Library and Information Science Commons^™

The Open Knowledge Fellowship: An Opportunity For Transformative Learning At The Doctoral Level, Elvis Bakaitis, Jill Cirasella, Patrick Mcgee

Publications and Research

How can we integrate the principles, practicalities, and complexities of open educational resources (OER) and open access scholarly literature into graduate-level education? At the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), the popular and successful Open Knowledge Fellowship offers a much-needed intervention in doctoral education by addressing these topics and associated debates. Between 2020 and 2025, the intensive six-week Fellowship program was offered 12 times and trained over 200 doctoral students from across the disciplines in the selection and use of openly licensed resources in the courses they teach. These 200+ students then taught their revamped courses …

“We’Re All In The Struggle Together”: The Experiences Of First-Generation Graduate Students During Covid-19, Rebecca Stallworth, Danielle E. Maurici-Pollock, Jade Obler, Rachel A. Starr

Publications

This study explores the experiences of first-generation graduate students (FGGS) during the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically the positive and negative impacts of the pandemic on their learning experiences and their implications for the design of online graduate programs that foster a sense of belonging.

Designing Ai-Aware Media 101 Curriculum Through Faculty–Librarian Collaboration, Miranda Gale Smith, Elizabeth Oppe

2026 Scholarly Teaching Conference: Concurrent Session Papers

This presentation explores faculty–librarian collaboration as a teaching practice. It will inform attendees about the work done by a faculty member (Elizabeth) and a Student Success & Instruction Librarian (Miranda) to design and implement an AI-aware curriculum into an existing Media 101 course at West Virginia University. This resulted in the careful integration of subject-specific and information literacy expertise into the course’s curriculum. More broadly, this is meant to illustrate that in terms of practice, treating AI-aware curriculum development as a shared, iterative process grounded in mutual respect for distinct but complementary forms of knowledge has the potential to yield …

Generative Ai Peer Tutoring To Support Peer-Reviewed Source Identification And Evaluation, Rae Mair, Michelle Kelley, Taylar Wenzel, Andrea C. Borowczak, Yuqing Li, Mike Borowczak

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This chapter explores the design and evaluation of a generative artificial intelligence peer tutor prompt to support college students in identifying and evaluating peer-reviewed sources for academic research. Grounded in literature on peer tutoring, Socratic dialogue, and AI-supported learning, the authors describe an iterative prompt engineering process designed to transform large language models (LLMs) into Socratic-style peer tutors capable of scaffolding student reasoning without completing tasks for them. Five guiding criteria for an effective peer tutor shaped development and evaluation: cognitive congruence, step-by-step guidance, avoiding giving answers, adaptability to student level, metacognitive transparency, and following assignment directions. Across multiple human-centered …

Peacock Competency Model For Online Library Instruction, Rebeca Peacock

STEMPS Faculty Publications

Academic librarians are an integral part of academia offering niche expertise that benefits faculty and students alike. But they often lack specific guidance on developing competencies for the online teaching that is increasingly expected of them. This article addresses the lack of field specific guidance for academic librarians' online teaching by proposing a competency model grounded in expert practice. The study used semi-structured interviews with 18 academic librarians to address this gap asking: what knowledge, skills, and attitudes are needed for academic librarians to be successful in providing effective online library instruction?

The Evolving Roles Of U.S. Academic Librarians: A Snapshot Of Job Responsibilities In 2023, Russell Michalak, Laura Rose Taylor, Michelle Reed, Amanda Koziura, Devon Ellixson

Library Faculty Research

This study examines the evolving roles of academic librarians across North America. Adapting a survey tool published in a prior Canadian study, it surveys over 350 librarians in the United States, analyzing shifts in Research Support, Teaching and Learning, Digital Scholarship, User Experience, and Scholarly Communication. Results indicate significant engagement in information discovery and digital scholarship with a growing need for training in digital tools and data management. The resulting report highlights the crucial role of academic librarians in adapting to technological and educational changes, underscoring the necessity for ongoing professional development.

