Library and Information Science Commons^™

Cited Data (Say So Much): A Case Study On What Data Sources Our Business Researchers Are Citing, Edward Junhao Lim, Jiebei Luo

Published Works

Data is the fuel of business research, but what kind of data do business researchers use, and how do they use it? In this presentation, we reveal the data sources and topics of hundreds of journal articles from two business schools - New York University Stern School of Business and the University of Connecticut School of Business. We analyze the full text of journal articles published between 2020 and 2022 to identify cited data sources and rank the most popular commercial, public, and open datasets. We highlight the top ten data sources for each school and each type of secondary …

Library Can’T Buy You (All The) Data: What Data Sources Are Our Business Researchers Citing?, Edward Junhao Lim, Jiebei Luo

Published Works

This presentation is a fascinating look at how business researchers use databases and datasets. Our study examines the full text of hundreds of journal articles published between 2020 and 2023, by researchers from two business schools belonging to R1 universities in the Northeast U.S. - New York University, a top private research university, and the University of Connecticut, a public land-grant university.

Our presentation will list the most commonly cited datasets - commercial data and public, open data. We discuss the similarities and differences between the two business schools and offer insights on how dataset usage impacts research outcomes and …

Benchmarking Lossless Still Image Codecs: Perspectives On Selected Compression Standards From 1992 Through 2022, Michael J. Bennett

Published Works

As complementary technologies evolve, data compression continues to be a foundational aspect of growing digital collections. In this study, selected lossless still image codecs from 1992 through 2022 were benchmarked across a variety of efficiency and performance measures using reference images from cultural heritage. Additionally, entropy estimates were calculated by source image to assist in characterizing image information and evaluating encoder efficiency against assessed feasible compression limits. Encoder designs and compression techniques were also examined in the context of the study’s measured results.

Book Review: Data Cartels: The Companies That Control And Monopolize Our Information, Edward Junhao Lim

Published Works

No abstract provided.

The Old And The Prudish: An Examination Of Sex, Sexuality, And Queerness In Library Of Congress Classification, Tiffany Henry, Rhonda Kauffman, Anastasia Chiu

Published Works

Despite the fact that scholarship and knowledge about sex and sexuality have grown enormously in the last century, these topics in the Library of Congress Classification (LCC) schedules have remained stagnant, particularly in the HQ schedule (a classification subclass), entitled “The Family. Marriage. Women.” In this schedule, multiple structural issues in organization and placement of topics demonstrate a deeply sex negative attitude that has seen relatively little change in over a century. This article takes a deep dive into the negative attitudes toward sex and sexuality in the LCC HQ schedule, analyzing the ways in which sex negativity manifests structurally …

Pandemic Transitions: The Impact Of Covid-19 On Hiring And Onboarding In Academic Libraries, Lauren M. Fletcher, Roslyn Grandy, Faythe Thurman, Rachel Whitney

UConn Library Presentations

Objectives: To explore how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected hiring and onboarding practices in academic libraries.

Methods: An embedded mixed-methods approach, utilizing grounded theory, was used to develop an online survey to identify changes that occurred in hiring and onboarding practices in academic libraries resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were hiring managers (including human resources staff, library administration, search committee chairs, or library supervisors) in an academic library setting. Invitations to participate were sent to multiple academic library listservs and social media groups.

Results: Results will be analyzed to determine trends in hiring and onboarding practices …

Onboarding During A Pandemic: Creating A Welcome Guide, Roslyn Grandy, Samuel Boss

UConn Library Presentations

Background: The pandemic environment has required academic libraries to modify their internal onboarding and training processes. While engaging with colleagues in a virtual or hybrid environment has been challenging for all employees, recent hires in particular face barriers while getting to know a new institution and new people in the virtual landscape. University of Connecticut Library has hired several librarians since the beginning of the pandemic. To address these challenges and create a more seamless onboarding process, the Research Services Unit created a comprehensive online Welcome Guide: https://guides.lib.uconn.edu/MLA2022poster

