Digital Commons Network^™

Library Assessment At A Glance: Information Needs, Questions, And Methods, Ellie Dworak

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

This document presents a concise overview of library assessment methods and their appropriateness for a variety of assessment questions.

The Campus Research Data Management Landscape, Ellie Dworak

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

An overview of data management planning and its importance in a university setting.

Engaging Antiracist Conversations: Foregrounding Twitter Feeds In Library Guides As A Way To Critically Promote Discussions Of Racial Justice, Anders Tobiason

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

Academic librarians have often been hesitant to foreground real-time engagement with social justice in our public facing library guides. The guides, more often than not, serve merely to provide access points to “academic” materials and traditional news sources. Perhaps there is a different path. This chapter suggests that engagement with Twitter can point patrons toward the real conversations happening outside (and sometimes inside) academia that are missed when we rely on traditional sources. The critical engagement with social justice issues such as race and technology, or migrant justice, is happening right in front of our eyes on Twitter. This chapter …

Unlikely Partners In A Media Literacy Initative, Elizabeth Ramsey, Valeryn Shepherd

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

Academic librarians are the ultimate interdisciplinarians, and would seem to be natural research collaborators, but many struggle to be seen as peers by other faculty or called on to fully partner in research projects even when key information literacy objectives are involved. This changed for an associate professor/librarian at Boise State’s Albertsons Library when they were invited to join a team which was eventually awarded a Department of Homeland Security grant. This article examines the grant program, the grant awarded, and a librarian’s contributions to achieving the project’s objectives. It makes the case for libraries’ essential role in strengthening our …

Assessing Synthesis Of Information From Sources, Sarah P.C. Dahlen

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

Synthesis of information from sources is an important component of information literacy, and one that is perhaps less straightforward to teach and to assess than other information literacy skills. At the author’s institution, synthesis was identified as an area in which students were not demonstrating proficiency at the desired level. This led to an iterative, multi-year process of working with faculty from across disciplines to develop, employ, and revise a rubric that measures synthesis and its component parts. The author found that using a multidimensional rubric such as the one developed is a viable method for assessing students’ ability to …

Let's Tell A Story: Narrative, Constructivism, And Accessibility, Anders Tobiason

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

I started making video tutorials as a graduate student in library and information science, took a few years off, and started again as a reference librarian at Portland State University. While I always had a sense that video tutorials could be better than they often are, I wasn't really sure exactly what that meant—that is, until I went to remake a few older videos to reflect some changes in the library catalog. How could I communicate those changes in a way that was engaging and helped move the viewer through the video? Then I remembered an old lesson from teaching …

Research Data Management Stone Soup: Gauging Team Competencies, Michelle Armstrong, Megan Davis, Ellie Dworak, Yitzhak "Yitzy" Paul, Elisabeth Shook

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

This recipe incorporates ingredients from several competency documents designed by an array of library groups to create an exercise that helps to bolster skills and services sur- rounding research data management (RDM). This assessment allows the library to better understand and visualize the strengths and gaps in knowledge necessary to effectively run an RDM team creating an ever-changing, collaborative “stone soup.”

Impact Of An Institutional Repository On Viewers' Experiences Of A Student Art Exhibition, Elaine Watson, Ellie Dworak

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

Introduction: Since 2014, Boise State University’s institutional repository (IR) has included artwork from Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) exhibitions. This paper explores how the experience of viewing artwork at an in-person BFA exhibition differs from that of viewing an online representation of it, makes recommendations to increase viewer engagement with online representations of artwork, and suggests ways that online exhibitions can enhance in-person viewing.

Method: The authors conducted two surveys, one of in-person exhibition attendees and one of online exhibition viewers. Fixed-answer results were analyzed quantitatively, whereas an inductive qualitative coding process was used to analyze survey comments.

