Library and Information Science Commons^™

Digital Searching: A Grounded Theory Study On The Modern Search Experience, Nicolas Armando Parés

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This Grounded theory study explores US adults' modern information search process as they pursue information through digital search user interfaces and tools. To study the current search process, a systematic grounded theory methodology and two data collection methods, a think-aloud protocol and semi-structured interviews, are used to develop the theory. The emerging theory addressed two tightly connected research questions that asked, “What is the process by which humans search and discover information?” and “What is the process by which search and discovery interfaces and tools support the modern search process?”

The study collects participant data from US adults who have …

Ledgers Of The W.T. Carter And Brother Lumber Company: An Archival Processing Project, Christopher Cameron Cotton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The W.T. Carter and Brother Lumber Company began in 1898 and operated until 1968 when it was sold to the U.S. Plywood Corporation. The Polk County, Texas company harvested longleaf pine during a crucial period of development for the Texas economy. The lumber industry was the state’s first large scale commercial enterprise not dependent on farming and provided a model for future extractive industries in the state. The W.T. Carter and Brother Lumber Company town of Camden, Texas exemplifies rural implementations of the company town system in the Texas lumber industry. This public history thesis provides a brief history of …

Efficient Heuristic Solutions To Scheduling Online Courses, Rida Zaidi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The demand for efficient algorithms to automate (near-)optimal timetables has motivated many well-studied scheduling problems in operational research. With most of the courses moving online during the recent pandemic, the delivery of quality education has raised many new technical issues, including online course scheduling. This thesis considers the problem of yielding a near-optimal schedule of the real-time courses in an educational institute, taking into account the conflict among courses, the constraint on the simultaneous consumption of the bandwidth at the hosting servers of the courses, and the maximum utilization of the prime time for the lectures. We propose three approaches …

Bridging The Simulation-To-Reality Gap: Adapting Simulation Environment For Object Recognition, Hardik Yogesh Sonetta

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Rapid advancements in object recognition have created a huge demand for labeled datasets for the task of training, testing, and validation of different techniques. Due to the wide range of applications, object models in the datasets need to cover both variations in geometric features and diverse conditions in which sensory inputs are obtained. Also, the need to manually label the object models is cumbersome. As a result, it becomes difficult for researchers to gain access to adequate datasets for the development of new methods or algorithms. In comparison, computer simulation has been considered a cost-effective solution to generate simulated data …

Evaluating Foundational Components Of Research Consultations In An Academic Library Research Center, Ryan F. Buller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As our society continues to evolve at an ever-increasing rate, our higher education institutions, and the services they provide, must keep pace with societal changes in order to ensure that those services stay current and relevant. This program evaluation examines one such service, the research consultation model in University Libraries at the University of Denver. This evaluation was situated within the Human Ecological Theory Framework, to help understand how different environments can impact the recognition and value placed upon the foundational components of the service. An exploratory sequential mixed methods approach was used to determine what the foundational components of …

Cluster Analysis Of Opioid Accessibility In The Carolinas Using Data From The Arcos Database And An Enhanced Two-Step Floating Catchment Area Method, Michael T. Bunker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study takes advantage of transaction level data from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) Automation of Reports and Consolidated Orders System (ARCOS) database made newly available under court order by The Washington Post in July 2019. This data details individual shipments of pharmaceutical opioid analgesics from wholesalers to retail distributors. Using the Enhanced 2-Step Floating Catchment Area (E2SFCA) method, this study calculated access to opioid morphine milligram equivalents (MME) per capita for census tracts in North Carolina and South Carolina during the year 2009. This study demonstrated that outlier volumes of opioid analgesics at individual pharmacies are not always …

Supporting Biracial Students Through An Equity Lens: Multicultural Literature And Advocacy In School Libraries, Jacqueline Ahlborn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Biracial students make up a substantial allocation of the school population, and their demographics are only expected to increase within the coming years. With this emergence of a larger Biracial community, schools need to consider how they will implement equitable resources and practices to meet the needs for this unique population. School librarians, serving as instructional leaders, can provide the necessary materials and strategies to support their students who are Biracial in order to foster positive racial identity. The purpose of this study is to explore school librarians’ perspectives on the influence of multicultural literature on students’ acceptance and understanding …

