Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (Journal)
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The Role of Institutional Repositories in the Dissemination and Impact of Community-Based Research
No full textObjective – The goals of this study were to 1) characterize the quantity and nature of research outputs created by or in cooperation with community-based research units (CBRUs) at Canadian universities; 2) assess dissemination practices and patterns with respect to these outputs; 3) understand the current and potential roles of institutional repositories (IRs) in disseminating community-based research (CBR).
Methods – The researcher consulted and consolidated online directories of Canadian universities to establish a list of 47 English language institutions. Working from this list of universities, the researcher investigated each in an attempt to identify any CBRUs within the institutions. Ultimately, these efforts resulted in a list of 25 CBRUs. All but 1 of these were from universities that also have IRs, so 24 CBRUs were included for further analysis. The researcher visited the website for each CBRU in February 2021 and, using the data on the site, created a list of each project that the CBRU has been involved in or facilitated over the past 10 years (2010-2020). An Excel spreadsheet was used to record variables relating to the nature and accessibility of outputs associated with each project.
Results – These 24 CBRUs listed 525 distinct projects completed during the past 10 years (2010-2020). The number of projects listed on the CBRU sites varied widely from 2 to 124, with a median of 13. Outputs were most frequently reports (n=375, which included research reports, whitepapers, fact sheets, and others), with journal articles (n=74) and videos (n= 42) being less common, and other formats even less frequent. The dissemination avenues for these CBRU projects are roughly divided into thirds, with approximately one third of the projects’ results housed on the CBRU websites, another third in IRs, and a final third in “other” locations (third party websites, standalone project websites, or not available). Some output types, like videos and journal articles, were far less likely to be housed in IRs. There was a significantly higher deposit rate in faculty or department-based CBRUs, as opposed to standalone CBRUs.
Conclusion – The results of this study indicate that academic libraries and their IRs play an important role in the dissemination of CBR outputs to the broader public. The findings also confirm that there is more work to be done; academic librarians, CBRU staff, and researchers can work together to expand access to, and potentially increase the impact of, CBR. Ideally, this would result in all CBRU project outputs being widely available, as well as providing more consistent access points to these bodies of work
Information Seeking Anxiety and Preferred Information Sources of First-Generation College Students
No full textObjective – To determine whether information seeking anxieties and preferred information sources differ between first-generation college students and their continuing-generation peers.
Methods – An online survey was disseminated at two public college campuses. A total of 490 respondents were included in the results. Independent variables included institution, year in college, and generational status. Instead of using a binary variable, this study used three groups for the independent variable of generational status, with two first-generation groups and one continuing-generation group based on parental experience with college. Dependent variables included 4 measures of information seeking anxiety and 22 measures of preferred information sources. Responses were analyzed using SPSS. One-way independent ANOVA tests were used to compare groups by generational status, and two- and three-way factorial ANOVA tests were conducted to explore interaction effects of generational status with institution and year in college.
Results – No significant differences in overall information seeking anxiety were found between students whose parents had differing levels of experience with college. However, when exploring the specific variable of experiencing anxiety about “navigating the system in college,” a two-way interaction involving generational status and year in school was found, with first-generation students with the least direct experience with college reporting higher levels of anxiety at different years in college than their peers. Two categories of first-generation students were found to consult with their parents far less than continuing-generation peers. The study also found that institutional or generational differences may also influence whether students ask for information from their peers, librarians, tutoring centers, professors, or advisors.
Conclusion – This study is one of the first to directly compare the information seeking preferences and anxieties of first-generation and continuing-generation students using a non-binary approach. While previous research suggests that first-generation students experience heightened anxiety about information seeking, this study found no significant overall differences between students based on their generational status. The study reinforced previous research about first-generation college students relying less on their parents than their continuing-generation peers. However, this study complicates previous research about first-generation students and their utilization of peers, librarians, tutoring centers, professors, or advisors as information sources, and suggests that institutional context plays an important role in shaping first-generation information seeking
Digital Literacy Skills for Family History Research
No full textObjective – In this case study, an archivist and librarian teamed up to teach an introductory course on family history research for adult learners at their university’s lifelong learning centre. In response to students’ relative lack of digital skills, the instructors developed a new set of introductory skills that they believe are essential for genealogy research.