Results: In-person …

Faculty Perceptions Of Open Access Publishing: Investigating Faculty Publishing Habits To Evaluate Library Collection Alignment, Elisabeth Shook, Amy Vecchione

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

Introduction: This investigation, originally conceived as a method for informing Albertsons Library on creative solutions to the collections budget shortfall, sought to determine an institution’s faculty perceptions of publishing and/or using open access (OA) materials, as well as to identify future mechanisms that would shift perceptions of OA publishing to a more favorable light, thereby fostering adoption of OA materials in faculty research and teaching.

Methods: The study used an anonymous electronic survey of 468 faculty members, with a response rate of nearly 34%.

Results and Discussion: Respondents indicated a mixed set of adoption, with equal distribution …

“The Pioneer Of Japanese American Literature”: Caxton Printers And The Publishing Of Toshio Mori’S Yokohama, California, Alessandro Meregaglia

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

Toshio Mori was born on March 3, 1910, in Oakland, California, to parents who were Japanese immigrants from Otake, Japan. They emigrated shortly before Mori was born, making him their first child born in the United States, and thus the family’s first American citizen. At the time of his birth, Mori’s parents ran a bathhouse in Oakland―“a flourishing business because most people seldom had bathroom facilities,” Mori recalled. When Mori was three, his parents opened a florist shop and nursery with relatives, where they raised carnations and roses and other flowers in their greenhouses. A few years later, the family …

Introduction To Series And Parallel Circuits, Craig E. Shepherd, Shannon M. Smith

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

This lesson begins with an introduction on electricity and how it is formed at the molecular level. It then lets learners explore and define a circuit. This introduction is followed by an exploration where learners develop series and parallel circuits using LED lights and motors. Learners then consider what constitutes a series and parallel circuit, open and closed circuit, and a short circuit. The lesson concludes by having learners consider advantages, limitations, and instructional uses of various electronics kits (e.g., Snap Circuits, littleBits, LilyPad, paper circuits, conductive dough) based on their ability to display circuit paths.

Introduction To Using Python In The Digital Humanities, Elisabeth Shook

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

The materials here are from the Python for Digital Humanities Workshop taught on December 13, 2021 for the Boise State University Digital Humanities Group. This 3-hour workshop was created to provide both a very brief introduction to the various capabilities of Python and a small lesson in using Python to pull meaningful insight out of text files.

Data Stories: Using Data & Narrative To Explain & Explore, Ellie Dworak

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

Have you ever heard the phrase "storytelling with data" and wondered what it meant? Have you stared at your spreadsheets and thought "there's no way I can make these statistics exciting?" In this workshop, you'll learn how journalists and organizations use narrative structures and visual elements to bring data to life!

Creating An Annual Evaluation Framework For Library Faculty, Alessandro Meregaglia, Kelsey Keyes, Amy Vecchione, Michelle Armstrong, Margie Ruppel

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article describes the faculty-lead process and outcomes of a collaborative annual library faculty evaluation project. The authors share the process used at Boise State University's Albertsons Library, including the drivers, team member roles, communication strategies, challenges, discoveries, revision process, evaluation criteria, and the implemented framework. One key discovery is that while library faculty seek the clarity and transparency that a framework can provide in the evaluation process, they often favor differing evaluation criteria, thereby necessitating a structured yet flexible framework. The personal nature of assessing one's work made it an emotional process requiring sensitivity; and while evaluations can never …

Transformative Agreements: Six Myths, Busted, Ashley Farley, Allison Langham-Putrow, Elisabeth Shook, Leila Belle Sterman, Megan Wacha

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

Transformative agreement (TA) is an umbrella term used to describe contracts between institutions and publishers intended to transform the current, primarily subscription-based, journal publishing model to a fully open access (OA) model. The idea originated in a 2015 white paper from the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL), which posited that the current level of investment ($10 billion worldwide) is sufficient to fund the transformation to OA within existing publishing structures: a system in which 60% of the market is controlled by five publishers who maintain excessive profit margins.

Data Literacy & The Academic Library, Ellie Dworak

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

Answers the questions "What is data literacy?" "Why is data literacy important?" and "How can libraries support data literacy?"

