Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Chapter 5: What Books Are In Your Card Catalog?, Julie A. Drewry

A Guide to Library Careers: Choosing Your Path

[First paragraph]

Author’s note: In 1970, Richard Nelson Bolles self-published a book about searching for a job entitled, What Color is Your Parachute? Bolles’ seminal work on job searching was so well received that it has been updated and republished annually since 1975 (Wikipedia, 2022). The title of this chapter, What Books are in Your Card Catalog?, is an homage to that work. Unless you are over the age of 40, the card catalog may not seem relevant due to the replacement of most card catalogs with the online catalog. However, the goal of the card catalog was to enable …

Aasl National School Library Standards: Progress Toward Implementation, Elizabeth A. Burns

STEMPS Faculty Publications

This mixed-methods, exploratory case study examines perceptions of the implementation of the U.S. National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries. A survey was first distributed to gain insight into school librarian implementation of the NSLS. Participants included practitioners in the state of Virginia in the United States who had attended professional development training on the National School Library Standards (NSLS). A sample was then interviewed about their implementation. Using the standards implementation levels identified by the California Common Core Implementation Task Force (2019) as a framework, findings indicate that after one year of training and use, …

The Preparation And Certification Of School Librarians: Using Causal Educational Research About Teacher Characteristics To Probe Facets Of Effectiveness, Sue C. Kimmel, Marcia A. Mardis, Shana Pribesh, Laura A. Pasquini, Barbara Schultz-Jones, Faye R. Jones, Lois D. Wine, Lenese M. Colson

STEMPS Faculty Publications

How do we define a high-quality school librarian? Decades of educational researchers have attempted to link teacher characteristics—such as how teachers are prepared, which credentials they carry, and years of experience—to student outcomes. These researchers have contended that individual educator attributes may have a direct effect on what and how much their students learn. School librarians are also teachers who have direct student contact, and although numerous studies have indicated that school librarian preparation, licensure, and other background characteristics are promising areas for further direct exploration, researchers have yet to examine if, how, and why school librarians’ certification or preparation …

Employment And Neurodiverse Librarians, Amelia Anderson

STEMPS Faculty Publications

There are a number of neurodiverse librarians and library employees whose needs are going unmet throughout hiring and employee retainment processes. This article explores autism as a form of neurodiversity in the library and information science (LIS) field, pointing out the need for providing more appropriate supports for workforce development for librarians on the autism spectrum.

Aligning Information Literacy Assessment With Metacognitive Strategies, Kirsten Hostetler, Tian Luo, Jill E. Stefaniak

STEMPS Faculty Publications

Despite the popularity of metacognitive research, and the inclusion of similar concepts in professional guidelines, librarians have not incorporated metacognitive tools into their assessment strategies. This systematic literature review found (1) metacognitive assessments can act as a learning aide in encouraging higher-order thinking; (2) metacognitive assessments can be effective measurements under proper conditions with experienced learners; and (3) librarians have limited options when selecting assessment tools even as the demand for demonstrating the library’s value to stakeholders is increasing. The paper concludes with gaps in the literature and areas for future directions.

Becoming A Librarian Bff: Three Tips To Connect With Your Students, Erica England, Leo S. Lo

Libraries Faculty & Staff Publications

The article focuses on the "The Librarian BFF Program for Distance Graduate Students" poster program at the ACRL 2017 conference in Baltimore, Maryland that offers suggestions for librarians who seek to add to their liaison and instruction repertoire. It also mentions that main purpose of the Librarian BFF Program was to provide a personalized service to students and faculty.

The Design Of A Cognitive Apprenticeship To Facilitate Storytime Programming For Librarians, Jennifer A. Scott Brown, Jill E. Stefaniak

STEMPS Faculty Publications

The majority of research that has been conducted on structuring mentorship programs has been on career support in terms of transferring tacit and explicit knowledge from the supervisor to the protégé. While the instructional design literature touts that cognitive apprenticeships provide a great framework for constructivist and situated learning environments, little research has been done examining how much time should be allocated to the various phases of the apprenticeship framework. The purpose of this study was to explore whether the use of a cognitive apprenticeship framework could be used to mentor new librarians. Data was collected and analyzed in three …

Practitioner Perceptions Of School Library Advocacy, Elizabeth Burns

STEMPS Faculty Publications

School library advocacy is increasingly important due to decreases in funding and staff. National organizations attempt to engage school librarians in advocacy and have developed resources and tools to assist with this task. However, there is little research examining how practicing school librarians engage in advocacy and how their advocacy efforts impact their library programs. This study explored school librarians’ perceptions of advocacy within the context of their school library setting. Findings suggest school librarians must continue to build relationships with stakeholders and create awareness for the school library position as they define the activities of advocacy unique to their …

New Perspectives In Leadership: Adopting A Proactive Library Recruitment Strategy, Leo S. Lo

Libraries Faculty & Staff Publications

The author discusses a proactive library recruitment strategy based on his experience at Kansas State University Libraries. He identifies two main areas of concern in hiring librarians including the length of the hiring process and the quality of candidates. He also cites the major elements of a proactive library recruitment strategy such as recruiting the right talent and creating a new recruitment team.

Seeing The Clouds: Teacher Librarian As Broker In Collaborative Planning With Teachers, Sue Kimmel

STEMPS Faculty Publications

Teachers engaged in sustained collaboration with a teacher librarian were interviewed about the meaning of that collaboration. The findings suggest that the teachers recognized important contributions of the librarian to instructional planning and classroom instruction including knowledge, legwork, and support. In particular, they understood her role as a broker both to resources and to ideas for using those resources in instruction. While these resources were essential, they were not sufficient; they required a knowledgeable peer who also understood their application to the curriculum and what students were expected to learn. They required a librarian.

"Consider With Whom You Are Working": Discourse Models Of School Librarianship In Collaboration, Sue C. Kimmel

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

The question of why school librarians still struggle to fully enact the roles defined in "Information Power" and "Empowering Learners" may be viewed as a struggle to gain recognition from others that this is what a "real school librarian" does. Discourse Analysis offers school library research a new theoretical and analytical tool to explore how these roles or identities are created or contested in interactions with others by examining the moment-to-moment talk for the presence of larger meanings, or "discourses." Applying a discourse analysis to an exchange that occurred near the end of an ethnographic study of collaborative discourse between …

Paving The Way For Collaboration Between Librarians And Faculty, Cynthia Wright Swaine

Libraries Faculty & Staff Publications

This paper summarizes some of the traditional, as well as newer, ways that academic librarians can interact with faculty and thereby demonstrate what they have to offer in future collaborative efforts. Examples are drawn from the author's experience at Old Dominion University (Virginia). Highlights include: university service, including librarians serving on the faculty senate, committees, task forces, and interest groups; communications, including library newsletters; workshops, seminars, and forums for faculty and graduate students; events for new faculty, including participation in university-wide orientation; library instruction, including course-related library instruction and learning communities; collection development, including librarian attendance at faculty meetings of …

Instruction On The Web: Getting All Librarians Involved, Cynthia Wright Swaine

Libraries Faculty & Staff Publications

The Collection Development Council at Old Dominion University (Virginia) decided to involve all subject specialist librarians in creating guides to web resources in the disciplines for which they serve as bibliographers. The project was intended to help librarians become familiar with Internet resources in their fields of expertise and give them experience with World Wide Web searching. A worksheet for bibliographers and a sample guide were provided. Librarians were asked to complete a worksheet for one of their assigned areas of collection development in the next year. A separate Web Team would enter the guides, using HTML and mounting them …