Description: Our aim in creating the guide was to supplement …

3d Data Acquisition, Visualization, And Archiving Of Selected Lithics From The Caldwell Collection Of North African Stone Points, Michael J. Bennett

UConn Library Presentations

Presentation made on June 30, 2021 to UConn Library staff as part of a library strategic framework implementation working group final report. The overall aim of the project was to lead an interdisciplinary, cross-campus working group made up of faculty from the Anthropology Department, and staff from the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History, Office of the State Archaeologist, and the UConn Library. More specifically, the project's goal was to run 10 - 20 stone artifacts from the State Museum's Caldwell Collection through a newly developed, highly refined 3D digitization workflow that would produce 3D assets for eventual online classroom …

Three Non-U.S. Perspectives On The Covid-19 Experience In Libraries, Sarah Ruslan, Edward Junhao Lim, Jennifer Aw Stubbs

UConn Library Presentations

This was an interactive panel presented at the Critical Pedagogy Symposium. Our presenters’ theme was their atypical work experiences across different cities.

• Jennifer shared her perspective as a privileged economic migrant (White American woman in Shanghai). Colleges and graduate schools have been online–successfully–for over a decade. Our students are not alone. This is the new normal and it is cool.

• Sarah shared her perspective both as a library student doing her fieldwork on a controversial topic during the lockdown in Singapore, as well as a library staff managing on-site student workers who live on campus while she worked from home. …

A Young Researcher’S Guide To Creating An Online Presence, Edward Junhao Lim

UConn Library Presentations

Academic and social networks can help define your online presence, increase your academic visibility, as well as draw attention to your research. Creating a cohesive presence across platforms allows the public and fellow scholars better understand your digital identity and facilitates access to your research outputs and ideas.

Find out how to make use of online sites and networks like LinkedIn, Twitter, WeChat and ResearchGate to improve your online visibility, create great first impressions and highlight the information about your research that you want others to see.

Automating 35mm Photographic Film Digitization: X-Y Table Capture System Design And Assessment, Michael J. Bennett

Published Works

35mm still image formats are some of the most abundant photographic film types in cultural heritage collections. However, their special handling needs coupled with high resolution digital capture requirements have traditionally posed logistical constraints with regard to the formats’ digitization at scale. Through the use of a programmable X-Y table camera capture system, both slide and strip 35mm photographic film can be digitized in an automated fashion following Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines (FADGI).

How To Negotiate With Publishers And Keep Your Copyright, Michael Rodriguez, Carolyn Mills

UConn Library Presentations

How do you get the best possible terms when signing a publishing contract? Of what should you be careful? Should you try to keep your copyright? Can you license your work instead? Come learn the ins and outs of making sure your publishing contract works for you before you sign it.

Interlibrary Lending Of Whole Ebooks, Michael Rodriguez, Erika Mcneil, Stanley Huzarewicz

UConn Library Presentations

The University of Connecticut pioneered licensing and lending workflows to share whole ebooks with other libraries, overcoming publisher skepticism and system limitations. Attend this session to learn why, how, with whom, and so what.

Discovering Diamonds In Your Survey Data, Jessica De Perio Wittman, Katie Brown

Faculty Articles and Papers

Library surveys enable us to open up a dialogue with our patron base in order to uncover areas of improvement and to facilitate a better user experience for all of our patrons. Traditional survey creation has innate challenges, such as asking the right questions, properly coding the data, and addressing the proper audience. All of these challenges must be considered when drafting and designing surveys to ensure the collection of useful data for outcome-driven decision-making at your library. Additionally, librarians can also redesign their own or other open-sourced surveys to enable library administration to plan for, manage, and achieve outcomes …

A Comparative Study On Process Optimization And The Modern Law Library’S Involvement In Achieving Efficiency At The Law School In Times Of Change, Jessica De Perio Wittman, Kathleen (Katie) Brown

Faculty Articles and Papers

Law firms have been utilizing process optimization tools, such as Lean Six Sigma, to improve internal processes and build efficiencies. Successful outcomes require leadership teams that believe that process improvement is more than just a tool kit to solve problems or a collection of methodologies and processes. Through collection development practices, continuous learning opportunities, and the use of cross-functional teams, the modern law library has effectively demonstrated its ability to meet the dynamic needs of the law school community. Similarly, law librarians find themselves uniquely positioned to collaborate with law school administration on continual process improvement strategies in times of …