Recommended Guidelines For Evaluating Scholarly Contributions, Ellie Dworak

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

Albertsons Library faculty use the model presented in Ernest Boyer’s 1990 Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate, where scholarship is broadly defined as having four functions: discovery, integration, application and teaching. Library faculty value the creation, sharing, and application of knowledge as products of our own work and as a means of self-improvement, leading to greater understanding of the fields in which we work.

Every tenure-eligible library faculty member is expected to produce high-quality and disciplinarily-relevant scholarship, relative to whatever form scholarship takes for them and whatever portion of their workload is assigned to scholarship. Faculty are responsible for presenting …

Wy Open: A Grassroots Open Educational Resources Initiative, Shannon M. Smith, Chad Hutchens, Cassandra Kvenild

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

This recipe describes starting a library-led open educational resources (OER) as a mechanism to recognize and promote cost-savings for students while allowing faculty to tailor their learning materials to specific pedagogy needs. The grassroots approach is best implemented alongside existing organizational infrastructures. At the University of Wyoming (UW), the OER initiative developed without a dedicated position or home department but rather a collaborative foundation across the libraries which builds momentum, spreads the message, and ultimately the workload.

Developing And Evaluating An Asynchronous Online Library Microcredential: A Case-Study, Rebeca Peacock, Heather Grevatt, Ellie Dworak, Lindsay Marsh, Shelly Doty

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose

This paper describes the evolution of an academic library’s approach to first-year student information literacy instruction from face-to-face instruction to a fully integrated online microcredential. The design considerations, motivation theory, and evaluation methods used to create and evaluate the course are also discussed, with implications for future library microcredential design, integration, and research in campus first-year seminar courses.

Design/methodology

In this paper, a multi-method approach is used to evaluate an undergraduate asynchronous online information literacy microcredential embedded in a first-year seminar. Two methods (Likert scale survey and coded reflection essays) were used in order to evaluate whether one method …

A Library For Everyone: Building A Model For Library Digital Accessibility, Rebeca Peacock, Amy Vecchione

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

Want to know more about the ways libraries can support digital accessibility? Learn from the expertise of Boise State University librarians Rebeca Peacock and Amy Vecchione using their digital accessibility research to show how you can apply the lessons learned in your library. In this presentation, you'll learn what digital accessibility is and how meeting digital accessibility needs supports everyone! In addition, they will share easy to implement techniques and tools to improve the library experience for everyone.

Makerspace Instruction & The Acrl Framework, Amy Vecchione, Stephanie Milne-Lane

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this presentation Amy Vecchione and Stephanie Milne-Lane will host a discussion about research and instruction in a makerspace setting. They will outline the process of how the maker instruction program developed iteratively at Boise State University (BSU). Additionally, they will share the final results of Stephanie’s University of Washington MLIS capstone project, the BSU MakerLab Toolkit. They will also report on their conclusions regarding how the ACRL Framework is the best lens for developing maker instruction.

Vardis Fisher's Last Essay, Alessandro Meregaglia

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

When Vardis Fisher died on July 9, 1968, the Idaho novelist left behind an extensive bibliography: more than two dozen novels, collections of short stories, essays, and poetry, as well as three books written for the Federal Writers’ Project. But he also left behind multiple projects in mid-process. Obituaries and memorials noted that Fisher was at work on a book called The American West: The World’s Greatest Physical Wonderland. Biographers over the ensuing decades also mentioned this incomplete project but didn’t elaborate further.

