Digital Commons Network^™

Historical Use Of Libraries In Inpatient Psychiatric Treatment In The United Kingdom, Jessica Buckey, Mlis

SLIS Connecting

In the 19th and 20th centuries, libraries were a common amenity in psychiatric hospitals, particularly private ones. This paper sheds new light on the history of these libraries in inpatient psychiatric treatment centers. The prevailing medical philosophy held that occupation and moderate intellectual stimulation were important for recovery, a mode of thought culminating in the 20th century bibliotherapy movement. This is not a clinical study, and it assumes no stance on the therapeutic value of reading. Instead, it is a historical study of libraries in inpatient psychiatric centers: how these libraries were curated; how patient libraries, throughout their history, responded …

Mental Health And Well-Being In Academic Libraries: A Bibliometric Survey Of Scholarly Publications, 1994-2024, Rebecca Arthur, Mlis

SLIS Connecting

Academic libraries are crucial pieces of the higher education system; national accreditation standards for colleges and universities require the existence of accessible library collections and knowledgeable, trained staff. Traditionally, the academic collections, both physical and digital, of these libraries have been their focal point, and the importance of the academic library on campus has been derived from its ability to provide instructional materials and support to students, faculty, and staff. However, the educational paradigm of academic librarianship has shifted as higher education has evolved throughout the twentieth century. Previously long-established pedagogies have become insufficient in the face of changing technologies …

Book Review: Creating Inclusive Libraries By Applying Universal Design: A Guide By Carli Spina, Katrina Williams

School of Information Student Research Journal

Creating Inclusive Libraries by Applying Universal Design: A Guide is a practical and useful resource for improving libraries so that they are accessible to the broadest range of people possible. The format is well organized, and the case studies illustrate principles in engaging and recognizable ways. A reader who starts with no knowledge of Universal Design would acquire a working knowledge and be able to assess their own spaces with the guidance provided through examples and checklists. Rather than focus on resources for disabled patrons, Spina encourages readers to adopt a reflective practice for considering the needs of all library …

Coding With Those Who Show Up: Two Methodologies On Technical Committee Work, Mark E. Eaton

Publications and Research

This paper considers our library’s attempt at applying a “laissez-faire leadership” model to technical committee work. Since its introduction in the 1990s, scholarship on laissez-faire leadership has historically viewed the concept very negatively. However, we argue here that many of these perspectives are straw man arguments that do not adequately consider the possibilities of a laissez-faire model. Following some dissenting voices in the literature, we would like to reclaim the laissez-faire model as a way to facilitate library technical work under certain very specific circumstances. This paper will describe the organizational context where these laissez-faire methods worked for us. Our …

The Living Document, Camilla Lyckblad

Proceedings from the Document Academy

This physical interactive art piece of thesis research in progress aims to deepen comprehension of information behavior in clinical contexts, where the contemporary medical record, with its increasing digital properties such as open record access for patients, can be viewed as an entity that both listens and influences. The art piece sheds light on the complex dynamics of truth within clinical environments, where patients and healthcare professionals might selectively disclose or withhold information, aiming to protect both patient, clinician and the information itself. Set within a small, dimly lit room, the exhibit features eight aged medical records, each inscribed with …

Conceptual Curiosity: Sense(Un)Making, Rebekah L. Cowell

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Across disciplines, sensemaking is a theoretical and methodological research program, over forty years in development, that has been treated as a framework for understanding how humans behaviorally respond to external information sources and interpret to construct and actualize actionable outcomes; however, sensemaking is an interlinking process that does not operate in singularity–behaviorally or actionably–it is neurobiological (autonomous drive), cognitive (perceptual and predictive), and psychological (congruency in meaning).

This paper enlarges the conceptual framework for studying sensemaking and redefines it by addressing what sensemaking is, does, and needs. At the core of this conversation is addressing the absence of knowledge and …

Conversations On Cultural Heritage: Confirming The Family Home As An Archive, Vanessa Reyes, Vanessa Irvin

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Family archives, as repositories of cultural heritage, play a crucial role in preserving multi-generational knowledge. The family is the first collaborative unit in which community memory-keeping is operationalized. The family home is an archive or library of data for generations of family members living through historical movements, patterns of migration, and technological advancement. Thus, 'home' is a data-rich repository of local history. Memory-keeping tasks, such as recording events in family Bibles and maintaining photo albums, scrapbooks, and journals, are multi-generational literacy practices. The stories within a family archive endure, but the narrators may change over time. Archiving family cultural heritage …

Space And Context: Exploration Of Information Experience And Document Experience, Carrie A. Boettcher

Proceedings from the Document Academy

This paper explores documents that are recorded and cataloged, but the original is a one-of-a-kind phenomenon that only exists once. It ponders where information ends, and document begins and the concepts of space and context that contribute to the shape or structure of the document. Specifically, the confidential counseling session, only experienced by the individuals present during the session, repeated but not duplicated, and how information and documents contribute to understanding of the counseling session.

