Digital Commons Network^™

Cultura, Collaborations, And Chisme: The Latinx Caucus’ Oral History Project, Adela Justice, Brandon Kennedy, Jessica Diaz, Manuel Pasos, Saily Marrero, Sandra Desjardins

Library Staff Publications

The MLA Latinx Caucus began an oral history project featuring its members. Using a collaborative, community-based approach, the project brings together medical library professionals to share their experiences and reflect on cultural identity, professional growth, and collective advocacy. This poster describes the development of this significant project.   Background: In Fall 2025 one of the caucus leaders shared that they had a robust oral history project at their library organization, and had learned oral history processes and standards. This began the idea of forming an oral history project at the MLA caucus level. Lessons learned from the MLA AAMLA Caucus showed …

Librarians' Perspectives On Integrating Gardens Into Academic Library Spaces: Perceived Benefits, Challenges And Opportunities, Comfort Akosua Boatemaa Asare, Millicent Asah, Gregory Kuttin Asare, Adamu Awudu, Samuel Bentil Aggrey

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This study examined the perspectives of academic librarians on the integration of indoor gardens into library spaces. Data were obtained from 33 librarians through the use of a structured questionnaire. The collected data showed that 78.8% of the respondents indicated a favourable attitude towards garden integration. The respondents identified a number of benefits that academic libraries could derive from garden integration, including aesthetic appeal, environmental awareness, student well-being, and improved learning. Among the challenges stated were space constraints, maintenance demands, budgetary allocations, and a lack of horticultural expertise. Strategies that could aid effective garden integration within academic libraries include developing …

Records Management For Improving Service Delivery In Local Government Authorities In Tanzania, Grace Msiga Gm, Grace Msiga Gm, Grace Msiga Gm

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The study examined the role of records management in improving service delivery in Local Government Authorities (LGAs) in Tanzania. Specifically, it aimed to explore the state of records management practices within Local Government Authorities (LGAs), to assess the link between records management and service delivery in Local Government Authorities (LGAs), and identify possible barriers in records management that prevent Local Government Authorities (LGAs) from achieving better service delivery. A survey or census sampling method was used to select 240 respondents from a population consisting of 168 Action Officers (AOs), 60 records management staff (RMS), and 12 key informants. The study …

In This Library, Self-Preservation Is A Full-Time Occupation: Stories And Strategies From Early Career Digital Preservation Professionals, Alisha Baginski, Sarah Glover, April Griess

Criss Library Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

Early career digital preservationists often bring a high level of curiosity and enthusiasm to their first professional jobs. This energy aligns well with the digital preservation field, which is defined by rapid technological change and innovation. However, that early momentum can quickly wane as they face an ever-expanding set of responsibilities, including institutional backlogs, research and instruction, and evaluating new technologies. These pressures are further compounded by the need to continually articulate the value of digital preservation work to colleagues and administrators amid increasing financial uncertainty.

Have you ever asked questions like: How can I make long-term plans for my …

Shelter From The Storm: Public Library Value And Community Adaptive Capacities, Margo Gustina

Economics ETDs

This dissertation contributes to theoretical framing within the discipline of library science, while building out empirical methods for quantitatively valuing broadly loved public libraries. Chapter 1 lays the foundation for understanding how analysis public libraries must always be set within regional contexts. Chapter 2 demonstrates that positive voter valuation of public libraries is driven by proximity to a library building by using data from public funding referendum events. Chapter 3 estimates a reduction of 0.75 percentage point (p=0.002) in graduation rates where public libraries were closed (but school instruction was in-person) from COVID closures. Chapter 4 builds on the previous …

Ai Tools For Research Teams, Sandra Desjardins

Library Class: Lunch & Learn

Join us for a fast-paced, practical session on using free and low-cost AI tools to save hours on your research workflow, from initial discovery to final synthesis. We'll have an overview of tools like Rayyan, ResearchRabbit, and Elicit.

