Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Information Literacy Class As Theatrical Performance: A Qualitative Study Of Academic Librarians’ Understanding Of Their Teacher Identity, Mark Aaron Polger

Publications and Research

This qualitative study examines how academic librarians understand, conceptualize, and describe their teacher identity. The role of the academic librarian has greatly changed due to the advent of information technology. Traditionally, they were generalists, who were responsible for selecting and maintaining library collections. Academic librarian roles have evolved into web developers, information literacy (IL) instructors, emerging technology innovators, marketing and outreach coordinators, open education resources (OER) advocates, and scholarly communication experts. This research investigates the academic librarian as teacher phenomenon, how they describe their professional identity as teachers, the skills, knowledge, and competencies they teach, and their beliefs of how …

Going The Distance For International Students: Academic Integrity Support Online, Mandi Goodsett

Michael Schwartz Library Publications

Targeted instruction that teaches international students about plagiarism is an important service that academic libraries can offer. Offering such instruction as an asynchronous, online workshop has distinct benefits in terms of flexibility and ease of learning, but it must be designed with the needs of international students in mind. This study describes one library’s online anti-plagiarism workshop, as well as the results of a qualitative study to determine how such a workshop can best be designed to meet the needs of international students.

A Case Study On The Medical Library Association’S 2019 Communities Transition Qualitative Data Set, Kathryn M. Houk, Kelsa Bartley, Jane Morgan-Daniel, Elaina Vitale

Library Faculty Datasets

In 2019, the Medical Library Association (MLA) adopted a new model of community governance and participation, referred to as the MLA Communities Transition. The Communities Transition was the culmination of long-ranging plans by MLA to support two of its strategic goals: Diversity and Inclusion, and Communities. The reorganization aimed to strengthen MLA member communities, better support programming, reduce administrative overhead, and attract new members. The 2019 - 2020 MLA Rising Stars cohort was tasked to study the Communities Transition and identify lessons that might be applicable to any major future change proposed for the organization.

A qualitative study was designed …

Coding And Analysis: Deciding On Software Needs, Katherine Gregory

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Lived Experience Of Anxiety And The Many Facets Of Pain: A Qualitative, Arts-Based Approach, Roberta Lynn Woodgate, Pauline Tennent, Sarah C. Barriage, Nicole Legras

Information Science Faculty Publications

Background: Findings reported in this article emerged from the study titled “Youth’s Voices: Their Lives and Experiences of Living with an Anxiety Disorder.” Though the initial focus of this study was not on the pain experiences of youth living with an anxiety disorder, it became apparent from the very first interviews that pain and suffering was key in the youth lived experience, permeating their everyday lives and impeding their participation and functioning in the world.

Aims: The aim of this article is to highlight the ways in which pain is a central experience for young people living with …

Measuring The Value Of Professional Indexing, Philip Hider, Pru Mitchell, Robert Parkes

Pru Mitchell

This study provides both a quantitative estimate and qualitative analysis of the additional ‘retrieval power’ that professionally assigned subject indexing affords users of a typical database in the field of education. A full version of Informit’s A+ Education database and one stripped of its subject indexing were searched by four research assistants tasked with compiling exhaustive bibliographies on forty-eight topics. The searchers were then surveyed about their use of the two databases, while their bibliographies and search logs were also examined. A two-way ANOVA model was constructed to estimate the percentage of additional resources found by the searchers on the …

Measuring The Value Of Professional Indexing, Philip Hider, Pru Mitchell, Robert Parkes

Information Management

This study provides both a quantitative estimate and qualitative analysis of the additional ‘retrieval power’ that professionally assigned subject indexing affords users of a typical database in the field of education. A full version of Informit’s A+ Education database and one stripped of its subject indexing were searched by four research assistants tasked with compiling exhaustive bibliographies on forty-eight topics. The searchers were then surveyed about their use of the two databases, while their bibliographies and search logs were also examined. A two-way ANOVA model was constructed to estimate the percentage of additional resources found by the searchers on the …

A Mixed-Methods Analysis Of A Library-Based Hand-Held Intervention With Rural Clinicians, Richard L. Wallace, Nakia J. Woodward, Travis Clamon

Travis Clamon

Background: The East Tennessee State University Quillen College of Medicine Library has participated for several years in projects to provide rural clinicians with health information resources.

