as well as the disciplines that research librarians serve. Best practices for scoping reviews have been established primarily through the fields of health and medicine. Undertaking a LIS scoping review project following these best practices, a research team of librarians found them to be applicable to LIS scoping reviews as well, though considerations like document type and time management have more particular implications in LIS. LIS practitioner researchers should use the model for scoping reviews developed for health and medical research, adjusting as necessary. Following these best practices not only increases the rigor and quality of scoping reviews in LIS, but also helps librarians to better understand the processes their patrons may be using for scoping reviews, as university librarians are regularly expected to assist in such efforts
Linked Data Editors: Where Are We Now, Challenges and Considerations
No full textWith the growing recognition of the advantages offered by linked data within the library community, libraries have made a lot of effort to support cataloging and metadata professionals in transitioning to linked data, which has led to the development of linked data editors. Although the available editors facilitate linked data-based input templates and output formats, these tools nonetheless have room for improvement. In this Communication on Practice, the authors compare two notable linked data editors based on their supported features and functions. They then delve into considerations when designing user-friendly and ontology-agnostic linked data editors. Finally, the authors address the challenges encountered by libraries during the transition to linked data production and examine the broader implications of this transition for information organization professionals
Public Awareness and Advocacy Committee: Nurturing Summer Wellness: Strategies for Youth Services Librarians and Managers
No full textSummer brings an influx of visitors and activity to libraries. Librarians face increased programs, outreach, and extra desk duties, while maintaining a high energy and friendly public persona and managing a vibrant and safe library atmosphere.The intensity of summer programs, extra emotional and physical labor, and increased foot traffic can lead to burnout, heightened stress levels, and exhaustion before June is even over. Summer is the most important time of year for librarians to practice self-care, both in the library and at home. Try some of the wellness tips below and find more from ALA-APA’s Importance of Wellness in the Workplace website (https://ala-apa.org/wellness/)
Pay to Play—Publish for a Price: The Myths and Manipulation of the New Corporate Open-Access Journals
No full textAs publish or perish turns into publish and also perish, academic journals have transformed. As I explain in “Peer Reviewing is Becoming More Cavalier, Self-Serving and Ignorant” (Times Higher Education, June 2, 2022); “Academics’ Publishing Options are an Ever Wilder West. Beware!” (Times Higher Education, June 24, 2022); and “Editors Have Become So Wayward that Academic Authors Need a Bill of Rights” (Times Higher Education, August 18, 2022), this is not for the better.The newest site of scholarly misconduct is fraudulent Open-Access pseudo-publishing by South Asia-based (especially Bangladesh) “corporations” with pay-for-play predominantly online so-called journals. Incessant email spamming with disregard of repeated requests to unsubscribe led me to investigate them.That inclination intersected with the increasing failures of other journals’ reviewers and editors. This combined with higher education periodical and business page reports on debates on the movement toward Open Access publishing and its conflicts with traditional subscription and academic organizations’ periodicals led me to conduct a controlled experiment.I chose three similarly named new “journals,” all with the same pronouncements and publishing arrangements. Their only difference is that two charge a publishing fee of 100. Unlike other, more established Open Access journals who waived their fees for a retired professor with no institutional support, none allowed any exception to pay for play
Gift to the Delta, Past and Present: US Government Documents and Resources at the Delta State University Library
No full textThe historic Mississippi Delta is home of the blues, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Delta State University (DSU). In the tightly knit agricultural town of Cleveland, DSU, whose unofficial mascot is the Fighting Okra, is a public university in the heart of the Mississippi Delta. It is here that DSU’s Roberts-LaForge Library houses a mid-sized collection of US government documents and provides access to online US government resources. The library is a selective depository library that receives about 40 percent of the United States government documents that are issued in tangible formats by the US Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP). Also, DSU’s library is the only US government documents depository library in the Delta region of Mississippi
Book Review: The Declassification Engine: What History Reveals About America’s Top Secrets
No full textThough more than a decade in the making, the History Lab and Connelly’s book was extremely timely in the age of former President Trump’s classified documents fiasco. Focusing on declassified (so, by nature, classified) documents, Connelly takes the reader through time in a historical account of how America has traditionally and nontraditionally used and shared information with the public and among the upper echelon of need-to-knows. This question, and the varying accounts of America’s positioning toward freedom of information, inspired his 2014 project, History Lab. With support from his institution and colleagues at Columbia University, as well as foundational support from a MacArthur grant, History Lab sought to apply algorithmic mathematics to swaths of declassified documents to determine how and why to declassifying documents. Connelly maintains that with a continually decreasing budget line and staff ratio at the National Archives, the nation’s archivists cannot possibly handle the number of documents marked as any level of classified. Moreover, as the interest in declassification among top leaders goes down and the number of secret clearances goes up, the public interest in access to government transparency and free information stands still as millions of documents remain classified with no real reason as to why. Even Connelly’s own lawyers warned him his work on declassified—mind you, de-classified—documents could lead him to be questioned under the Espionage Act
Editor's Corner: House Bill to Ban TikTok: Protecting National Security or Limiting Free Expression?