Exploring The Benefits Of Yoruba Indigenous Knowledge And The Herbal Medicine System, Sunday Opene Ozonuwe 7317673, Ayobami Aderonke Ogungbade, Faith Ohwofasa

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The Yoruba people are one of the West African's main ethno-linguistic or ethnic groups. They have an impressive indigenous knowledge and herbal medicinal system. They pre-occupied Oyo, Osun, Ekiti, Kwara, Ondo, Lagos and Koji state. The researchers developed seven (7) research objectives and seven (7) research questions to investigate the nature, forms, benefits and methods of preparing and administering Yoruba Herbal Medicine. Descriptive research design was adopted for the study, interviews and observations were the instruments used for data collections. Eight (8) herbal medicine practitioners were interviewed in Oyo and Ogun state. The result of the interviews was also presented …

Ethical Issues In The Use Of Emerging Technologies In The Library, Funmilola Olubunmi Omotayo

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Digital tools and emerging technologies are transforming our world, including library settings. Libraries are shifting their collections from predominantly print publications to digital resources. Librarians have turned from an ethos of ownership and authority to service, guidance, and collaboration. From pedagogy to resource sharing, the success of many libraries relies upon diverse technologies and their widespread adoption. Librarians create technological processes, design resources, manage resources, and make use of diverse technologies to support library administration. Emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics and Data mining and analytics tools are now being adopted for library administration. …

At The Helm In The Storm: Compassionate Leadership For Library Instruction Programs, Clinton Baugess, Mallory Jallas

Works by Oberlin College Libraries Staff

Academic libraries are navigating turbulent waters-shifting priorities, resource constraints, and evolving curricula for instructional programs. In this environment, leadership approaches matter more than ever. This session explores compassionate leadership as a framework for guiding information literacy programs through change, emphasizing empathy, communication, recognition, and support as core principles. The presenters explored how this theory applies to librarians in both formal and informal leadership roles. Join us to chart a course toward leadership that balances advocacy, adaptability, and care-essential qualities for navigating the evolving seas of teaching and learning in higher education. Session presented as part of the 2026 LOEX Conference …

Mapping Information Literary To The Medical Curriculum, Ella Hu, David Stewart

Posters

Medical school accreditation by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) requires library staff to be responsive to educational needs. Despite a move toward integrated learning, library instruction is often limited to single sessions early in the curriculum. Curriculum mapping addresses this by providing a systematic analysis of program courses to visualize teaching priorities and the student experience. This strategic tool enables librarians to shift from reactive service to proactive engagement, finding high-impact courses through syllabus analysis. Furthermore, aligning the ACRL Framework with medical education standards, such as AAMC Core EPAs and ACGME requirements, is essential for identifying instructional gaps …

Medical Journals As Complex Adaptive System (Cas) Reports: Reframing Journals As Structured Detection, Interpretation, And Feedback Systems In Healthcare, James Espinosa, Alan Lucerna

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

Background Healthcare operates as a complex adaptive system (CAS) characterized by distributed agents, nonlinear interactions, and emergent behavior. Effective adaptation depends on mechanisms capable of detecting and redistributing signals from across the system.

Objective To conceptualize the medical journal as a structured CAS report and to examine its role in supporting system awareness among clinicians.

Conceptual Model Recurring journal sections—including original research, reviews, editorials, clinical cases, perspectives, humanities, and letters—function as distinct sensing and signaling channels. Together, they provide a multi-dimensional representation of system activity.

Implications Journals serve not only as repositories of knowledge but as adaptive communication nodes that …

Helping Waldo (The Poster) Be Found: Teaching Search Literacy, Discoverability And Search Engine Optimization As Core Scholarly Skills In Graduate Medical Education, James Espinosa, Alan Lucerna

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

Background: In modern academic medicine, trainees are taught how to search the biomedical literature but rarely taught how to structure their own scholarly work so that it can be discovered. This creates a diffusion gap in which high‑quality educational innovations, case reports, and operational insights remain difficult to locate despite being presented or archived.

Objective: To propose a concise educational module that teaches residents the principles of search literacy and scholarly discoverability.

Methods: A conceptual curriculum framework was developed drawing on literature from information science, medical education, and diffusion theory. The module introduces the paired competencies of 'Finding Waldo' (literature …

Sharing Research Posters With The World: Clinical Education Posters Can Demonstrate Global Diffusion And Conceptual Portability--Evidence From Readership Maps, James Espinosa, Alan Lucerna

Rowan-Virtua Research Day

Background

Traditional academic metrics emphasize citation counts and journal impact factors as measures of scholarly influence. These metrics often overlook the early and informal diffusion of ideas across global clinical communities. Educational posters and case-based teaching materials frequently circulate through digital repositories, yet little attention has been paid to how readership analytics may illuminate patterns of knowledge diffusion across healthcare systems.

