Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Inciting Action: Assessment Reporting Strategies That Fuel Change And Improve Learning, Kathy E. Clarke, Gretchen A. Hazard

Libraries

All assessment practitioners know the penultimate goal is loop closing. But we also live with the reality that assessment is also beholden to the Gods of Accountability. As assessment professionals, we dutifully attend to the cycle of improving student learning, but at each step in the cycle we must continue to hone our skills. Results reporting may seem like the least sexy of all of the steps in our practice, but we argue that is singularly important and represents a high art of assessment craft. Results must be engaging, actionable, meet accountability mandates, and importantly read by those who can …

Inciting Action: Assessment Reporting Strategies That Fuel Change And Improve Learning, Kathy E. Clarke, Gretchen A. Hazard

Libraries

All assessment practitioners know the penultimate goal is loop closing. But we also live with the reality that assessment is also beholden to the Gods of Accountability. As assessment professionals, we dutifully attend to the cycle of improving student learning, but at each step in the cycle we must continue to hone our skills. Results reporting may seem like the least sexy of all of the steps in our practice, but we argue that is singularly important and represents a high art of assessment craft. Results must be engaging, actionable, meet accountability mandates, and importantly read by those who can …

You Are Welcome Here: The Genesis And Evaluation Of A New Employee Orientation Program Within The Library, Rebecca French, Jennifer A. Keach, Elizabeth Price, Susan Thomas, Michael Trocchia

Libraries

Your library may hire new employees throughout the year, but do you prepare them to succeed in your environment? Learn how James Madison University Libraries developed a new employee orientation program designed to meet the needs of new employees, their supervisors, and the entire organization.

Promoting Civic Engagement Through Academic Library Outreach Programs, Kristen S. Shuyler, Liz Chenevey, Ryan Winfree

Libraries

How are Virginia's academic libraries promoting civic engagement? This poster presents results of a statewide civic engagement survey and shares one academic library's civic engagement outreach activities. Civic literacy competencies, such as the ability to contact representatives, are related to information literacy skills, and libraries should continue to promote them.

I Heart Communication In The Library: Exploring Communication Satisfaction, Jennifer A. Keach

Libraries

This poster presents findings about organizational communication within a mid-sized academic library. Discover if demographic differences, the number of connections, attendance at events, or use of technology helped or hindered communication. Learn about ways to do a communication audit at your own library.

Technology, Information Literacy And Social Work Education, Laura Trull, David Vess

Libraries

This poster will demonstrate a unique series of interactive lessons, designed and implemented collaboratively by Social Work and Library faculty to support student information literacy skill development. This series of six lessons was implemented with junior-level social work students and focused on topics such as determining quality of sources, constructing citations, identifying research methodology, utilizing technology, research ethics and search techniques. Lesson outlines will be made available to participants and future research and evaluation plans will be discussed.

The State Of Open Access In The Usa Today, Yasmeen Shorish

Libraries

This keynote presentation was given at the International Relations Round-table pre-conference at ALA Annual 2017. The session looked at the intersection between the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and ways that Open Access (OA) efforts can be used to further those goals. This presentation provided an overview of OA in the United States and what the global implications of that situation are.

Embracing Evidence Based Collecting In The Health And Behavioral Sciences, Carolyn Schubert, Michael Mungin

Libraries

Objective: Evidence based collection development requires combining multiple sources of information, such as usage data, subject librarian expertise, user values and preferences, and external evidence from librarianship research. Through triangulation, librarians can build a collection that is responsive, balanced, and relevant to address both established and emerging curricular trends. In the field of health and behavioral studies, growth in interprofessional education supports collaborative collecting practices. In 2014-2015, health and behavioral studies librarians at James Madison University (JMU) piloted a collapsed monographic selection project to facilitate better interdisciplinary collecting. This project discusses an evidence-based approach to evaluating and updating approval profiles …

Exploring Every Inch Of Harrisonburg: The Robert J. Sullivan Jr. Papers, Grace Barth, Kate Morris

Libraries

Acquired by JMU Special Collections in 2014, the Robert J. Sullivan Papers include photographs and over eleven hundred slides documenting the city of Harrisonburg, Virginia during a critical period of growth during urban renewal initiatives from the mid-to-late 20th century. While digitization of the images from this collection allowed us to share it with researchers and the local community, the process of facilitating access revealed several unexpected challenges. Quick adaptability and establishing valuable partnerships were among the many factors that allowed for the successful completion of this project.