Time And The Catalogue, Alec Mullender

Proceedings from the Document Academy

This paper explores the multiple ways in which concepts of time are incorporated in cataloguing and classification to see how these temporal concepts influence how material is organised in library space. It discusses multiple concepts, including the structural influences of the capitalist ‘exchange-view’ of time in how the discipline is organised and its incorporation into the so-called ‘universal’ cataloguing systems. The continued issues of obsolescence within cataloguing systems as language and concepts constantly evolve, and how these are integrated into the systems themselves. The paper also discusses the semantic difficulties with how time itself is expressed within cataloguing systems, as …

The Mutability Of Personal Documents And Mediated Memories As We Age: A Collaborative Reflection, Vanessa Reyes, Bhuva Narayan, Annemarie Zijlema, Mary Anne Kennan

Proceedings from the Document Academy

How do our personal documentation practices change as we age, and how can we create and save personal evidence of ourselves for our family’s future? All of us continually accumulate information about ourselves in our everyday lives, intentionally, incidentally, or otherwise, for self-presentation, self-fulfillment, reminders of our past, reinforcing identity, as a hobby, for personal documentation, or for peace of mind. Increasingly, this evidence is in digital form, and often in the cloud. The authors use a collaborative autoethnography and narrative methodology, as outlined by Ford (2020), to document how aging affects our personal documentation and our memories. In the …

Libraries On The Front Lines: The Imperative For Disaster-Ready Information Professionals, Feili Tu-Keefner Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Libraries, particularly local public libraries, have evolved into hubs for community-first services, extending beyond traditional roles. Library personnel are now expected to act as first responders and crisis leaders during times such as natural disasters. This report documents the critical crisis leadership qualifications required for library personnel, identified through comprehensive research from 2015 to 2023. Findings from these situation-specific case studies call attention to the community’s needs for library services during emergencies, underscoring the requirement for LIS education to include disaster management. Continuing education (CE) is also critical in preparing information professionals for these essential roles.

Integrating Diverse Perspectives In Graduate Statistics Education Through Academic And Library Faculty Collaboration, Christina Jones, Ethan Fridmanski, Julie A. Lorah

Journal of Graduate Librarianship

Graduate-level statistics education is often narrowly focused on the mathematical aspect of modeling. While this aspect is important, this focus results in a gap in the student’s understanding regarding the context of the development and use of statistical models. This article provides a description and initial evaluation of a program designed to address this gap. Specifically, the authors collaborated to create a reading list related to the topic of social justice in statistics and integrated the resources on this list into a graduate-level statistics class on the topic of multilevel modeling. The article describes this integration, preliminary evaluation, and future …

Bringing The Library Into Brightspace, Stephen Francoeur, Rebecca Hyams, John Delooper, Robin Naughton, Eric Silberberg

Publications and Research

This panel presentation highlights collaboration among CUNY libraries and LMS administrators to automate integration of library course reserves, research guides and other web-based services into Brightspace. The presentation begins discussing how learning tools interoperability (LTI) integration provides library resources to students at their point of need. It then describes the technical requirements to automate and customize the Springshare LTI library platform within Brightspace. The panel concludes with examples from several campuses demonstrating what this integration looks like.

Chaos Creator: Misinformation Inoculation In Information Literacy Instruction, Mandi Goodsett

Michael Schwartz Library Publications

Combating the spread of misinformation is a struggle that has inspired considerable research in the fields of psychology, education, political science, and information science, among others. Such research has found that “prebunking” or “inoculation” techniques—strategies that reduce the acceptance of misinformation before one has encountered it—have had marked success. However, there is little evidence that librarians are deliberately employing inoculation techniques in their information literacy (IL) instruction. Via a quasi-experimental study, this research explores the effect of prebunking techniques in an IL instruction session on undergraduate students’ ability to recognise misinformation. The prebunking techniques are delivered through a competitive game …

Oer Curation Worksheet, Theodore J. Szpakowski

All Musselman Library Staff Works

This worksheet aids library staff in curating open educational resources for a given class.

