Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (Journal)
Not a member yet
1552 research outputs found
Sort by
Exploring the Impact of Research and Instruction Librarian Accessibility on Graduate Student Achievement
No full textAre Academic Libraries Doing Enough to Support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? A Mixed-Methods Review
No full textObjective – The goal of this study was to assess global academic libraries\u27 role and activities aimed at achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The paper highlights the enablers and barriers encountered in SDG programming and identifies future directions of SDG research in academic and other types of libraries.
Methods – A mixed-methods review was conducted to address the research question: How do academic libraries contribute to the attainment of SDGs? The methodology included literature searches conducted in Scopus, Web of Science Core Collection, EBSCO’s Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA), and hand-searching. The selected timeframe, 2017-2024, encompasses the introduction of the SDGs and extends to the present body of evidence.
Results – The study found 25 relevant articles with data from 164 academic libraries worldwide. The evidence base indicates limited awareness and examples of sustainability literacy, suggesting the need for new initiatives. Instances of "SDG washing" were identified where librarians exaggerated the impact of their SDG-related programs, mislabeled routine activities as SDG contributions, or used SDG terminology superficially without meaningful action. This study suggests that SDG attainment is influenced by leadership, organizational culture, personal initiatives, and partnerships.
Conclusions – Academic libraries simultaneously address multiple SDG targets, indicating a comprehensive sustainability approach. Positive correlations between specific targets imply synergies that libraries can exploit to strengthen their sustainable development roles. Future research should investigate the impact of institutional factors on SDG implementation in academic libraries and identify strategies to overcome the common challenges in SDG initiatives. Specific SDG targets and indicators should guide context-specific recommendations. It is also advised to develop standardized tools for measuring and comparing academic libraries\u27 SDG contributions.
An Analysis of Anti-Fat Bias LibGuides: Are Libraries in the Thick of It?
No full textObjective – This research investigates library research guides that share information about anti-fat bias to support weight-inclusive education or practice. By analyzing these guides, we seek to understand how academic librarians are engaging in this work and how they can continue to support weight inclusivity as educators, proponents of information literacy, and interdisciplinary partners.
Methods – The authors searched for and screened publicly available LibGuides from academic libraries that included content about anti-fat bias, weight stigma, and/or body liberation. Relevant guides were then evaluated with an original framework to examine their content for insight about their target audience and context.
Results – The authors identified and analyzed 36 relevant LibGuides, predominantly from college and university libraries. Thirty-three LibGuides came from institutions in the United States, and most of the institutions had at least one health sciences program, though eight offered no health-related programs. Thirty-two of the analyzed LibGuides presented anti-fat bias content in a tab within a larger guide, while the remaining few were standalone guides. The majority of guides with tab-level anti-fat bias content presented it as a social justice issue, though a few framed the content in a nutrition or other context. The most popular resource types offered in the guides were books, popular articles, videos, associations/organizations, and academic articles.
Conclusion – Weight inclusivity discourse is growing across disciplines and is an area that librarians are well-situated to support. Presenting anti-fat bias as a social justice and diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) issue in libraries is promising and highlights library workers’ commitment to anti-oppression efforts and learning. Work remains to be done to integrate more anti-fat bias content into academic curricula and education, and librarians should look to engage with disciplinary educators, learners, and colleagues to grow and support this work, particularly in the context of the health sciences.
LIS Program Representatives’ Perspectives on Preparing Students for Careers in Research Data Management and Data-Related Librarianship
No full textObjective – This study aims to contribute a qualitative analysis of the perspectives of LIS program representatives on providing research data management (RDM) and data librarianship training opportunities to their students. The primary objectives of the study are to determine which programs currently provide training opportunities for students in RDM and related areas, as well as whether programs have provided such opportunities in the past and/or intend to do so in the future.
Methods – This study incorporates in-depth qualitative empirical evidence in the form of five semi-structured interviews of representatives of Canadian LIS programs to investigate first-hand perspectives on the RDM and data-related opportunities they can provide to their students.
Results – The interviews identified five major themes related to LIS programs’ RDM and data-related training offerings, including the range of formal and informal opportunities currently available in the programs; the ways in which the representatives would mentor and advise students interested in RDM or related career paths; the challenges posed by both the lack of instructors for RDM and data-related courses, and the lack of students who are interested in, or ready to pursue, data-related careers; the need for programs to develop a curriculum that meets the requirements of many stakeholders; and the effects of the rapidly changing library landscape on LIS curriculum development.