Portraits Of Professional Collaboration: Faculty-Librarian Teaching Partnerships, Carrie L. Forbes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many regional accrediting organizations for higher education have embraced information literacy as a key component for both student success and student learning outcomes. Through embedded librarianship practices, librarians are now taking a leading role in developing and promoting users’ information literacy skills and in adopting an active classroom teaching approach. Faculty-librarian team teaching is a best practice for integrating information literacy into the higher education curricula, but the extant research has largely focused on the barriers to collaboration. Using Walsh and Kahn’s (2010) model of “collaborative working” as a conceptual framework, this dissertation explores the qualities and characteristics of four …

Remembering The Church In The Wildwood: The Archival Processing And Digitization Of The Martinsville Baptist Church Collection, Allison N. Grimes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Martinsville Baptist Church was founded in 1912 in a rural farming community on State Highway 7 in eastern Nacogdoches County. The church was founded during a revival being held in the community of Martinsville and has been in continuous operation ever since. The church grew throughout its lifetime, reaching record attendance and membership numbers between 1950 and 1980. Since the early 2000s, church attendance and membership has been in decline. This thesis outlines the history of Martinsville Baptist Church and explains conservation measures taken during the archival processing and digitization of records in the Martinsville Baptist Church Collection.

Examining The Role Of Liaison Librarians As Research Collaboration Partners: A Mixed-Methods Multiple-Case Study, Kawanna Michelle Bright

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This sequential, mixed-methods study explored the professional relationship-building experiences of academic liaison librarians and university professors with a focus on research collaborations. A survey was administered and Chi-square and Spearman's rho analyses conducted on 2,650 responses to identify associations between organizational and individual factors and liaisons' work, perceptions of relationship-building experiences, and confidence in supporting faculty research. Following the survey, seven liaison-faculty pairs were identified and interviewed, and case study analysis utilized to explore specific liaison-faculty research collaboration relationships.

The study explored factors associated with liaisons' work, perceptions of faculty relationship-building, and confidence in supporting faculty research. The most salient …

Measuring The Quality Of The Website User Experience, Jeff Sauro

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Consumers spend an increasing amount of time and money online finding information, completing tasks, or making purchases. The quality of the website experience has become a key differentiator for organizations--affecting whether they purchase and their likelihood to return and recommend a website to friends. Two instruments were created to more effectively measure the quality of the website user experience to help improve the experience.

Three studies used Classical Test Theory (CTT) to create a new instrument to measure the quality of the website user experience from the website visitor's perspective. Data were collected over five years from more than 4,000 …

An Investigation Of Information Literacy Of International Graduate Students: Skills, Challenges, And Needs, Yousef Ayoub

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Information literacy at higher education institutions is an important issue at the local and national levels. In 2000, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) created a set of information literacy standards and asked academic institutions to incorporate them into their college curricula (ACRL, 2000). The ACRL states that, to be considered information literate, a person must be able to recognize when information is needed and be able to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information (ACRL, 2000). Academic institutions follow these standards to teach their students information literacy skills and assist them to become lifelong learners. Library …

A Federated Architecture For Heuristics Packet Filtering In Cloud Networks, Ibrahim M. Waziri Jr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The rapid expansion in networking has provided tremendous opportunities to access an unparalleled amount of information. Everyone connects to a network to gain access and to share this information. However when someone connects to a public network, his private network and information becomes vulnerable to hackers and all kinds of security threats. Today, all networks needs to be secured, and one of the best security policies is firewall implementation.