Objectives: To determine whether a strategy of hand‐held devices with a best‐evidence point‐of‐care disease tool and a drug database paired with access to a medical library for full‐text articles and training to use the tools would be an affordable way to meet the information needs of rural underserved clinicians.

Methods: This study is a mixed‐methods methodology. The first project was evaluated using a randomised controlled trial (RCT) methodology. The second was evaluated qualitatively using …

Serving The Needs Of International Students: A Qualitative Study, Mandi Goodsett, Michael Baumgartner

Michael Schwartz Library Publications

This study attempts to discover the barriers that international music students encounter when using the library and conducting research at North American academic institutions. To these ends we implemented multiple semi-structured interviews. Most studies that have been conducted about international students and information literacy employ a survey, but other qualitative means of study reveal important insights into the needs of this population. In-depth qualitative research that explores the experiences of international music students has the potential to cultivate better understanding of this phenomenon so that music librarians and faculty can more effectively serve this distinct population.

Research Resurgence: Supporting Our University Qep With Our Information Literacy Expertise, Amanda Hahn, Johannah Lowder

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Championing information literacy has long been the mission of university librarians. When our University chose “Cultivating a Community of Research and Scholarship” as the focus of our Quality Enhancement Plan the Library was invited to join two interdisciplinary course development teams. Librarians collaborated with faculty from various academic departments to design two introductory research courses. These sequential courses lay the foundation of information literacy that springboards students to higher level research.

Inquiry 101 centers on the themes of the value and relevance of research, introduction to the application of research, and an introduction to information literacy skills. As a major …

Vignettes: Implications For Lis Research, Allison Benedetti, Lili Luo, John M. Jackson

John M. Jackson

Academic Libraries For Commuter Students: Research-Based Strategies, Mariana Regalado, Maura A. Smale

Publications and Research

This volume brings together research from multiple perspectives on the experiences of commuter college students in academic libraries. The majority of American college students are commuters and are more likely than residential students to have responsibilities apart from their roles on campus; the commute itself may impact the student experience. Each chapter is a case study of research on serving commuter students at a particular institution, encompassing a detailed description of the research methods used, analysis of what was learned during the research, and specific interventions or changes made in library services, resources, or facilities as a result. Taking into …

Student Responses To An Animated Character In Information Literacy Instruction, Jennifer Poggiali

Publications and Research

Purpose: This paper reports on a grant-funded project to create a hand-drawn, custom-made animated character named Jasmyn. Drawing on animation theory, the paper uses qualitative research to investigate student responses to the medium of animation, the character’s design, and three presentation strategies.

Design/methodology/approach: The researchers held three student focus groups to investigate the following research questions: 1. Will students endorse animation as a medium for library instructional videos on the grounds of its entertaining, subversive, or playful qualities? 2. Is Jasmyn designed and8 written in a way that engages students and compels them to respond to her as a character? …

“There Is Nothing Inherently Mysterious About Assistive Technology”: A Qualitative Study About Blind User Experiences In Us Academic Libraries, Adina Mulliken

Publications and Research

Eighteen academic library users who are blind were interviewed about their experiences with academic libraries and the libraries’ websites using an open-ended questionnaire and recorded telephone interviews. The study approaches these topics from a user-centered perspective, with the idea that blind users themselves can provide particularly reliable insights into the issues and potential solutions that are most critical to them. Most participants used reference librarians’ assistance, and most had positive experiences. High-level screen reader users requested help with specific needs. A larger number of participants reported contacting a librarian because of feeling overwhelmed by the library website. In some cases, …

Qualitative Interviews: A Methodological Discussion Of The Interviewer And Respondent Contexts, Shannon M. Oltmann