Perceived Barriers And Facilitators Of Behavioral-Health Modality Change Adoption During The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review, Nicholas Sims-Rhodes, Hannah E. Cornwell, Emily Barena, Vandy C. Dubre, Kimberly S. Elliott, Eman H. Nabulsi, Nelly Yuen, Sarah Sass, Anastasia Miller, Yordanos M. Tiruneh, Karan P. Singh

Presentations and Publications

Introduction: During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic, there was a surge in demand for mental health services worldwide, presenting challenges for healthcare institutions as they navigated changes in policy and safety regulations. In the United States, this resulted in many behavioral health modality changes to remain in compliance with the Center for Disease Control guidelines. A growing body of literature has documented these, yet few explored barriers and facilitators affecting the adoption of these modality delivery changes. The researchers conducted a systematic review using the PRISMA method, focusing on service delivery changes across healthcare systems in the United States from …

Strategies For Competitive Advantage In Libraries And Information Centers, De-Graft Johnson Dei, Linda Anane-Donkor

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Libraries and information centers keep experiencing sluggish growth due to the absence of an integrated and coherent strategy that can be deployed to enable them to be competitive, have a competitive advantage, and gain market position. This study, therefore, sought to assess the strategies for competition in libraries and information centers and develop a framework that can be deployed in libraries and information centers for competitive advantage. The study adopted a conceptual and qualitative approach to research. Based on the review and analysis, the researcher developed a framework that suggests that technology (infrastructure, social media systems, gamification, and artificial intelligence) …

A Faculty Workshop On Developing Students As Discipline-Situated Researchers, William Badke, Elizabeth Kreiter, Qinqin Zhang

Communications in Information Literacy

The reference librarians of Trinity Western University have a strong mission-driven commitment to teach information literacy, but there is a significant contrast between the amount of instruction they can provide and the demanding task of developing all students as skilled researchers. The growing teach-the-teacher model suggested an option to enlist faculty in providing a larger portion of information literacy instruction themselves. With strong support from academic administration, three librarians devised an initial faculty workshop as part of the university’s faculty professional development series, followed by four detailed weekly sessions. They based their activities on several factors: first, faculty members would …

From Pages To Pixels: Library Workers’ Perceptions Of Power In The Digital Era, Sean Gaffney

Dissertations

This work explores how library workers experience power during the era of digital transformation. As libraries transition from traditional knowledge repositories to dynamic, technology-driven information centers, power structures within these institutions are undergoing significant change. Despite the extensive implementation of digital transformation initiatives, there is a critical gap in understanding how digitalization is impacting employees’ experiences of power within the library context.

Drawing on French and Raven’s Bases of Social Power model, this study investigates how digital tools, platforms, and processes influence how power is perceived among library workers and its distribution and sources. A qualitative survey study was conducted …

Understanding Ai Literacy: Implications For Practice, Sara Westall, Janet Anderson, Devon Olson

Librarian Publications

A presentation developed for the fall 2024 University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences Medical Curriculum Advance, exploring the connections between information literacy, artificial intelligence literacy, and algorithmic literacy and their relevance to health education from the perspective of research and instruction librarians.

The Inclusion Of Metacognition In Source Evaluation Instruction, Anthony Tardiff

Communications in Information Literacy

Though the ACRL Framework holds metacognition as crucial to exercising information literacy, its emphasis was reduced from prominence in early drafts to a single mention in the final document. At the same time, few of the frequently-taught sets of source evaluation criteria include a step for self-awareness. This raises the question: do librarians explicitly teach metacognitive concepts when they teach source evaluation? Online library guides about source evaluation from various colleges and universities in Washington state were analyzed, and librarians who taught source evaluation were surveyed to determine whether and to what extent metacognitive concepts were included as part of …

Digital Scholarship Lab Summer 2024 Survey Report, Sean Winslow

Reports and White Papers - Milner Library

During the Summer of 2024, the Digital Scholarship Lab at Milner Library conducted a survey to garner feedback on user interests and needs to help guide the work of the new Digital Scholarship Coordinator, Dr. Sean Winslow, who joined the library in April. The Digital Scholarship Lab opened in August 2023, but many potential users did not know it existed or the specifics of its infrastructure as it relates to their needs.