Conclusion – This qualitative study sheds light on both the support that Canadian LIS programs can provide to students who are interested in RDM and data-related careers in academic libraries, and the challenges those programs face in providing that support.
Identifying Socio-Technical Risks in Open-Source Software for Scholarly Communications: Tools, Metrics, and Opportunities for Libraries to Support Sustainable Development
No full textObjective – In the interest of helping libraries make evidence based decisions about open-source software (OSS), the objective of this research is to establish whether tools that automate the evaluation of OSS project communities could be used specifically on scholarly communications OSS (SC-OSS) projects to provide actionable insights for libraries to guide strategic decision making and corrective interventions.
Methods – Seven OSS project communities were selected for evaluation, chosen from widely used scholarly communications software applications used in Canada for repositories, journal hosting, and archives. While all aspects of OSS projects may be evaluated at the project or network/ecosystem level, addressing the actors, software, or orchestration (Linåker et al., 2022), community evaluation that looks at the interaction patterns between project contributors is the practical focus of this research paper since there are multiple human factors that librarians who may not be software developers can impact. We identified a community analysis tool called csDetector (Almarimi et al., 2021) from the software engineering literature. This tool was chosen based on two main criteria: 1) ability to analyze data from GitHub repositories (the code sharing platform used by all selected SC-OSS projects) and 2) capacity to automatically produce results without manual intervention. Since some of the seven OSS projects were spread across multiple GitHub repositories, a total of 11 datasets from GitHub, each containing three months’ worth of data, were analyzed using csDetector.
Results – The results produced by csDetector are interesting though not without limitations. The tool is complex and requires the user to have software development skills to use it effectively. It lacked sufficient documentation, which made interpreting the results challenging. The analysis from csDetector, which identifies community smells (i.e., types of organizational and social dysfunction within software projects [Tamburri et al, 2015, 2021a]), suggests that these SC-OSS project communities are experiencing knowledge sharing difficulties, weak collaboration practices, or other member interaction dysfunctions that can eventually permanently affect community health. Having a software tool that can take metrics from GitHub and detect community smells is a valuable way to illustrate problems in the project’s community and point the way to remedying dysfunction.
Conclusion – While the OSS community analysis tool csDetector currently presents several hurdles before it can be used, and results generated come with caveats, it can be part of an approach to support evidence based decision-making pertaining to SC-OSS in libraries. The information provided can be worth monitoring (especially social network metrics such as centrality) and their results, particularly for community smells, identify problems that may be addressed by non-developers. Awareness of community smells in OSS can provide a deeper understanding of OSS sustainability as it provides a language to identify suboptimal social dynamics.
Crowdsourcing Practices in Academic Libraries in Nigeria
No full textObjective – In this study, we investigated the utilization of crowdsourcing practices among academic librarians in Nigeria, encompassing all 36 states across the 6 geopolitical zones of the country.
Methods – We employed the descriptive survey design. The target population consisted of academic librarians who were members of the national professional online group of the association known as the NLA where scholars shared professional thoughts and advancements.
Results – The findings revealed a high level of awareness about crowdsourcing among academic librarians, with their experiences spanning various areas such as knowledge discovery and management (RII = 0.76), broadcast search (RII = 0.63), the distribution of human intelligence tasking (RII = 0.62), and peer-vetted creative production (RII = 0.59). In terms of the extent of practice, electronic document exchange services received the highest relative importance index score (RII = 0.73), followed closely by e-payment platforms (RII = 0.73). The findings also indicated that crowdsourcing is considered beneficial for collection development (RII = 0.68) and is perceived to be useful in the procurement of new items for the library (RII = 0.67). However, the study identified inadequate institutional support (RII = 0.91) as the foremost challenge impeding the adoption and implementation of crowdsourcing practices in academic libraries in Nigeria. Other challenges included inadequate electricity supply and unstable Internet network systems in Nigeria which has hindered full deployment of crowdsourcing in academic library settings in the country.
Conclusion – This study emphasized the importance of the adoption and implementation of crowdsourcing practices in academic libraries in Nigeria. Addressing challenges related to institutional support, electricity supply, and Internet connectivity is crucial to creating an enabling environment for successful crowdsourcing initiatives.
Finding Your Place: Assessing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in an Academic Library
No full textObjective – An exploratory study was conducted to identify the key factors that influence students’ perceptions of a sense of belonging in an academic library, focusing particularly on gaining insight into the perspectives of students from historically marginalized communities.