Methods – Authors conducted pre- and post-course surveys to determine student expectations and the extent to which the course met those expectations. Authors coded one of these surveys.
Results – Course assessment and class activities exposed the need for a set of digital skills that go beyond a literacy framework to assist family history researchers. After analyzing key themes found in pre- and post-course assessment, authors developed a new tool for genealogy instructors titled Introductory Digital Skills and Practices in Genealogy (IDSG).
Conclusion – Archivist/librarian collaborations are an excellent way to cultivate needs-based teaching and outreach opportunities in our wider communities, particularly for adult learners. The Introductory Digital Skills and Practices in Genealogy tool is meant to inspire and assist other library professionals who want to teach family history research, serving as a reminder to centre teaching tangible digital skills as a focal point of instruction
Acceptable and Unacceptable Uses of Academic Library Search Data: An Interpretive Description of Undergraduate Student Perspectives
No full textObjective – This article presents findings about undergraduate student attitudes regarding search data privacy in academic libraries. Although the library literature includes many articles about librarian perceptions on this matter, this paper adds rich, qualitative evidence to the limited research available about student preferences for how libraries should handle information about what they search for, borrow, and download. This paper covers acceptable and unacceptable uses of student search data based on American undergraduate student perspectives. This is an important area of study due to the increasingly data-driven nature of evaluation, accountability, and improvement in higher education, which relies on individual-level student data for learning analytics. These practices are sometimes at odds with libraries’ longstanding commitment to user privacy, which has historically limited the amount of data collected about student use of materials. However, libraries’ use of student search data is increasing.
Methods – This qualitative study was approached through interpretive description, a rigorous qualitative framework for answering practical research questions in an applied setting or discipline. I employed the constant comparative method of data collection and analysis to conduct semi-structured interviews with 27 undergraduate students at a large, American, urban public research institution. Interviews included questions as well as vignettes: short scenarios designed to elicit response. Through inductive coding, I organized the data into interpretive themes and subthemes to describe student attitudes.
Results – Participants viewed academic library search data as less personally revealing than internet search data. As a result, students were generally comfortable with libraries collecting search data so long as it is used for their benefit. They were comfortable with data being used to improve library collections and services, but were more ambivalent about use of search data for personalized search results and for learning analytics-based assessment. Students had mixed feelings about using search data in investigations related to criminal activity or national security. Most students expressed a desire for de-identification and user control of data. Students who were not comfortable with their search data being collected or used often held their convictions more strongly than those who found the practice acceptable, and their concerns were often related to how data might be used in ways that harm members of vulnerable groups.
Conclusion – The results of this study suggested that librarians should further explore student perspectives about search data collection in academic libraries to consider how and if they might adjust their data collection practices to be respectful of student preferences for privacy, while still meeting evaluation and improvement objectives. This study also introduces the qualitative framework of interpretive description to the library and information science literature, promoting use of this applied qualitative approach, which is well-suited to the practical questions often asked in library research studies
Does the READ Scale Work for Chat? A Review of the Literature
No full textObjective – This review aims to determine the suitability of the READ Scale for chat service assessment. We investigated how librarians rate chats and their interpretations of the results, and compared these findings to the original purpose of the Scale.
Methods – We performed a systematic search of databases in order to retrieve sources, applied inclusion and exclusion criteria, and read the remaining articles. We synthesized common themes that emerged into a discussion of the use of the READ Scale to assess chat service. Additionally, we compiled READ Scale designations across institutions to allow side-by-side comparisons of ratings of chat interactions.
Results – This review revealed that librarians used a variety of approaches in applying and understanding READ Scale ratings. Determination of staffing levels was often the primary goal. Further, librarians consistently rated chat interactions in the lower two-thirds of the scale, which has implications for service perception and recommendations.
Conclusion – The findings of this review indicated that librarians frequently use READ Scale data to make staffing recommendations, both in terms of numbers of staff providing chat service and level of experience to adequately meet service demand. Evidence suggested, however, that characteristics of the scale itself may lead to a distorted understanding of chat service, skewing designations to the lower end of the scale, and undervaluing the service
Exploring Topics and Genres in Storytime Books: A Text Mining Approach
No full textObjective – While storytime programs for preschool children are offered in nearly all public libraries in the United States, little is known about the books librarians use in these programs. This study employed text analysis to explore topics and genres of books recommended for public library storytime programs.