Information Science Faculty Publications

Interviews are a staple method used in qualitative research. Many authors hold face-to-face interviews to be the gold standard, or the assumed best mode in which to conduct interviews. However, a large number of research projects are based on conducting interviews via telephone. While some scholars have addressed the advantages and disadvantages of using telephones to conduct interviews, this work is scattered across multiple disciplines and lacks a cohesive, comprehensive framework. The current article seeks to rectify this gap in the literature, by explicitly developing the constructs of the interviewer context and the respondent context. By examining key components in …

Towards An Assumption Responsive Information Literacy Curriculum: Lessons From Student Qualitative Data, Rob Morrison, Deana Greenfield

Faculty Publications

This chapter will describe how the collection of data on college student assumptions impacted the development and revision of credit courses in digital information literacy. Drawing on qualitative data from pretests, assignments, questionnaires, reflection journals, and student evaluations, the authors will detail their teaching experiences and the development of an assumption responsive curriculum which challenges students to draw connections between new material and prior questions, concerns, and beliefs. We will also discuss the impetus for the development of our pretest survey tool, thoughts on why student assumptions matter in the classroom, and provide excerpts from the qualitative student data that …

Practitioner Perceptions Of School Library Advocacy, Elizabeth Burns

STEMPS Faculty Publications

School library advocacy is increasingly important due to decreases in funding and staff. National organizations attempt to engage school librarians in advocacy and have developed resources and tools to assist with this task. However, there is little research examining how practicing school librarians engage in advocacy and how their advocacy efforts impact their library programs. This study explored school librarians’ perceptions of advocacy within the context of their school library setting. Findings suggest school librarians must continue to build relationships with stakeholders and create awareness for the school library position as they define the activities of advocacy unique to their …

A Mixed-Methods Analysis Of A Library-Based Hand-Held Intervention With Rural Clinicians, Richard L. Wallace, Nakia J. Woodward, Travis Clamon

ETSU Faculty Works

Background: The East Tennessee State University Quillen College of Medicine Library has participated for several years in projects to provide rural clinicians with health information resources.

Objectives: To determine whether a strategy of hand‐held devices with a best‐evidence point‐of‐care disease tool and a drug database paired with access to a medical library for full‐text articles and training to use the tools would be an affordable way to meet the information needs of rural underserved clinicians.

Methods: This study is a mixed‐methods methodology. The first project was evaluated using a randomised controlled trial (RCT) methodology. The second was evaluated qualitatively using …

Controlled Vocabulary Standards For Anthropological Datasets, Celia Emmelhainz

Celia Emmelhainz

This article seeks to outline the use of controlled vocabulary standards for qualitative datasets in cultural anthropology, which are increasingly held in researcher-accessible government repositories and online digital libraries. As a humanistic science that can address almost any aspect of life with meaning to humans, cultural anthropology has proven difficult for librarians and archivists to effectively organize. Yet as anthropology moves onto the web, the challenge of organizing and curating information within the field only grows. In considering the subject classification of digital information in anthropology, I ask how we might best use controlled vocabularies for indexing digital anthropological data. …

Many Paths, One Journey: Mapping The Routes To Information Literacy, Margy Macmillan

LOEX Conference Proceedings 2009

Students gain information literacy skills from a range of sources, not all of which involve direct librarian intervention. These skills grow and diversify over the course of their studies in ways that pre/post test research protocols cannot capture. So how can we understand how they learn what they know? This presentation describes a long-term project using the Information Skills résumé as a case study of gathering, analyzing and using qualitative data to better understand student learning and thereby improve information literacy instruction. The Information Skills résumé tool, used to gather information from journalism students over five years, showed development of …

Acl 546 Research Methodology, Rob Morrison

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Acl 546 Research Methodology, Rob Morrison

Rob Morrison

No abstract provided.

Finding And Creating Possibility: Reading In The Lives Of Lesbian, Bisexual And Queer Young Women, Paulette Rothbauer

Paulette Rothbauer

The Internet In The Reading Accounts Of Lesbian And Queer Young Women: Failed Searches And Unsanctioned Reading, Paulette Rothbauer

Paulette Rothbauer