COVID-19 has forced staff in academic libraries across the world to pivot from face-to-face workdays and services to fully remote (and, in some cases, back again) with very little time or notice. This new reality has presented new challenges in the remote management of staff that may also be working remotely, or in the building. This column explores some of those challenges and presents possible solutions

Information literacy efforts in academic libraries commonly target first-year students as a way to ensure that students learn foundational research skills at the beginning of their college experience. However, little has been written about different populations within the category of first-year students. First-year students may come to college with a variety of different experiences, concerns, and

Purpose The main purpose of this study was to compare the websites of Iranian medical academic libraries from the perspective of SEO components or visibility in Google, in addition to identifying the differences between SEO rules in the two general search engines of Google and Watson Smart. Design/methodology/approach The present study is of a practical study with webometric method and a cross-sectional

The study investigated the management of stress by public university library staff in Ghana. The major purpose was to identify strategies that are employed by public university library staff to manage the stress they experience. One hundred and forty-four (144) respondents were sampled for the quantitative phase using the Fisher et al. (1998) formula for determining sample size, but for the qualitative

This article explores how ambiguity is present in academic library leadership around the terms diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. It reports the results of an exploratory research study that surveyed library leaders about their responsibility for creating equity, diversity, inclusion, and justice within their own organizations and their perceived ability to do so. The authors distributed four

Academic libraries have been supporting research data management for decades, but are rarely their institutions central research support unit. As more researchers look to leverage big datasets for new insights, research data management is going to get ever more complex. For institutions of higher education to face these new challenges, they need to make libraries institutional leaders in this area

This study was designed to determine the perceived online learning readiness (OLR) of LIS (Library and Information Sciences) / IM (Information Management) students in Pakistan during COVID-19 pandemic. A quantitative approach based on survey method was used to collect data from 340 LIS students from nine public sector universities of Pakistan through an online questionnaire. The collected data was

In response to a marked increase in the prevalence and severity of mental health problems among college students over the last decade, colleges and universities have been expanding their well-being initiatives and programs. No longer limited to health services departments, the support of student well-being has been taken up by multiple campus units, including academic libraries. As well-being has been

With rising costs and limited resources, it has become increasingly important for academic libraries to make acquisition decisions prudently to build a collection that meets its users' learning, teaching, and research needs. As such, Singapore Management University's (“SMU”) Libraries use a patron-driven acquisitions process, whereby acquisition decisions are guided by users' needs and requests. This

As academic library support services for digital scholarship activities continue to expand and evolve, large volumes of digital outputs have been created by, and in collaboration with, library and information professionals who are affiliated with digital scholarship centers. Drawing on a literature review and a 2018 pilot study of digital preservation services in digital scholarship centers, we propose

During the spring 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, University libraries made available digital content of varying types. This article assesses the scope and breadth of content published by 18 Polish university libraries, how libraries compared in their approach to using social media, and the level of engagement and collaboration with patrons during a time when the physical library was closed. Data collection

In recent years there has been growing interest in the integration of contemplative practices into higher education, but little has been published regarding contemplative practices or contemplative pedagogies in academic libraries. Nor have explicit links been made to critical librarianship (critlib), particularly regarding the stress associated with the profession and the “resilience narrative” of

Awareness and understanding of copyright laws are critical in the proper administration of copyright in academic libraries. Data from 38 library staff and 4 head librarians was used in a sequential explanatory mixed methods approach to assess the level of awareness and understanding of copyright laws among library staff with regards to balancing user rights with rightsholder rights in academic libraries

With the recent mass shift to an online environment in the university context and increases in course sizes, the need for online learning management system (LMS) content from departments, libraries, and writing services is at an all-time high. In particular, integrated course content is needed that addresses academic integrity and information literacy skills holistically. To ensure that a large number

We present a case study of a collaborative digital humanities project that was led by academic librarians and participated by IT specialists and international scholars. Through the project, we produced and published two open-access products – a bilingual dictionary of historical government official titles, and an online system for crowdsourcing translations. We also contributed metadata, from the dictionary