Firewalls can be hardware or cloud based. Hardware based firewalls offer the advantage of faster response time, whereas cloud based firewalls are more flexible. In reality the best form of firewall …

Native American Empowerment Through Digital Repatriation, Michelle L. Fitch

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Following the Enlightenment, Western adherence to positivist theory influenced practices of Western research and documentation. Prior to the introduction of positivism into Western scholarship, innovations in printing technology, literary advancements, and the development of capitalism encouraged the passing of copyright statutes by nation-states in fifteenth century Europe. The evolution of copyright and positivism in Europe influenced United States copyright and its protection of the author, as well as the practice of archiving and its role in interpreting history. Because Native American cultures practiced orality, they suffered the loss of their traditional knowledge and cultural expressions not protected by copyright. By …

The Millennial Rumor: Understanding Millennial College Students' Characteristics, Digital Media Technology Usage, And Assumptions At The University Of Denver, Christina M. Murray

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This quantitative study investigated student and faculty attitudes toward use of Digital Media Technology (DMT) at the University of Denver. The purpose was to understand how and why students and faculty used DMT on campus. Uses and gratifications theory (Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1974) was used as the theoretical model to interpret and understand Millennial college students' DMT use, Langer and Knefelcamp's (2008) College student technology arc was used as a conceptual model. Two survey instruments were designed: one for faculty and one for students to collect data on DMT use and attitudes toward use, satisfaction, skill, and learning at …

Library Anxiety Of Law Students: A Study Utilizing The Multidimensional Library Anxiety Scale, Stacey L. Bowers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether law students experienced library anxiety and, if so, which components contributed to that anxiety. The Multidimensional Library Anxiety Scale (MLAS) developed by Dr. Doris Van Kampen was used to assess library anxiety levels of law students. The MLAS is a 53 question Likert scale instrument that measures the construct of library anxiety. Participants in the study were law students enrolled in a private Midwestern university during the 2009-2010 academic year who completed the survey instrument.

Law students are a unique graduate school population who undergo an extremely rigorous and competitive …

Defining Workplace Information Fluency Skills For Technical Communication Students, Yuejiao Zhang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Information fluency refers to the ability to recognize information needs and to gather, evaluate, and communicate information appropriately. In this study, I treat "information fluency" as both an overall competency and as a collection of knowledge and skills. The purpose of this study is to explore the specific workplace information fluency skills valued by employers of technical communicators, to find out how instructors perceive and teach these skills, and to suggest how these findings can inform our teaching practices. Within the framework of qualitative methodology, this study employs two data-collection instruments, including a content analysis of online job recruitment postings …

Effects Of Institutional Factors On The Retention Of Graduate Students Of Color In Schools Of Library And Information Science, Sandra M. Snyder-Mondragon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The intent of the study was to understand the changes that have occurred over the last 25 years in library programs as far as enrollment and diversity of students, number and ethnicity of the faculty, program income and expenses, cost of attendance, and scholarship and fellowship aid, in an effort to better understand library programs granting the MLIS degree. The study also endeavored to identify institutional factors associated with the retention and productivity rates of White students and students of color in schools of library and information science. During the period studied, the proportional representation of White students decreased. For …

Double Duty: Processing And Exhibiting The Children's Home Society Of Florida Collection As An Archivist And Public Historian, April Anderson-Zorn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Children's Home Society of Florida, often referred to as "Florida's Greatest Charity", is the state's oldest non profit welfare agency. Founded in 1902, the society was instrumental in creating and reforming child welfare laws as well as helping countless children in the state of Florida find loving homes. This paper focuses on the archival processing of the Children's Home Society of Florida Collection papers and the creation of a subsequent web exhibit. The role of archivist and public historian is examined to see how each profession works toward a common goal.

A Case Study Of The Libraries In The Vanguard Learning Colleges, Linda G. Swaine

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study was conducted to determine the characteristics of a learning-centered library from the perspective of the libraries in the 12 Vanguard Learning Colleges which were participants in the Learning College Project sponsored by the League for Innovation in the Community College. The 12 Vanguard Learning Colleges were: Cascadia Community College (WA), Community College of Baltimore County (MD), Community College of Denver (CO), Humber College, (Ontario), Kirkwood Community College (IA), Lane Community College, OR), Madison Area Technical College (WI), Moraine Valley Community College (IL), Palomar College (CA), Richland College (TX), Sinclair Community College (OH), and Valencia Community College (FL). Furthermore, …