Building Better Collections Through Relationships: Sharing Expertise During Collection Downsizing, Mary C. Aagard, Nancy Rosenheim, Marlena Hooyboer, Cheri A. Folkner

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

Boise State University’s Albertsons Library undertook a substantial collection downsizing project in 2017. A survey tool was developed to investigate whether this project would strengthen working relationships between technical services staff and librarians. The survey would allow us to assess the process and its outcomes and gain insight into the emotions of those participating in the project. Survey results showed librarians and staff members had different experiences during the project. Librarians experienced more anxiety during the process than staff. More staff than librarians felt that there was a barrier to sharing their expertise due to their job role. Perceptions of …

Makerspace Culture And Its Impact On Learning, Amy Vecchione

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

"Makerspaces are about community. We need to ensure everyone from the community can participate."

—Participant in a Drexel ethnography about makerspaces

Many library workers want to discuss and reflect on makerspaces. A common issue present since makerspaces in libraries first began revolves around what types of equipment a library makerspace should have. This question often comes up as "What should I buy?" or "What equipment do I need?" or "What should I buy to make my makerspace successful?" Individual library workers who are starting to incorporate makerspaces into their libraries or who are trying to deepen, develop, and reinvigorate their …

Accessibility Best Practices, Procedures, And Policies In Northwest United States Academic Libraries, Rebeca Peacock, Amy Vecchione

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

Academic libraries are responsible for providing accessible copies of collection materials to individuals facing a variety of accessibility needs. Accessibility needs differ from user to user, often making each request an individualized service. However, do academic libraries have a responsibility to embrace a Universal Design for Learning approach to their acquisitions process? Do academic library workers need to establish policies as part of the procurement process? This research surveyed academic libraries at institutions similar to Affiliated University in size, graduate program offerings, and within the same region to help answer the questions: how academic libraries in the Northwest United States …

Inclusion By Design, Amy Vecchione

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

Maker competencies are critical for courses in every discipline. Within the scope of higher education, many individuals have the perspective that makerspaces involve all STEM disciplines, yet making is a crucial aspect of work in the humanities, the arts, education, and the social sciences. Developing an inclusive practice to attract and retain faculty and students from all areas is critical to the success of a makerspace. When we set out to create the MakerLab at Boise State University, we designed the space with inclusion and equity in mind. Through our process of working with history and philosophy faculty through the …

Reaching First- Generation And Underrepresented Students Through Transparent Assignment Design, Ryne Leuzinger, Jacqui Grallo

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

This chapter discusses the findings of a national survey conducted to gain insight into academic librarians’ assignment design practices for one- shot and semester courses, with a focus on the degree to which librarians are utilizing elements of transparent assignment design.

Own It!: Helping Student (And All) Employees Provide High Value Public Service, Ellie Dworak

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

When Boise State University adopted a one-referral standard as part of a strategic planning initiative, Albertsons Library was determined to meet and exceed the bar. But with 40 to 50 student employees and 58 permanent staff working throughout the Library, was it really possible to follow through on every referral and meet every patron need? By adopting five simple best practices, encouraging creative solutions, and investing in a climate of shared success, our answer is YES! Come and learn how in this energizing and interactive session.

Putting Everyday Data To Use, Ellie Dworak

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

We generally think of data as the results of (usually scientific) research, but the truth is that data surrounds us and permeates our lives. By collecting, analyzing, and visualizing this everyday data, we can see patterns that may otherwise elude us.

This workshop will begin with a creative exercise to capture and visualize a “data snapshot,” followed by a discussion of the discoveries prompted by this type of noticing. We’ll then talk about how data visualization can be used to explore and find patterns in more formal data, and do a brief exploratory project using library survey comments.

Asserting Librarian Expertise And Value In Strategic Marketing Efforts, Memo Cordova, Elizabeth Ramsey

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

This case study of librarian-led marketing efforts at a mid-size academic library examines workarounds to obstacles that librarians frequently encounter when taking on marketing for their libraries. These obstacles often stem from a combination of misunderstanding and/or misplaced priorities at both the unit and administrative levels. Challenges in this case study include a number of factors: no marketing strategy at the administrative level, a lack of understanding from colleagues generally, little time to complete tasks or improve marketing skills, and no dedicated funding. To address these challenges the authors embarked on an internal marketing campaign engaged extensively on social media …