No full textThe recent passage of the House bill that could potentially ban TikTok in the United States has ignited fervent debates across the digital landscape. As the popular video-sharing app, owned by China-based company ByteDance, faces scrutiny, we find ourselves at the intersection of national security, data privacy, and the ever-elusive quest for truth in the digital age
Service to a Beautiful Mosaic: The Information Needs of the English as a Second Language (ESL) Community
No full textThe community of English as a Second Language (ESL) learners is important and growing as the number of global immigrants increases. These English language learners form a community around their need to increase access and ultimately increase knowledge, not only of the English language, but of other services that support their community. Working together to achieve common goals—learning English, seeking materials in their native language(s), getting help for their children in new schools—brings the ESL community together and fosters social connectedness to the community’s partners, including ESL teachers, translators, librarians, and social workers. Reijo Savolainen’s everyday life seeking model is useful in understanding how the ESL community seeks, uses, and shares information. This research paper seeks to understand the information needs of the ESL community and how libraries and information centers can best serve those needs. As part of my research, I scrutinized academic literature and sought out community-based sources to develop an understanding of the information needs of the ESL community. The thematic elements of technology use, community partnership and outreach, and moving beyond books are relevant not only to supporting the ESL community but also to fostering connection and engagement with the community at large
Inclusive Collecting, Inclusive Cataloging: Acquiring and Describing Award-winning Books Honoring Diverse Experiences
No full textWhile libraries have always had a mission of collecting materials to serve their users, in the last few decades this mission has been more explicitly focused on the diverse identities represented within the collection. As purchasing has shifted toward more automated models, such as e-book packages and demand-driven acquisitions, there is a need to supplement these strategies with deliberate selection of works that will bring the collection closer to being inclusive. This article describes a joint project of Temple University Libraries’ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) committee and Metadata and Digitization Services (MADS) department. The intent of this project was to make both the OPAC and the collection more useful, welcoming, and inclusive. The project has two main components: purchasing winners and finalists of awards representing diverse populations and then enhancing records to ensure that these works are cataloged in a way that accurately highlights those identities. Winners of selected awards are labeled as a distinct collection in the catalog. In the first year of the project, the collection included 290 titles, of which 45 percent were already part of the main library’s circulating print collection. Temple University Libraries has marketed the collection using signage and social media posts
Play On! Bee Cave Public Library and the Family Place Initiative
No full textOn any given Tuesday morning, Bee Cave Public Library in Texas is bustling with families. When the doors open, the toddler crowd and their grown-ups, usually sixty to eighty people, gather and head upstairs to our community room for storytime.After a lively half-hour program, those same families stream downstairs and fill our children’s space to visit, play with blocks and toys, and read books. After a while, the group thins out when it’s time for lunch and naps. As the families leave, they have bags loaded with library books slung over a shoulder or tucked into their stroller. This scene will be repeated twice more each week, year around