Diversity, Inclusion, And Social Justice In Library Technical Services, Rhonda Kauffman, Martina S. Anderson

Published Works

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Libraries recently embraced a large-scale initiative to incorporate the values of diversity, inclusion, and social justice (DISJ) into library practices. In early 2017, the MIT collections directorate task force on DISJ released a report with recommendations for embedding DISJ values into the daily work of archives, technical services, preservation, scholarly communications, and collections strategy staff. This chapter focuses on the challenges and opportunities in undertaking a sustained effort to achieve DISJ specifically within technical services. The authors highlight how technical services staff can use their unique position within libraries to dismantle existing structures of …

Using The Power Of Storytelling To Shape Your Institution’S Narrative, Jessica De Perio Wittman

Faculty Articles and Papers

People love stories. For generations, storytelling has been the basis of human communication. Stories capture our attention, and they recount authentic human experience. Stories enable individuals to understand the world around them and to make sense of the who, what, when, where, why, and how of institutional actions. Most importantly, stories enable people to create meaningful connections with one another and with members of their community. The law library has always acted as a community hub that encourages and facilitates scholarly activity and collaboration. By connecting citizens with laws and narratives, the role of the modern law library has evolved …

Oa Week 2018, Marisol Ramos

UConn Library Presentations

Presentation of the benefits of Open Access, as part of exhibit to celebrate Open Access Week 2018 at the UConn Library.

From Chaos To Planned Future: Transforming Libguides From Pathfinders To Learning Objects, Marisol Ramos

UConn Library Presentations

This presentation shares how the LibGuides Management Team at UConn Library applied the lessons learned from previous mistakes to build more accessible and pedagogical sound research guides using LibGuides v2. I will share the issues, challenges, and successes of applying guidelines and best practices in a consistent way to improve the user experience while accessing our research, course, general and topic guides.

Puerto Rico’S Archival Traditions In A Colonial Context, Marisol Ramos, Joel A. Blanco

Published Works

This chapter examines the historical antecedents of recordkeeping and archives in Puerto Rico, during both Spanish and U.S. colonial rules. It also explores the history and current issues of the Archivo General de Puerto Rico (General Archive of Puerto Rico). This historical analysis is made within the context of colonialism, examining the effects of Puerto Rico’s colonial status (during the Spanish colonial period and the current period under United States colonial management) on the mission and work of the AGPR. We argue that while the Archivo General was created to address the chaotic management of government records, its founding reflected …

In The Library And Online: Social Media And Civic Discourse, Samantha A. Mairson

Honors Scholar Theses

This thesis analyzes the findings of an interview-based research study of public-serving libraries in the state of Connecticut. Specifically, it examines these institutions’ use of social media to promote civic discourse online and on-site with the purpose of producing guidelines for best practices. This new research emerges from the Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts research Experience (SHARE) Award project, “Museums, Libraries, and Civic Discourse in Connecticut,” which concluded Spring 2016.

The research develops an understanding of the use of social media by public-serving libraries, presents three models for dissemination of findings to the field, and concludes with key observations and …

Illiad, Rapid, And An Unmediated Solution To The Interlibrary Loan Textbook Dilemma, Erika Mcneil

Published Works

As the cost of textbooks rises and discoverability of resources improves, students are turning more and more to interlibrary loan to meet their textbook needs. This paper describes how systems can be utilized to streamline processes and allow for the cancelling of textbook requests consistently and appropriately by taking full advantage of the capabilities of ILLiad and Rapid, saving both staff time and money. This paper looks at how a large research university made the decision to implement a textbook policy, and how it navigated the troubled waters to come to a simple, unmediated solution.

