Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

"I Don't Think Librarians Can Save Us": The Material Conditions Of Information Literacy Instruction In The Misinformation Age, Amber Willenborg, Robert Detmering

Faculty Scholarship

This national qualitative study investigates academic librarians’ instructional experiences, views, and challenges regarding the widespread problem of misinformation. Findings from phenomenological interviews reveal a tension between librarians’ professional, moral, and civic obligation to address misinformation and the actual material conditions of information literacy instruction, which influence and often constrain librarians’ pedagogical and institutional roles. The authors call for greater professional reflection on current information literacy models that focus on achieving ambitious educational goals but which may be unsuitable for addressing the larger social and political crisis of misinformation.

Persistent Identifiers And The Next Generation Of Legal Scholarship, Aaron Retteen, Malikah Hall-Retteen

Faculty Scholarship

This article discusses the importance of the most common persistent identifiers in scholarly communications—the digital object identifier and the ORCID identifier—to legal scholarship. Persistent identifiers help preserve and disseminate academic content and data-driven services that leverage this information standard are now integrated into the publication process. Because legal publishers have not widely adopted persistent identifiers, the legal discipline cannot enjoy the benefits offered by this system. This article looks at barriers to implementing persistent identifiers among legal publishers and provides an anecdotal example of creating a sustainable workflow between the law library and student-run law journals.

Develop An Interactive Python Dashboard For Analyzing Ezproxy Logs, Andy Huff, Matthew Roth, Weiling Liu

Faculty Scholarship

This paper describes the development of an interactive dashboard in Python with EZproxy log data. Hopefully, this dashboard will help improve the evidence-based decision-making process in electronic resources management and explore the impact of library use.

Parenting And The Academic Library: Experiences, Challenges, And Opportunities, Courtney Stine, Sarah Frankel, Anita Hall

Faculty Scholarship

Academic Library Workers in Conversation is a C&RL News series focused on elevating the everyday conversations of library professionals. The wisdom of the watercooler has long been heralded, but this series hopes to go further by minimizing barriers to traditional publishing with an accessible format. Each of the topics in the series were proposed by the authors and they were given space to explore. This issue’s conversation revolves around parenting and how academic libraries must do more. The insights from the authors apply beyond parenting and are a great reminder that people make our academic libraries work.— Dustin Fife, series …

The Short And Troubled History Of The Printed State Administrative Codes And Why They Should Be Preserved, Kurt X. Metzmeier

Faculty Scholarship

This article makes a case for the historical importance of early state administrative codes and urges that law libraries preserve them for future researchers of state administrative law and policy.

Case Study: Improving Student Advisory Board Engagement, Anita R. Hall

Faculty Scholarship

After two pandemic-impacted academic years, the University of Louisville’s Libraries Student Advisory Board (LSAB) was starting to feel stagnant. Meetings that had previously included hands-on activities, lively conversation, and free food had settled into the virtual meeting doldrums. Attendance was down and conversation felt stilted, despite the librarian facilitator devoting additional time and effort to preparing for each meeting. In an effort to improve engagement among the group and better understand the continued relevance of advisory groups in the current moment, the author undertook a series of interviews with other advisory group facilitators. Results from these interviews were used to …

Google Sge: A New Way To Search, Teach, And Resist, Tessa Withorn

Faculty Scholarship

In May 2023, amidst the fanfare and outcries over ChatGPT, Google quietly rolled out early access to new features in Search Labs, a user-based experimental testing ground for Search Generative Experience (SGE). Google pitches SGE as a new way of searching that uses generative artificial intelligence (AI) to “understand a topic faster, uncover new viewpoints and insights, and get things done more easily,” but later adds that it also helps make “complex purchase decisions faster and much easier.”2 Interested users can simply tap the Labs icon in Google Chrome or a Google search on an Android device to sign up. …

The Mindset Of Recordkeeping: The Intersection Of Records Management And Organizational Psychology, Hannah N. Pryor

Faculty Scholarship

Purpose: This literature review aims to synthesize records and information management (RIM) with the professional literature of industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology to explain undesirable recordkeeping behaviors that may manifest in employees who interact with business records. Design/methodology/approach: The author’s views are based on a literature review of both records management and organizational psychology trends and draw on case studies that identify undesirable recordkeeping behavior. Findings: There is considerable overlap between the problems encountered by RIM professionals and the answers offered by I/O psychology. I/O psychology offers us the tools to better understand recordkeeping behaviors. Originality/value: The author proposes using I/O psychology …

Creating Persistent Law Review Article Links With Digital Object Identifiers, Valeri Craigle, Benjamin J. Keele, Aaron Retteen

Faculty Scholarship

A case study for how to use digital object identifiers (DOIs) to make online journals more accessible and improve their site user reports.