Methods – Participants were administered an online survey comprising 18 multiple-choice, Likert-type, and open-ended questions. The survey was active for three weeks during March and April 2022. Effect sizes were calculated using Pearson point-biserial correlation statistics. Qualitative results were coded using thematic analysis.
Results – An analysis of the quantitative data revealed that students who identified as non-binary/queer/gender non-conforming, identified as a person of color, or identified as a person with a disability were less likely to find the library as inclusive. They were also more likely to report incidents of microaggression, bias, or discrimination. An analysis of the qualitative data revealed several key factors influencing perceptions of inclusiveness, including space, collections, displays, art, technology, programming, marketing, staff, and wayfinding.
Conclusion – These mixed findings suggest that while the majority of students perceive the library environment as inclusive, further efforts are needed to establish a truly inclusive and safe space for students from historically marginalized communities.
Crisis Leadership Characteristics Necessary for Public Library Personnel During Natural Disaster Situations Include Emotional Control, Empathy, Collaborative Coordination, and Community Advocacy
No full textA Review of:
Tu-Keefner, F., Hobbs, A., & Lyons, D. (2025). Libraries on the front lines: The imperative for disaster-ready information professionals. Journal of Library Administration, 65(1), 79–99. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2024.2432230
Objective – To determine critical leadership characteristics necessary for library staff in times of crisis and disaster.
Design – Thematic analysis of previous case studies that employed focus groups and interviews.
Setting – Specific public libraries in South Carolina, Texas, California, and Kentucky (USA) that experienced natural disaster events between 2015-2024.
Subjects – Library administrators, librarians, and staff members involved in library services during crisis situations.
Methods – Transcripts from focus groups and interviews, conducted during site visits and online meetings, were thematically analyzed using Boin et al.’s (2005) five critical tasks of crisis leaders and Goleman’s (1998, 2004) five components of emotional intelligence at work.
Main Results – The authors’ qualitative analysis reveals evidence of five effective crisis leadership characteristics that include: 1) self-awareness and initiative in times of crisis that result in community-first engagement initiatives; 2) the ability to maintain emotional control and empathy in order to prioritize staff and community needs; 3) goal oriented and collaborative decision making and coordination of services; 4) provision of clear and credible communication of information; and 5) learning and growing from experiences in order to make decisions in the moment but also to plan and train for future situations.
Conclusion – Based on their analysis, the authors present and prioritize ten key recommendations for crisis and disaster management aimed at enhancing community engagement. The authors also recommend that LIS education programs incorporate instruction on key crisis leadership characteristics and emphasize the importance of continuing education and professional development. They highlight the need for collaborative planning efforts during non-crisis periods to ensure libraries are adequately prepared for future emergencies.
National Survey Identifies Disaster Preparedness Gaps in Philippine Libraries
No full textA Review of:
Superio, D. L., Yap, J. M., Sebial-Guinanao, J. M. L., & Calilung, R. P. (2024). When a disaster strikes: Are libraries in the Philippines ready? IFLA Journal, 50(2), 322-340. https://doi.org/10.1177/03400352231222039
Objective – To assess the level of disaster preparedness and management practices of Philippine libraries.
Design – Web-based survey questionnaire.
Setting – Online survey conducted between March and May 2019.
Subjects – Ninety head librarians or officers-in-charge of academic (52), school (24), public (8), or special (6) libraries in the Philippines.
Methods – Participants were recruited online by convenience and snowball sampling. Invitations were posted on the Facebook pages of various library associations and councils and shared through personal posts and messages.
Main Results – Thirty-nine (43%) of the respondents indicated that their libraries had experienced at least one natural or human-caused disaster between 2009 and 2019, including earthquakes (18%), floods (18%), typhoons (16%), and fires (10%). However, only 21 (23%) of the surveyed libraries had a formal disaster management plan (DMP). Limited financial (51%) and human (41%) resources were the most frequently identified constraints for the lack of DMP. Even so, most libraries did employ some preparedness measures, such as fire and theft alarms (63%), emergency kits (59%), or scheduled trainings or drills (46%).
Conclusion – Noting the limited capacity to prepare for and respond to disasters at most Philippine libraries, the researchers called for systematic interventions by national and local government agencies and library associations to provide the necessary resources and training to improve knowledge around and capabilities for disaster resilience across all types of libraries.