Methods – In the study, the researchers randomly selected 429 children books recommended for preschool storytime programs. Two corpuses of text were extracted from the titles, abstracts, and subject terms from bibliographic data. Multiple text mining methods were employed to investigate the content of the selected books, including term frequency, bi-gram analysis, topic modeling, and sentiment analysis.
Results – The findings revealed popular topics in storytime books, including animals/creatures, color, alphabet, nature, movements, families, friends, and others. The analysis of bibliographic data described various genres and formats of storytime books, such as juvenile fiction, rhymes, board books, pictorial work, poetry, folklore, and nonfiction. Sentiment analysis results reveal that storytime books included a variety of words representing various dimensions of sentiment.
Conclusion – The findings suggested that books recommended for storytime programs are centered around topics of interest to children that also support school readiness. In addition to selecting fictionalized stories that will support children in developing the academic concepts and socio-emotional skills necessary for later success, librarians should also be mindful of integrating informational texts into storytime programs
A Comparative Analysis of the Use of GitHub by Librarians and Non-Librarians
No full textAbstract
Objective – GitHub is a popular tool that allows software developers to collaborate and share their code on the web. Librarians have adopted GitHub to support their own work, sharing code in support of their libraries. This paper asks: How does librarians’ use of GitHub compare to that of other users?
Methods – To retrieve quantitative data on GitHub users, we queried the GitHub APIs (application programming interfaces). By assembling data on librarians’ use of GitHub, as well as on a comparison group, we provided preliminary comparisons of these two samples. We analyzed and visualized this data across a number of variables to offer salient insights as to how librarians compare to randomly selected GitHub users.
Results – Librarians regularly use a more diverse range of programming languages than the comparison group, hinting at a broad range of possible uses of code in libraries. While the librarians’ sample group did not demonstrate statistically significant differences from the comparison group on most measures of activity and popularity, they scored significantly higher in reach and productivity than the comparison group. This could be due to librarians’ greater longevity on GitHub, as well as their greater investment in GitHub as a tool for sharing.
Conclusion – Our data suggest that librarians are actively building their libraries with code and sharing the results. While it was unclear whether librarians were more active or popular on GitHub than the comparison group, it was clear that they demonstrated statistically significant outperformance in terms of reach and productivity. To explain these findings, we hypothesized that librarians’ embrace of GitHub is in line with widely held values of “openness” in the library profession
Students Think Science Literacy Is Important and Improves with Lifelong Learning
No full textA Review of:
Holden, I. I. (2010) Science literacy and lifelong learning in the classroom: A measure of attitudes among university students. Journal of Library Administration, 50:3, 265-282. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930821003635002
Abstract
Objective – Investigate student attitudes to science literacy and lifelong learning as outlined in Standard Five of the Information Literacy Standards for Science and Engineering/Technology (ILSTE): The information literate student understands that information literacy is an ongoing process and an important component of lifelong learning and recognizes the need to keep current regarding new developments in his or her field (2006).
Design – Survey.
Setting – A large public American R1 university.
Subjects – Undergraduate students in two classes: Information Literacy in the Sciences (Science group) and Information Literacy (Non-Science group).
Methods – A 13 question survey was administered to students by a colleague of the author. Three categories of questions were asked: students\u27 perceptions of the important of science literacy, students\u27 assessment of their own science literacy skills and students\u27 perceptions of lifelong learning in relation to Standard Five.
Main Results – Survey participation included 13 students from the Science group and 18 students from the Non-Science group. Students agreed that science literacy is an important part of civic literacy and responsibility, and should be taught to undergraduates in the United States. Students from the Science group frequently had more positive responses to statements than the students in the Non-Science group. For example, 81% of Science students either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “Every responsible citizen should be aware of the latest scientific discoveries” compared to 61% of Non-science students. Students felt that their science literacy skills had improved since high school. Most students were confident in their research skills including using emerging communication technologies. Students believed that life-long learning and staying current contribute to good information literacy and science literacy.
Conclusion – Students think science literacy is an important part of being a responsible citizen. They also believe being a lifelong learner improves science literacy