The purpose of this paper is to investigate variables that may contribute towards increasing or decreasing the level of library anxiety among Saudi and Omani students studying at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, USA. The study used an explanatory sequential mixed methods design. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with several international students from Saudi Arabia and Oman to determine

Job performance of librarians in university libraries has been a major concern to the university community and stakeholders within the profession. This is evidenced by librarian's inability to apply professional and technical knowledge to practical issues and low productivity in research output. Studies have investigated some factors which influence librarian's job performance. However, there is a

Undergraduate data science education is receiving increasing interest in many higher education institutions in the U.S., with the proliferation of data and data related work and research. As an emerging interdisciplinary study field, data science curriculum is typically a collection of individual data science related courses from different schools and departments, most of which are teaching data science

The identification of the determinants of intention to use and use behavior is crucial for quality decision-making both at the individual and organizational levels. This phenomenon underscores the quest to gain insight into the facilitators of faculty research performance expectancy of online databases (PEOD) with a view to providing policy direction for research-based institutions. The survey research

The Association of College and Research Libraries Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education has replaced the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education since 2016. The survey revealed how college and university librarians throughout the U.S. apply the Framework in their Information Literacy instruction, what barriers they encounter in applying the Framework, the lessons

This case study describes the creation, implementation, and assessment of training upper-level graduate students (Peer Teachers) to teach information literacy sessions to first year graduate students at a graduate university located in a large metropolitan area in the Midwest with a social justice mission. According to student evaluation forms distributed at the end of instruction sessions, learners

This paper surveyed the librarians' perceptions and adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in academic libraries in public institutions in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. The study specifically examined the constructs of librarians' perceptions of Web 2.0 Technologies in line with a model modified by the researcher; assessed the Web 2.0 tools adopted in the libraries; and identified the constraints to the adoption

The purpose of this exploratory study was to determine if academic librarians at The University of the West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine (STA) Campus, Trinidad and Tobago were receiving mentorship support in academic research and publishing and to ascertain their perceptions of such support. Notable findings from the study offered insights into how academic librarians perceived their research and publishing

Rapid use of internet-based applications like mobile library applications (MLA) are depicting the modern era of digital students and literature broadly discussed the initial adoption of MLA among students. However, there is a need to investigate the continuance use intention of applications to overcome an acceptance-discontinuance phenomenon. Therefore, this research was performed for the empirical

Altmetrics are increasingly playing a role in helping scholars illustrate their scholarly impact. One altmetric involves citations in syllabi or analyzing the way journal literature is presented and used in syllabi. This exploratory study uses data from the Open Syllabus Project to analyze citations in syllabi of journal articles from three leading library science journals. Results from the analysis

This study contains the results of a research conducted to know the user's perception about a national digital library system in India called Abhilekh Patal of National Archive of India, New Delhi. This paper aims to gain an insight about the broad scenario of usability studies in India and the researcher has collected necessary data using a structured questionnaire based on a modified criterion containing

The aim of this paper is to investigate how predatory journals are characterized by authors who write about such journals. We emphasize the ways in which predatory journals have been conflated with—or distinguished from—open access journals. We created a list of relevant publications on predatory publishing using four databases: Web of Science, Scopus, Dimensions, and Microsoft Academic. We included

Librarians have changed their attitude towards their role in the academic community. Instead of acting solely as mediators between information resources and the scientific community, they have become active members of research projects and create innovation through information management, including through active participation in the information culture of Research & Development projects. The purpose

As new forms of information are increasingly “active” (i.e., media can change form and is not limited by location, user, or purpose) traditional information practices are shifting to meet the nature of media and the search expectations patrons bring to the library. Although not found in library literature, active discovery information systems encompass how we organize and make discoverable the evolving

The study probed the various forms of discussions engaged in by library staff at duty posts, the frequency of such discussions and its effect on graduate students' research activities. The descriptive survey research design was employed in the study, with a population of 9035 graduate students at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 180 graduate students who

The use of blacklists, as those that are employed in academic publishing, is problematic with or without biases, but with biases it is even more troubling. This is a theoretical paper that provides insights into the problems of using blacklists for research or for assessing a scholar's output. Biases may appear before an investigation is undertaken as well as after. We also explore the case of a low