Library Guides: An Aggregation Of User Research From 1998 To 2017, David Vess

Libraries

A truly comprehensive search tool for resources provided by libraries will continue to be a distant dream until daunting technical challenges are addressed. A Google-like search experience is desirable in some contexts, but a case can be made that hiding subject-specific article databases behind a comprehensive search tool is a disservice to researchers.

Librarians have a long history of addressing the complex landscape of the various resources they offer by crafting guides to library collections. These guides provide direct links to resources while educating inexperienced researchers about discipline-specific databases. Unfortunately, this solution creates more complexities in the research resource landscape. …

Selecting Link Resolver And Knowledge Base Software: Implications Of Interoperability, Cyndy Chisare, Jody C. Fagan, David J. Gaines, Michael Trocchia

Libraries

Link resolver software and their associated knowledge bases are essential technologies for modern academic libraries. However, because of the increasing number of possible integrations involving link resolver software and knowledge bases, a library’s vendor relationships, product choices, and consortial arrangements may have the most dramatic effects on the user experience and back-end maintenance workloads. A project team at a large comprehensive university recently investigated link resolver products in an attempt to increase efficiency of back-end workflows while maintaining or improving the patron experience. The methodology used for product comparison may be useful for other libraries.

An Evidence-Based Review Of Academic Web Search Engines, 2014-2016: Implications For Librarians’ Practice And Research Agenda, Jody C. Fagan

Libraries

Academic web search engines have become central to scholarly research. While the fitness of Google Scholar for research purposes has been examined repeatedly, Microsoft Academic and Google Books have not received much attention. Recent studies have much to tell us about the coverage and utility of Google Scholar, its coverage of the sciences, and its utility for evaluating researcher impact. But other aspects have been understudied, such as coverage of the arts and humanities, books, and non-Western, non-English publications. User research has also tapered off. A small number of articles hint at the opportunity for librarians to become expert advisors …

Engaging With Black Lives Matter And Supporting Our Communities, Yasmeen Shorish, Michael Mungin, Kristen S. Shuyler

Libraries

In October 2016, the Diversity Council of Libraries and Educational Technologies produced book displays in Carrier and Rose Libraries that focused on "Understanding Black Lives Matter." The council wanted to provide information on this social movement within the context of national history and racial identity. A list of books that covered topic areas of criminal justice, Jim Crow, racism, and the Black experience - among others - was generated, along with two informational placards. One placard placed the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement within historical and social context, while the other placard offered a preemptive response to the question "Why …

Apple Slices: A Card-Matching Party Game About The Library, Kelly Giles, Kristen S. Shuyler, Andrew Evans, Jonathan Reed

Libraries

Inspired by the popular party games Apples to Apples and Cards Against Humanity, this is a fun and flexible small group activity developed for use in library orientation sessions.

Libraries On The Frontlines: Neutrality And Social Justice, Amelia N. Gibson, Renate L. Chancellor, Nicole A. Cooke, Sarah Park Dahlen, Shari A. Lee, Yasmeen Shorish

Libraries

Purpose

This article examines libraries’ responsibility to engage with and support communities of color as they challenge systemic racism, engage in the political process, and exercise their right to free speech. Many libraries have ignored the Black Lives Matter movement, citing the need to maintain neutrality. Despite extensive scholarship questioning the validity of this concept, the framing of library neutrality as nonpartisanship continues. This article examines librarianship’s engagement with, and disengagement from Black communities through the lens of the Black Lives Matter movement. It also explores the implications of education, engagement, and activism for people of color and libraries today. …

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