Are We Teaching Critical Information Literacy Asynchronously?: A Content Analysis Of Digital Learning Objects In Open Repositories., Tessa Withorn

Faculty Scholarship

Get ready for new ideas for how to incorporate critical information literacy into your asynchronous online instruction! It’s time to go beyond teaching simply how to find, use, evaluate, and cite information to explore the social construction and political dimensions of information. Digital learning objects (DLOs) such as videos, interactive tutorials, and online modules are a great way to expand on these information literacy concepts. This content analysis of publicly available DLOs in open repositories reports on what information literacy topics librarians are currently teaching and highlights exemplary DLOs that cover concepts related to critical information literacy.

Diversifying The Publishing Academy: Increasing Access To Scholarly Publishing Education For Graduate Students, Lidiya Grote, Alexandra Howard, Latisha Reynolds, Renesha Chandler

Faculty Scholarship

Introduction: This article highlights the importance of providing accessible scholarly publishing education and support to graduate students by presenting a case study of how the University of Louisville’s Publishing Academy was modified to be fully online and intentionally focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

Literature Review: The literature review examines existing scholarship related to publishing support for graduate students, focusing on literature discussing the importance of publishing for doctoral students and describing successful publishing and writing support programs.

Overview of Publishing Academy: University of Louisville’s Publishing Academy is a biennial scholarly publishing program for graduate students …

Tell Us What You Really Think: Implementing A Mixed-Methods Approach To Library User Assessment, Lidiya Grote, Emily Dill, Jennifer Hardin

Faculty Scholarship

This article presents an analysis of student feedback received via formal biennial survey and informal post-it notes assessment, and advocates for the use of informal assessment methods to supplement formal methodologies. A biennial satisfaction survey and an informal post-it notes assessment were employed to collect data from library users and yielded comprehensive, timely, and actionable feedback from the students, faculty, and staff. Feedback received from the two assessment methods allowed the University Library of Columbus (ULC) to gain a greater understanding of user needs and preferences which was used to improve library spaces, resources, and services to increase user satisfaction. …

Health Concerns Of Kentucky's Library Workforce During The Early Covid-19 Pandemic., Anita R. Hall, Brandi Duggins

Faculty Scholarship

Although research early in the pandemic primarily emphasized libraries’ pandemic response and service to patrons, more interest has developed regarding library workers and their experiences. This study seeks to understand the impacts library workers experienced from the beginning of institutions’ initial pandemic response through the end of 2020. This article focuses on a subset of the data related to the health concerns and impacts Kentucky library workers experienced during distinct phases of the early pandemic. Responses to this survey indicate that workers required to be onsite were impacted more frequently with COVID-related health concerns while all library workers experienced significant …

Transforming The Publishing Academy: How Moving Online And Focusing On Diversity And Inclusion Made Scholarly Publishing Support More Accessible To Graduate Students, Lidiya Grote, Latisha Reynolds, Alexandra Howard

Faculty Scholarship

Academic libraries frequently offer general research support services such as literature searching and citation management workshops for graduate students, however specific scholarly communications topics such as writing for an academic publication are less frequently addressed (Gannon-Leary & Bent, 2010; Perini & Calcagno, 2013). Support for scholarly publishing, data management and other scholarly communication topics are increasingly needed, and are the type of challenges with which librarians can assist. The University of Louisville Libraries in collaboration with the Graduate School offer a biennial, interdisciplinary, five-week publishing academy for graduate students.