The keyword lists are rich in terminology and as such, they are also characterized by great semantic ambiguity, which presents the problems of synonymy and polysemy typical of uncontrolled language, which is both an advantage and a drawback. However, assigning keywords has gained particular importance in the current open scientific communication ecosystem in digital environments, mainly in the academic

This study examined the perception, use, and effectiveness of open source library systems by academic librarians in selected institutions in Kwara State, Nigeria. Fifty-eight librarians drawn from five academic libraries represent the sample for the study. The research adopted a descriptive survey approach, using a questionnaire to gather data to test five aspects of use and perception. The findings

This study's purpose is to systematically review the literature to identify the most recent library practices against fake news. Libraries are perceived as an important player against the fake news phenomenon. However, this role is often cornered in a positive self-perception of the work of librarians. This article investigates the tangible practices of libraries, discusses their efficiency, and provides

As information professionals, all academic librarians are leaders. Besides official decision-makers at executive positions in libraries, librarians at all levels lead in a wide range of contexts to accomplish their professional goals and duties. Developing librarians' capacity to lead is crucial for libraries that direly need a competent workforce. For librarians as individuals, it is also of utmost

Librarians empower learners to become discerning citizens through a set of diverse skills and literacies. To cultivate critical thinkers, librarians continue to build innovative practices, even as technology rapidly evolves. However, the pervasiveness of misinformation and disinformation, most recently seen in the conspiratorial worldviews of QAnon, challenges librarians to center critical thinking

The classical theories of social capital identify its two dimensions: structural capital and cognitive capital. The structural dimension is associated with networks and connections within groups, while the cognitive dimension concerns trust and social norms that affect the building of communication and community. The paper discusses the concept of “trust”, which is believed to be a necessary condition

In early 2020, Florida State University Libraries' Office of Digital Research and Scholarship received a small Panhandle Library Access Network (PLAN) Innovation Grant to increase the accessibility of its institutional repository, Diginole, through the creation of video captions and audio transcripts for audiovisual materials. While these audio and video files represent a fairly small percentage of

Roots of Contemporary Issues (HISTORY 105/305) is the foundational, required course for Washington State University undergraduates. All sections feature a term-length research project with scaffolded Library Research Assignments (LRAs) and a final research paper. This research study centered on when and how topic formation/thesis development, source selection, and citation skills develop across the

The study aims are to conduct a systematic quantitative analysis of Open Access (OA) Instruments and Initiatives, justify and develop the methodology for calculating the index of countries' involvement in the Open Access movement. The authors identified all the significant OA-Instruments and OA-Initiatives, which were counted on the basis of the records in their OA-registers. Consolidation of records

This paper presents a reflection on a pilot Augmented Reality (AR) Treasure Hunt created using a free AR application that served as a library orientation activity for firstyear college students. This game sought to aid student wayfinding in the library by directing them to locate puzzles in the library building that helped them reach the goal of solving a digital treasure box. Students reported that

The study aimed to investigate academic scientists, social scientists and humanists' scholarly use of information sources, self-reported digital literacy skills, use patterns of e-journals and differences in scholarly information seeking habits of academics at the University of the Punjab. The design of the study was quantitative, and survey method was employed to achieve objectives of the study. Self-administered

Between spring 2018 and fall 2019 four librarians in the University Library at California State University, Los Angeles developed and launched an interactive online information literacy tutorial for first-year undergraduate students. The Library Research Tutorial for First-year Introduction to Higher Education Courses updates the functionality and content of the University Library's previous 2015 tutorial

Developing and maintaining a holistic information literacy program at institutions of professional and continuing studies that have experienced fast growth can be quite challenging. Accordingly, Georgetown University's School of Continuing Studies (SCS) Library utilized curriculum mapping to improve its curricular cohesiveness, scaffolding, and goal achievement. This study reports on the method's application

This study aims to explore the potentials of using mobile technologies (m-techs) to enhance academic library services delivery in the distance learning environment in Ghana. The objectives are to assess the students' awareness and appreciation for mobile technology-based library services; and to assess the librarians' competencies in switching to delivering mobile technology-based services. Using a