Creating Spaces For Innovation In The Workplace, Michael Rodriguez

Published Works

When libraries create innovative spaces—or spaces for innovation—they are mostly public-facing spaces. They might be learning commons, makerspaces, collaboration rooms, digital production labs, 3D printing stations, innovation studios, kiosks, incubators, and other buzzwords for physical spaces designed to foster creative productivity through technology and collaboration. At the same time, these transformations have the effect of framing library innovation as heavily public-facing and presenting innovation in terms of technology adoption. Spaces that foster intraorganizational, entrepreneurial innovation by library workers are no less essential yet are largely overlooked in the literature and in practice. This chapter draws on studies, concepts, and models …

La Culpa La Tiene Derrida: La Praxis Deconstrucionista De Buitrago Y Sus Implicaciones En Mi Quehacer Archivístico, Marisol Ramos

UConn Library Presentations

En esta presentación discutiré como el antropólogo Carlos Buitrago, durante su periodo decontrucionista, influyó mi carrera académica en el campo de la archivística. En mi trabajo trazare el camino recorrido junto con Buitrago, primero como su ayudante de investigación en 1992 en un proyecto analizando los repartos vecinales del pueblo de Adjuntas (1824-1832), luego en 1993, trabajando juntos en el Archivo General de Puerto Rico donde me introdujo a los archivos de aguas de Guayama y el tema de los sistemas de riego en este pueblo durante el siglo XIX, y más tarde en 1999 cuando compartió conmigo sus transcripciones …

Giving Access Through Collaboration: Uconn Library & Crl's Collaborations Through Icon, Lamp & Larrp, Marisol Ramos

UConn Library Presentations

Presentation that outline several projects (microfilming and digitization) done between the UConn Library and the Center of Research Libraries (CRL) and their impact on providing access to Latin American cultural heritage primary sources located at the UConn Library's Archives and Special Collections Department.

So, You Want An X-Y Table?, Michael J. Bennett

UConn Library Presentations

Presentation on the University of Connecticut Libraries' automated X-Y table for digital capture of oversized archival maps, plans, art, illustrations, etc. Custom table designed by Michael Ulsaker (Ulsaker Studio, Glastonbury, CT), and Michael J. Bennett (University of Connecticut Library Digital Production Studio). System integration and assembly by Michael Ulsaker. Automation engineering by WEI Inc., Old Saybrook, CT using Yamaha Robotics and Allen Bradley PLC.

Leave Your “Expert” Hat At The Door: Embracing Critical Pedagogy To Create A Community Of Librarian Learners, Marisol Ramos, Jennifer Snow, Sharon Giovenale, Kathleen Labadorf, Dawn Cadogan

Published Works

The purpose of these activities is to bring together an open-minded community of learners that will foster a critical pedagogy environment among librarians in their workplace. In this way, librarians can reflect on their instruction and develop new skills and insights that will benefit both themselves and their students.

Technology Triage: Assessing And Managing Library Systems And Projects, Michael Rodriguez

Published Works

"Technology Triage" presents triage as a framework by which to manage and assess information technology systems and projects in small academic libraries. Drawing on the triage methodology and examples presented in this chapter, library technology managers are better able to assess, prioritize, and manage technology repairs and enhancements in the high-stakes, low-budget environments of many small or rural academic libraries. Triage enables managers to allocate scarce personnel, time and resources with maximal efficiency to obtain the best results for staff and end users.

Presentation On Evaluating The Creation And Preservation Challenges Of Photogrammetry-Based 3d Models, Michael J. Bennett

UConn Library Presentations

No abstract provided.

Evaluating The Creation And Preservation Challenges Of Photogrammetry-Based 3d Models, Michael J. Bennett

Published Works

Though the roots of photogrammetry can be traced back to photography’s earliest days, only recent advances in both digital technology and software applications have put the possibilities of 3D modeling from 2D source images in the hands of the greater cultural heritage community. The possibilities of such 3D digital rendering are many. With these possibilities come unique digital preservation challenges. This study explores basic close-range photogrammetry as applied to sample archival objects. Additionally, the latest BagIt and ZIP-based bundling formats along with repository-based solutions are also surveyed as potential 3D data management and archiving aggregators for resulting 3D models.