Digital Commons Network^™

What Academic Librarians Should Know About Creative Thinking, John Olson

John Olson

Librarians need to explore their individual creativity. Creative thinking is an underutilized problem-solving skill that can be learned and applied to any situation. This article explains how librarians can understand, develop, and use their creative thinking abilities and skills in the workplace.

Health Literacy Promotion: Contemporary Conceptualizations And Current Implementations In Canadian Health Librarianship, Nicole Dalmer

Nicole K Dalmer

Research questions: What are the current conceptualizations of health literacy, and what strategies are Canadian health librarians in public, academic, and hospital libraries enacting to put health literacy promotion into practice? Data sources: Serving as the basis of this scoping review, library and information science, health sciences, and interdisciplinary databases were searched using key terms relating to health literacy promotion as it relates to services, programming, or resources used in a variety of library settings. A web searched allowed for the inclusion of grey literature sources. Study selection: Data sources were searched using a combination of subject headings and keywords …

Music Librarianship, Lisa Philpott, Monica Fazekas

Lisa Rae Philpott

Anyone who doubts that a music library is special -- and requires appropriately-trained staff -- has only to spend some time with us fielding day-to-day queries.

The D.B. Weldon Library's Instruction Portfolio: A Grassroots, Team-Based Approach, Kim Mcphee, Melanie Mills, Marg Sloan

Melanie Mills

We R Online, R U? Instant Messaging Reference Service At Your Library., Sarah Steiner, David Free, Elizabeth White

Sarah King Steiner

What Is IM? -Allows users to participate in real-time Internet conversations -AIM, MSN, and Yahoo! most popular -Same premise as the more feature-rich QuestionPoint, 24/7, etc. Who’s Using IM? --Everyone! Students, libraries, businesses, all age groups Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 42% of online individuals use IM, and that Generations X and Y represent the largest segment of the IM user group. AOL conducted a similar study that shows that 90% of online teens use IM.

What Are We Afraid Of? A Survey Of Librarian Opinions And Misconceptions Regarding Instant Messenger., Sarah Steiner, Casey Long

Sarah King Steiner

Buzz about instant messaging (IM) customer service is becoming louder, both inside and outside the library field. In general, librarian opinions of IM are mixed and at times even combative. A survey was distributed to gather librarians' opinions of the usefulness of IM as compared to its feature-rich yet difficulty-prone sibling, commercial chat. Through detailed statistical analysis, this article provides an overview of trends in and opinions of IM reference, and offers analysis of its present and future in libraries.

Personal Bias In Library Collections And Services, Sarah Steiner

Sarah King Steiner

Regardless of library type, size, or the number of collecting librarians, selection based on personal values can be difficult or even impossible to avoid. Lack of exposure to varied sources or lesser known points of view can lead to unbalanced collections. Also adding to the difficulty of establishing balanced collections is the demise of the small publisher. Without a varied group of publishers, access to diverse views grows ever more limited. Large publishers that focus on the bottom line are less likely to publish works that may not find a mainstream audience. While the availability of materials lies outside the …

Im At Gsu, Sarah Steiner, David Free, Elizabeth White

Sarah King Steiner

Getting Started -The impending expiration of GSU’s QuestionPoint contract led to the exploration of other options -IM met with mixed librarian opinions, but all felt it was worth investigating -Service launched February 1, 2006 AIM, MSN and Yahoo! via Gaim

Committee Service And The Fledgling Librarian: Creating Community, Confidence, And Employability, Sarah Steiner

Sarah King Steiner

As a librarian-in-training, you face many demands on your time - classes, homework, a job, a marriage, a family - the list can go on and on. In the midst of all these school- and life-related responsibilities, committee service is something people often defer until after graduation. This is unfortunate, because the benefits of participation in committees, round tables, and other groups early in your career cannot be overstated. With only a small time commitment, local professional service can provide you with an invaluable - and underrated - way to meet people, gain experience in the profession, and land yourself …

The Life Of A Wiki: How Georgia State University Library's Wiki Enhances Content Currency And Employee Collaboration, Sarah Steiner, Joel Glogowski

Sarah King Steiner

In recent years, the ease of use and collaborative nature of the wiki has made it a popular tool in many libraries. Georgia State University Library has hosted an internal wiki since 2003, and since its inception it has been utilized in many different and innovative ways. This article will provide an overview of some of the more interesting uses of the GSU Library wiki, specifically, its life as a reference guide, training manual, committee meeting and planning ground, home for material price quotes, and finally, as a place for entertaining work-related content.

Library Sector Leadership: Bridging Theory And Practice, Melanie Mills, Charlotte Innerd

Melanie Mills

Explore the issue of leadership in libraries with one current student and one graduate of The University of Victoria's Professional Graduate Certificate in Library Sector Leadership. Looking specifically at Kouzes and Posner's 'Five Practices of Exemplary Leaders' and Quinn et al.'s 'Competing Values Framework', we hope to share our own discoveries and insights and add to the important discussion of leadership in Libraries.

Protection, Not Barriers: Using Social Software Policies To Guide And Safeguard Students And Employees, Sarah Steiner, Brian Kooy

Sarah King Steiner

Academic librarians have been using social software and networking sites for public services since they appeared on the Internet. While issues of privacy, identity management, and self-disclosure when using such technologies have been written about, very little critical attention has been paid to establishing policies or guidelines related to their use. This article is based on the authors’ experience creating a social software policy and internal service guidelines at Georgia State University and on the results of an informal survey study that gauged academic librarians’ need for and awareness of such documents. It provides both reasoning and assistance for developing …

Librarianship And Polemics: The Career Of Thomas James (1572-1629), Richard Clement

Richard W. Clement

Thomas James is well known as the first librarian of the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and the correspondence from Sir Thomas Bodley to James is justly celebrated in what it tells us of the details of library management in this period. Unfortunately, modern library historians have tended to look at James only as a librarian and have ignored or dismissed his scholarly and polemical works and activities. Yet James's librarianship was part of polemical scholarship, as indeed was the foundation of the Bodleian Library itself. If we are to understand the nature of librarianship in England in the early seventeenth …

Protection, Not Barriers: Using Social Software Policies To Guide And Safeguard Students And Employees., Brian Kooy, Sarah Steiner

Brian K. Kooy

Academic librarians have been using social software and networking sites for public services since they appeared on the Internet. While issues of privacy, identity management, and self-disclosure when using such technologies have been written about, very little critical attention has been paid to establishing policies or guidelines related to their use. This article is based on the authors’ experience creating a social software policy and internal service guidelines at Georgia State University and on the results of an informal survey study that gauged academic librarians’ need for and awareness of such documents. It provides both reasoning and assistance for developing …

The Case For Collaborative Tools: Long Distance Teamwork On A Shoestring Budget, Jessica De Perio Wittman, Lucie Olejnikova

Jessica de Perio Wittman

An article written on how to create podcasts using readily-available technology, and how to use these podcasts in legal education.

Framing A Vision For 21st-Century Librarianship: Lis Education In Changing Times, James Elmborg

James K. Elmborg

Librarianship is at a critical juncture. Technological changes have reshaped the information landscape, but libraries as social institutions have not been able to transform themselves to keep pace. This is the challenge of Library and Information Science Education. As we look to a future professional education for librarians, we need to acknowledge the need to reinvent our educational goals and methods so our graduates can lead in this new emerging environment. A relevant education for the information sectors will include a synthesis of global, technical, and critical perspectives to encourage librarians to understand the changes they need to enact to …