This study aims to evaluate the perceptions of librarians with regard to artificial intelligence in academic libraries. An online survey of 24 questions was distributed through library distribution lists in Canada and the United States at the end of the summer in 2019. Findings suggest that librarians do not agree on a definition of artificial intelligence which is in keeping with this emerging field

Since its inception in 2007, Springshare's LibGuides has become a popular content management system (CMS) with academic libraries. The challenges of managing LibGuides content through a cohesive content strategy have not been well documented. The researchers conducted a survey of academic libraries that were using the LibGuides platform in Fall 2019 to determine how institutions are managing content

Digital Humanities (DH) is a relatively new and dynamic field that involves a wide range of disciplines. There is a need to identify a set of competencies for professionals in this growing field. The purpose of this study is to assess the current state of required and desirable qualifications and knowledge described in the job advertisements regarding DH-related positions. 72 unique job advertisements

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between librarians' perception of the difficulty of patron consultations and a variety of factors that characterize these interactions in the context of an academic library at a large public university. The study also provides insight into how changes in library service operations due to the global COVID-19 pandemic have affected the perceived

High schools try to help their students become college-career ready. Information literacy is part of that picture, although the role of teacher librarians is less clear. While the value of librarians within the education environment has been demonstrated, less research about the transferability between high school and higher education was evident. The research question emerged: what relationship exists

Librarians have experimented with a variety of instructional models, from one-shots to tutorials to semester-long information literacy courses, to increase the impact of information literacy instruction. This study assessed the information literacy gains of students who participated in the pilot of a new instructional model, in which librarians developed and taught a first-year composition course aimed

This study explores practicum students' experiences of information literacy (IL) in work placement settings and describes the various ways they experience IL while learning in these settings. Using phenomenography to conduct and analyze interviews with practicum students in health and community programs at an undergraduate university, this study finds that in practicum settings, learners understand

In the 21st-century knowledge society, academic libraries are central to institutions and are challenged for their relevance amidst disruptive technological innovations and competition. This paper aims to understand the pattern of library funding in the top Indian Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) by comparing their library budgets. Using data from the National Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF)

Although library seating plays an undeniable role in the use and arrangement of multifunctional spaces, it rarely is the sole focus of scholarly inquiry. However, we were able to study the topic more extensively after furniture was moved and integrated into another building during an initial phase of an ongoing renovation project at our academic library. We conducted a written snapshot survey of patrons

This study extended the concept of knowledge-based dynamic capabilities from a firm level to individual level and investigated the relationship between big data management capabilities and innovative performance of university librarians in selected Ghanaian universities. The role of big data value perception as a mediator was also assessed using the PLS-SEM. Data were validated with Cronbach's alpha

Much academic library instruction focuses on teaching students to search strategically. However, the same approaches may not apply when teaching how to explore a digital archive. In order to develop appropriate instructional design, the authors conducted an exploratory study of their students reflections on initial classroom experiences with a digital archive. This study pilots a novel application

The rapid demand of information access on internet has created the possibility of retrieving documents in multiple languages. This is even possible if majority of the people are not proficient in the internet main language. Multilingual Information Retrieval (MLIR) accepts queries in numerous languages and retrieves the results in the demanded language probe by the users. Pakistan is a country where

Stereotypes regarding employees of the so-called millennial generation suggest that they like to change jobs frequently and prefer flexibility to long-term job stability. Library administrators who assume this stereotype to be true may believe (or assert) that faculty status and the opportunity to earn tenure are not as important to millennials as to older librarians. This belief may even lead administrators

Libraries increasingly seek to support the mental health and well-being of students. This study reports on the results of a survey examining the range of such support activities offered by UK academic libraries prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the pandemic libraries' emphasis was on new library specific services such as a fiction collection, a type of initiative taken to proactively

This article reviews literature on information seeking theories and discusses the relevance of those theories to the information seeking habits of faculty with research expectations. A new model is constructed to depict the factors influencing scholarly information needs. The model incorporates career advancement factors, the influence of discovery tools, and the influence of interpersonal networks