Objective

To explore the concept of conceptual portability and to introduce readership mapping as a framework for understanding how clinical ideas travel across diverse global contexts.

Methods

We examined readership analytics from an institutional digital repository hosting clinical posters …

Library Professionals Job Satisfaction Level In Autonomous Arts And Science Colleges In Tamil Nadu: A Study, Ganapathy Kaniappan, Geetha A., Jayashree R.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This study was conducted to expansively explore the job satisfaction of employees towards the career development opportunities as the main objective, followed by identifying the main factors and concluding with suggestions to conquer the dissatisfaction level of jobs of staff serving in respective libraries. The study sample consisted of 250 respondents representing all librarians, deputy librarians, assistant librarians/documentation officers, information scientists, and library assistants working in 39 district libraries in Tamil Nadu. A structured questionnaire with a five-point Likert scale was used to collect quantitative data for the study. Based on the survey findings, this study concluded that the library …

“Overworked, Undernourished, And Weak In The Eyes”: The Portrayal Of Librarians In Comics, Alessandro Camarra

Staff publications

Librarians and library workers have frequently appeared as characters within the medium of comics, perhaps more so than people realize. While the discussion usually begins and ends with Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, the number of examples that can actually be found is astoundingly vast.

Whether they are fictional beings wholly created by the artists, or based on real-life individuals, librarians represent a standard archetype within popular culture that creators often reference in order to convey a specific image to their audience. Usually, but not always, this involves an emphasis on negative stereotypes associated with the profession: demanding silence from patrons, outdated modes …

A Survey On Knowledge-Enhanced Healthcare Question Answering Systems, Junnan Su, Pu Han, Jianxiang Wei

Journal of Scientific Information Research

[Purpose/significance] This paper aims to review the research progress and applications of knowledge enhancement techniques in healthcare question answering systems, in response to the limitations of traditional systems in knowledge representation and reasoning, as well as challenges faced by current large language model-based systems, such as insufficient domain knowledge, privacy concerns, and hallucination. The review provides a systematic reference for improving the precision and knowledge reliability of such systems. [Process/method] Focusing on knowledge enhancement strategies, this paper firstly outlines their fundamental concepts and overall framework. The strategies are then categorized into explicit and implicit types, with an analysis of their …

Research On Text Translation Model Based On Large Language Model And Knowledge Enhancement Framework, Chuanming Yu, Haoxuan Li

Journal of Scientific Information Research

[Purpose/significance] This paper aims to improve the translation quality of large language models and effectively alleviate the translation illusion problem, thereby enhancing cross-linguistic information retrieval capabilities. [Method/process] A translation generation method based on a knowledge enhancement framework is proposed. This framework optimizes the translation process from multiple dimensions, such as style, focus, and cultural adaptability, by combining external knowledge provided by the translation context building module and the knowledge base building and retrieval module, and then utilizing the guidance of the text attention module. [Result/conclusion] Experimental results show that the proposed method effectively enhances model performance. Specifically, on the WikiLingua, …

Library News-- May, 2026, Rwu University Library

Library Newsletter

No abstract provided.

News From Georgia Libraries Conference, Nancy A. Shore

Georgia Library Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Finding Our Village: A Conversation About Support, Scholarship, And Surviving Doctoral Work, Kristina Clement, Nancy A. Shore, Erin B. Tan

Georgia Library Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Himmelfarb Headlines - May/June 2026, The George Washington University, Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library

Himmelfarb Headlines (2009 - present)

News, information, and resources relating to the Himmelfarb Library that is of interest to patrons.

Not Just Monetary: Arts And Humanities Scholars’ Perspectives On The Costs Of Open Access Publishing, Lindsey Skaggs, Rachel Scott, Colby Cilento

Faculty and Staff Publications – Milner Library

Bibliometric and survey-based studies have documented different open access (OA) publishing practices among scholars across academic disciplines. This article reports on interviews conducted with arts and humanities scholars from the United States and explores how OA intersects with their research and publication practices. Beyond the considerable financial costs of OA publishing, findings demonstrate that arts and humanities scholars contend with opportunity, reputational, equity, and time costs as they consider and engage with OA publishing. The authors discuss the implications of these costs for librarians who facilitate the dissemination, discovery, and preservation of arts and humanities scholarship.