The Publishing Academy is designed to introduce students to the scholarly …

Identifying Red Herrings In American Legal Research, Erin Gow

Faculty Scholarship

This article presents useful clues for British law librarians and legal researchers conducting research on American laws and legal systems. It focuses on general guidelines and key sticking points the author found when transitioning between legal research in the American and British jurisdictions.

Key skills introduced include the ability to:

• differentiate between federal and state legal jurisdictions in the U.S.,
• recognize key differences in American legal terminology and construct searches using American terms,
• analyze and select key American legal resources for different types of research questions,
• and identify American standards of legal citation.

Crowdsourced Pedagogy: Editing Wikipedia And The Framework For Information Literacy For Higher Education, Courtney Stine

Faculty Scholarship

Although often used by students for academic research, Wikipedia has historically been ignored or shunned by librarians in the information literacy classroom. However, as one of the most popular websites worldwide, Wikipedia matters. Visitors frequent Wikipedia to get free access to information, reference articles for background information during current events, and as a starting point for further research. Librarians can implement Wikipedia as a crowdsourced pedagogical tool for teaching students the six information literacy threshold concepts in the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.

Writing and editing Wikipedia articles showcases the research process, requiring students to understand how …

Developing Tools And Communication Strategies For Web Development, Terri Holtze

Faculty Scholarship

This session describes how to develop tools and communication strategies for creating a coherent brand across a distributed-labor website. Learn about on-boarding, getting people to follow the brand, approaches for maintaining quality and accessibility, and effective methods of communicating web issues to web-page maintainers and the library staff in general.

The Kentucky Women Artists Timeline, Courtney Baron, Olivia Eckert

Faculty Scholarship

This article highlights a partnership between the Margaret M. Bridwell Art Library at the University of Louisville and the Kentucky Foundation for Women to document the accomplishments of Kentucky women artists through a digital timeline. The timeline was made possible through the Director of the Art Library's collaboration with a student intern on the research process and timeline design.

On The Lookout For Lizards: Online Tools For Informed Democratic Citizenship, Robert Detmering, Terri Holtze, Amber Willenborg

Faculty Scholarship

In her recent essay,“Lizard People in the Library,” Barbara Fister argues that “systems designed to share information virally pose a serious threat to democracy.” As librarians and educators, we have an obligation to help students understand and navigate online platforms that spread misinformation at alarming rates and, in the process, contribute to the erosion of democratic norms and values. Unfortunately, research suggests we might be failing in this regard (Head, Fister, and MacMillan, 2020;Wineburg, Breakstone, Ziv, and Smith, 2020). In this talk, we will describe the development and implementation of the University of Louisville’s Citizen …

The Impact Of The Early Covid-19 Pandemic Response On Kentucky’S Library Workforce, Anita R. Hall, Brandi Duggins

Faculty Scholarship

Although prior research has examined the Pandemic responses of libraries in terms of physical closures and innovation in services, the impact these measures have had on library workers is largely unexplored. This study seeks to understand the impact of initial library responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Kentucky from March 2020 through June 2020. A survey of Kentucky Library Workers found a wide range of impacts during the initial pandemic response period, with 30.49% of respondents affected by some type of employment-related measure, and 11.28% either furloughed or laid off during this time. Workers at different types of libraries and …

Rework The Network: Implementing Virtual Outreach Methods In The Covid Era, Alexandra Howard

Faculty Scholarship

The COVID-19 pandemic forced academic libraries to be innovative and efficient in shifting to support online learning. While there has been much discussion of online teaching resources and tools among librarians and educators, there has been less of a focus on online outreach and virtual networking. This article presents a case study describing how a new liaison librarian used virtual outreach to build relationships in her liaison subject area, leading to opportunities for research assistance and instruction despite the challenges of starting as a new librarian in the midst of a global pandemic.