It’S So Liberating To Do The Work: Education In Archives Creates Space For People With Disabilities, Jen Hoyer, Julia Pelaez

Publications and Research

What are the barriers and possibilities archives education presents to the disabilities community? More specifically, how can archives education and teaching with primary sources provide opportunities for disabled students that they might not find in mainstream education settings? What matters when working with students with disabilities in archives, and what does it feel like to be a disabled educator in an archive? How can education in archives provide opportunities for vulnerability, connection, and liberation? Sharing a passion for the possibilities of education work in archives and special collections, Jen Hoyer and Julia Pelaez sat down for a conversation about these …

Accessibility Of National Parks And Other Natural Protected Areas For People With Disabilities: A Scoping Review Of The Academic Literature, Mark Weiler, Alison Whiting, Waqas Sajid, Neha Dewan, Tilak Dutta

Library Publications

National parks and protected wilderness areas provide benefits through leisure activities to many. Yet, many people with disabilities are unable to experience these benefits because of barriers. Therefore, it is important to understand how to improve access to these spaces for people with disabilities. The objective of this study is to identify barriers and facilitators to accessibility in national parks and protected natural areas. Using a scoping review methodology, we searched eighteen academic databases and found 44 sources meeting our eligibility criteria. Our findings include tables that map the literature by publication year, types of disabilities, specific national parks, park …

Feasibility Of Technical Solutions For The Detection Of Falsified Images In Research, Phill Jones, Hylke Koers

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

In this report, we discuss the findings of an investigation into the feasibility of developing a research image integrity system. The focus was primarily on immunohistochemistry blots and microscopy images, although the findings are relevant to other types of research images such as gel blots and spectroscopy, geophysical, or astronomical images, as well as to any digital data type. The investigation comprised a mix of desk research and semi-structured (anonymized) interviews with nine stakeholders representing publishers, researchers, technologists, and microscopy companies.

We found that it would be possible to implement a system to assert image integrity and that the technology …

Lanthorn, Vol. 59, No. 07, November 11, 2024, Grand Valley State University

Volume 59, August 5, 2024 – April 14, 2025

Lanthorn is Grand Valley State's student newspaper, published from 1968 to the present.

Three Years Of Misinformation: A Case Study Of Information Literacy Methods, Elizabeth Zak

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Misinformation is an ever-evolving digital issue. As the internet evolves, so too does misinformation and the ways in which it is propagated. Information literacy methods, such as the CRAAP test, the RADAR framework and the SIFT method, can help information users discern between real and fake information, and prevent the spread of misinformation. Unfortunately, the speed with which misinformation evolves often makes information literacy methods obsolete when they are designed and implemented. Furthermore, when people trust misinformation, they struggle with identifying correct information. Visual misinformation presents another concern: people trust what they see, and new misinformative developments such as deepfakes …

Relationships Matter: Unpacking Personal And Professional Grief In Archival Labor, Caroline Kinsley, Molly Stothert-Maurer

Journal of Western Archives

Archival donations are often triggered by critical transitions in donors' lives, like the end of a career, the selling of a family home, or the death of a loved one. Because donors approach archives during these transitions, archivists often find themselves in the middle of emotionally charged relationships with donors working through feelings of grief and loss. However, archivists are often unprepared and untrained for this emotionally demanding labor. A literature review reveals that while this is a common experience among archivists, there is very little guidance on how to approach this aspect of donor relations. Other fields that provide …

Grounded Aesthetics: Pedagogy For A Post-Truth Era, Becca Cragin

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

With the rise of cultural studies, positivism and formalism fell out of favor. But in recent years, altered versions of these methodologies have been suggested as solutions to the deficiencies of the ideological approach dominating the field. Where the ideological approach looks at the content of texts to determine their meaning, the aesthetic approach adopted by media scholars in recent years returns to the close textual readings of formalism (while abandoning its assertion that meaning resides in the text alone). Similarly, where the ideological approach tends to use textual analysis devoid of sociological empiricism, the use of “big data” in …

Power, Labor, And Hierarchies: Deconstructing Work In Speculative Fiction, Joseph Kevin Sebastian

Library Faculty Research

In discussions of literary and speculative fiction, a persistent divide emerges regarding the modes and aims of each genre. Literary fiction generally aims to reflect the human condition in familiar, “realistic” terms, exploring characters, relationships, and narratives within existing social structures. In contrast, speculative fiction is characterized by what Darko Suvin identifies as the “the strange newness” of the novum: a radically new element or phenomenon that reshapes the fictional world. This paper argues that the novum in science fiction provides a unique framework for interrogating the relationships between labor, knowledge, and power, revealing how these constructs are contingent upon …