Library and Information Science Commons^™

Problem Lah! Learning To Tell The Story Of Continuous Assessment And Improvement, Tamera Hanken

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

To succeed organizations rely on the purposeful application of the management functions, planning, organizing, leading and controlling, i.e., assessment. Assessment involves the collection and analysis of service and performance data to inform planning, organizing and leading-- opening the door to a culture of assessment and continuous improvement. Like other organizations responding to ever challenging economies and ever changing customer expectations, libraries are examining continuous improvement methods such as Lean, or Six Sigma, to ensure operations and services are customer focused and can be continuously assessed and improved with limited resources. Librarians though, often lack a general understanding of assessment and …

The Embedded Library: A Marriage Made In Heaven Or In Hell?, Glenda Myers, Trish Warner

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

This case study covers a number of areas in which a 90 year old medical library has been able to redefine purpose and services, and considers both the positive as well as the negative aspects of the embedded relationship.

According to the Shumaker assessment of readiness for embeddedness, the Witwatersrand Health Sciences Library (WHSL) and the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand were more than ready to embrace a partnership by 2010. A survey indicated that a high proportion (93.5%) of academic staff felt that evidence-based information literacy (IL) should be included in the formal medical …

Towards A Holistic Analysis Tool To Support Decision-Making In Libraries, Lorena Siguenza-Guzman, Ludo Holans, Alexandra Van Den Abbeele, Joos Vandewalle, Henri Verhaaren, Dirk Cattrysse

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

Academic libraries have recently been subjected to continuous budget reductions, mainly due to the increasing costs of information and the global economic crisis. As the primary purpose of an academic library is to provide well-balanced collections and a wide range of services to support education and research, an efficient use and allocation of limited resources is vital. However, allocating resources such as money, staff, time, and infrastructure between the library collection and services represents a challenge due to the multitude of data sources required to consult during a decision-making process.

Academic libraries are accustomed to keeping voluminous statistics on their …

E-Science, Cyberinfrastructure And The Changing Face Of Scholarship: Organizing For New Models Of Research Support At The Purdue University Libraries, Jake R. Carlson, Jeremy R. Garritano

Libraries Research Publications

This book chapter provides context of how the Purdue University Libraries identified the need to support e-science and how it changed organizationally in response to this need. As an example of this support in action, the authors' work with CASPiE [the Center for Authentic Science Practice in Education), an NSF-funded Undergraduate Research Center (URC) based out of the Purdue Department of Chemistry] is included as a case study.

A Subject Librarian’S Guide To Collaborating On E-Science Projects, Jeremy R. Garritano, Jake R. Carlson

Libraries Research Publications

For liaison or subject librarians, entering into the emerging area of providing researchers with data services or partnering with them on cyberinfrastructure projects can be a daunting task. This article will provide some advice as to what to expect and how providing data services can be folded into other liaison duties. New skills for librarians and traditional skills that can be adapted to data curation work will also be discussed. A case study on the authors' experiences collaborating with two chemistry faculty on an e-science project serves as the framework for the majority of this article.

Strategies For Institutional Repository Development: A Case Study Of Three Evolving Initiatives, Carole L. Palmer, Lauren C. Teffeau, Mark P. Newton

Libraries Research Publications

As an evolving part of the profession of librarianship, institutional repository development is still in the process of establishing guiding principles and best practices. There is no one path to follow and few established cases from which to learn about development options and risks. This case study presents a close examination of the approaches taken at three university libraries, comparing choices, strategies, and conditions driving development activities. The most pronounced differences stem from how the initiatives are balancing content acquisition and service provision. Across cases, intellectual property concerns are prevalent, and repository goals and policies are often implicit, with the …