Improving Outreach To Residents Through Semi-Structured Interviews, Emmett Booth, Mlis, Ahip, Gary Kaplan, Mlis, Ahip, Abby Adamczyk, Mlis, Ahip, John Caruso, Md

Academic Commons and Scott Memorial Library Staff Papers and Presentations

Objectives

Our academic medical center has a large number of residents and fellows across programs based out of multiple hospitals, five of which receive direct support from the libraries. Two librarians supporting the scholarly activities of residents and fellows were hired by the university in the last six years. As these positions evolve, we seek to understand if outreach is working, whether support is effective, and whether scholarly support needs are changing. Building on survey results from last year,1 the team is conducting interviews with residents and program directors to better understand their perceptions of library support and services.

A Culture Of Resilience: A Cross-Library Partnerships To Sustain Health Data Services, Emily Blumenthal, Sara Hoover, Lacey Johnson, Brie Mcdonald, Brittany Smith

Himmelfarb Library Faculty Posters and Presentations

Over the last decade there has been distinct growth in the area of library-based research data management (RDM) programs and services. Yet for many academic and health research institutions, 2025 has been a year of steep budget cuts, requiring institutions to devise creative ways to assess and sustain local data services. In this poster we explore how a “cultured collaboration” between the George Washington University health sciences library (Himmelfarb) and the main campus library (GW Libraries and Academic Innovation/LAI) is being utilized to expand service offerings and retain vital services despite fiscal challenges.

Learn More About The Crown Jewel Of The Mcgovern Historical Center, Katie Prentice

TMC Library Newsletter (2015-)

No abstract provided.

Benefits Of Contemporary Literature On Literacy And Cognitive Development In Elementary School Students, Autumn R. Hemenway

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The purpose of this capstone research project is to examine the benefits of contemporary literature on the literacy and cognitive development of elementary school students. Contemporary literature includes modern texts that reflect diverse experiences, identities, and real-life issues that students can relate to. This study reviews academic articles and interviews with elementary school teachers and school librarians to explore how these resources influence vocabulary development, reading comprehension, student engagement, and critical thinking. The findings indicated that contemporary literature supports literacy growth by increasing student motivation and connection to reading, while also promoting cognitive development through interpretation, perspective taking, and deeper …

May 2026 Library & Learning Newsletter, Minnesota State University, Mankato. Library & Learning Dean's Office Communication Team

Library & Learning Newsletters

PDF version of the May 2026 (Volume 4, Issue 10) Library & Learning Newsletter.

How Licensing Compromised The Library, Aaron Perzanowski

Articles

Libraries are under attack on multiple fronts. Fueled by right-wing talking points, social-media misinformation, and conspiratorial fantasy, efforts to remove or restrict access to books in public and school libraries have exploded across the United States. At the same time, libraries have confronted a disturbing rise in threats of violence and harassment directed at staff and patrons. State and federal actors have targeted library budgets. And on occasion, local residents have voted to defund their own libraries.

But it gets worse. Libraries face new challenges to their basic operations. Materials are harder than ever to acquire, and many in-demand digital …

Changes In The Dental & Oral Health Information Landscape, Alisun Dekock, Melissa Ernst, Jimmy Gonzalez Vicker, Kelly O'Brien

Individual Scholarship

As we navigate rapid changes to information access and utilization, dental and oral health care professionals are finding new ways to meet the needs of their users. Practitioners locating, evaluating, and applying research continues to encounter new obstacles, including significant changes to institutions that share health data and make recommendations. This poster discusses effective strategies dentistry librarians have used for information retrieval, method analysis, and patient education.

Background  

This poster provides an overview of how four dentistry librarians are responding to trends and changes in the dental and oral health information landscape at their various institutions and organizations.

Description   

Within …

Integrating Ai Into Collection Development Workflows: Prompts, Rubrics, And Responsible Use, Ivan Portillo, David Carson, Margaret Puentes

Library Presentations, Posters, and Audiovisual Materials

AI technologies are advancing at a rapid pace and offer new opportunities for library advancement. This session highlights practical ways AI can support collection development and discusses opportunities to improve library workflows.  Attendees will also learn how AI can strengthen library resource management by optimizing decision making and use of resources.

Learning Outcomes: 

• Attendees will learn about approaches to integrating artificial intelligence into collection development
• Attendees will learn about artificial intelligence tools and their applicability to collections 
• Attendees will learn about the ethical use of artificial intelligence tools