Online Learning Librarianship In A Fully Online World: Findings (And Advice) From A National Study During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Amber Willenborg, Tessa Withorn

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Civil War Letters Of David W. Voyles, M. D., Mary K Marlatt

Faculty Scholarship

Dr. David W. Voyles (1834–1899) of Washington County, Indiana, served as Assistant Surgeon and Surgeon with the 66th Indiana Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. The letters of Dr. Voyles to his wife Susan, dating from November 1862 to January 1864, provide a glimpse into the mind of an educated, thoughtful man. Voyles wrote eloquently about the war, his political views (Republican and antislavery), and, like so many other soldiers, the lack of letters from home. Archivist Mary K. Marlatt has transcribed and edited the letters. Her introduction provides information on Voyles, his family, his regiment, and his life after …

The Mystery Of Missing Marvin: Determining The Alumni Status Of A Century-Old Student, Marcus Walker

Faculty Scholarship

In 1920, the Law Department of the University of Louisville increased its curriculum from two to three years. The expanded course along with the earlier disruption of regular coursework due to World War I made for irregular graduating rosters, but two classes — 1920 and 1922 — stood out in particular. The latter was simple to resolve, but a conflict of information with the first opened an investigation of records that covered six different organizations in order to answer a deceptively difficult question: Was Marvin Taylor a graduate of the law school or not?

Real Talk: Librarian Perceptions Of The Professional Conversation On Information Literacy Assessment, Amber Willenborg, Robert Detmering, Samantha Mcclellan

Faculty Scholarship

This qualitative study investigates how academic librarians perceive the professional conversation about information literacy assessment, focusing on their characterization of the discourse and the benefits of and barriers to their participation. Findings from phenomenological interviews indicate that librarians view the conversation as valuable and inspiring, but also divisive and inapplicable to many libraries. While they find value in sharing ideas and engaging in a community of practice, they may face such barriers as feelings of inadequacy and insufficient resources. The authors provide recommendations to help librarians, administrators, and conference planners foster more inclusive and productive engagement in the professional conversation …

The Gaps Model And Faculty Services: Quality Analysis Through A “New” Lens, Alex Zhang, Sherry Xin Chen

Faculty Scholarship

Faculty service is an important function of U.S. academic law libraries. This article evaluates three types of faculty services programs using the Gaps Model to identify, analyze, and propose ways to fill four main gaps: knowledge, policy, delivery, and service quality.

A Foot In Both Worlds: Current Roles And Challenges Of Academic Online Learning Librarians, Amber Willenborg, Tessa Withorn

Faculty Scholarship

This qualitative study explores how online learning is defined at academic libraries in the U.S. and examines the current roles and challenges of online learning librarians. Findings from in-depth interviews reveal that approaches to online learning in academic libraries vary in terms of audience and instructional strategies, and that online learning librarians perform several roles within the institution and often face challenges related to those roles. These findings suggest that while academic libraries have defined their approaches to online learning, the functional role of the online learning librarian should be clearly delineated and leveraged to support sustainable online learning initiatives …

Non-English Materials For The English Speaker : European Languages, Erin Gow

Faculty Scholarship

So many legal materials are in languages other than English worldwide, that it is inevitable that most of us will need to find or access one of these documents at some point. Foreign, comparative, and international law (FCIL) librarians often work with materials in languages in which they are not fluent, and can provide useful ideas and insight for the non-FCIL specialist faced with this type of research. This portion of a 2019 AALL webinar titled "Non-English Materials for the English Speaker" focuses on European languages, and provides practical guidance in finding English translations of European laws, tips and techniques …

Sustainable And Open Access To Valuable Legal Research Information: A New Framework, Alex Zhang, James Hart

Faculty Scholarship

This article evaluates the current status of access to foreign and international legal research information, analyzes the challenges that information providers have experienced in providing valuable and sustainable access, and proposes a model that would help create and facilitate effective and sustainable access to valuable foreign, comparative, and international legal information.

A Seat At The Table: Information Literacy Assessment And Professional Legitimacy, Amber Willenborg, Robert Detmering, Samantha Mcclellan

Faculty Scholarship

This qualitative study explores academic librarians’ perceptions of and experiences with information literacy assessment, focusing primarily on issues of professional identity, agency, and power. Findings from in-depth interviews reveal that instruction librarians view teaching as integral to their professional identity and use assessment to legitimize that identity, both personally and at the institutional level. While this suggests that assessment has the potential to elevate the status of librarians on campus, the interviews also highlight ongoing professional and organizational tensions that hinder assessment efforts and inhibit librarian agency. The authors recommend more transparent communication, among other strategies, to address these challenges.