Early Stem Impressions, Student Engagement, And Readiness For Digitalization, Myron Sheu

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

This study examines how early impressions of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) shape business students’ learning behaviors and, ultimately, their readiness for organizational digitalization. Focusing on gender differences, subgroup identities, and perceived obstacles, the analysis uses survey data processed through correlation matrices, regression models, and subgroup heatmaps to trace the relationship between initial attitudes toward STEM and subsequent engagement patterns. The findings reveal consistent links between positive early impressions and active participation in structured STEM activities, along with gender-based distinctions in action preferences. Subgroup analyses further uncover nuanced patterns where stereotypes or perceived barriers correspond with reduced engagement. Collectively, …

Examining Challenges For Sociology Master’S Degree Students At California State University, David Ortuno

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to identify the lived experiences of CSU sociology graduate students pursuing a master’s degree. Seven sociology graduate students from six of the eight (75%) total sociology MA programs throughout the entire CSU system were interviewed. Their responses were designed to analyze the support systems and challenges they face while pursuing a master's degree, as well as to investigate whether their experiences correlate with or fail to correlate with the promises in the CSU mission statement, and to answer the study’s research questions and achieve the purpose of this qualitative study.

Four themes emerged from …

Friends Of The Library Newsletter, Spring 2026, Hillary Richardson

Fant Library News and Reports

No abstract provided.

Plan Your Way To Tenure And/Or Promotion, Wendy Doucette, Jill Cirasella

Journal of Graduate Librarianship

In this editorial, we share our best advice for preparing the dossier necessary for professional advancement. While our advice is unavoidably shaped by the specifics of our experiences and universities, we believe most of it is broadly applicable to academic librarians in general. We cluster our advice into three categories: framework and planning, building your portfolio, and ongoing recordkeeping. We hope this “from the ground up” presentation will help those new to academic librarianship, though it’s never too late for more experienced librarians to (re)consider their own approaches.

Book Review: Academic Coaching: Coaching College Students For Success, Corinne Bishop

Journal of Graduate Librarianship

Book review: Howlett, M. A., & Rademacher, K. (2023). Academic coaching: Coaching college students for success. Routledge. 196 pp. ISBN: 9781032272214 (paperback), 9781032265711 (hardcover), 9781003291879 (ebook).

Becoming A Competent Graduate Librarian, Wendy Doucette

Journal of Graduate Librarianship

Becoming a competent graduate librarian is a cumulative process. This article is a reflective summary of over ten years of evolution as a graduate librarian. By treating real-life encounters with reality-based methods and empathetic teaching and reflection, I have developed personal recommendations and strategies to interact successfully with students, as well as the reasoning behind personal shifts in approaching graduate students and services. This process includes unscripted interactions, the necessity of becoming a scholarly contributor, and providing contextualization and incremental assistance against a framework of empathy and andragogy. Combined with ongoing self-assessment, this results in an evaluation cycle that responds …

Library Guides For Graduate Students: A Content Analysis, Maria Kiriakova, Junli Diao, Joan Kelly Castro

Journal of Graduate Librarianship

This study looked at 117 Association of Research Libraries (ARL) academic library websites and identified 48 library guides that consider graduate students in general as their target audience. The broad and systematic content analysis of these library guides resulted in the discovery of four different types, which we categorized as Checklist, Orientation Module, Directory, and Comprehensive. We identify and describe content patterns that address the different roles graduate students might play as advanced library users, novice researchers, and teaching assistants/instructors. Academic librarians who have already created library guides for graduate students could use the results of …

Opportunities, Challenges, And Realities Of Graduate Student Submissions In Institutional Repositories: One Librarian’S Reflection, Sierra Pandy

Journal of Graduate Librarianship

The role of an institutional repository (IR) is to provide open access publishing and archival services for the institution’s faculty, staff, and students. However, despite the wide range of benefits this creates for university researchers, it can be difficult to communicate that value to graduate students. This article will discuss and reflect upon the various challenges, successes, and opportunities we experienced while promoting and utilizing the IR for graduate students at the University of Wyoming during and after a major platform migration, and touch upon goals for the future.

Make It Shine: Strategies For Improving Academic Journals, Mark Hamilton

Faculty Publications and Presentations

This lightning talk, designed for journal editors and scholarly communication professionals, reviews several strategies for improving academic journals. These include developing best practices for journal publishing, maintaining high editorial standards, establishing regular publishing cycles, and updating the journal platform to a more modern design.

Teaching Note - Embedding The Human Library Experience Within Social Work Curriculum, Emily M. Paine

Social Work Faculty Works

The Human Library is a global initiative designed to challenge stereotypes and foster dialogue through storytelling and presents a unique opportunity for experiential learning within social work education. This teaching note explores how the Human Library framework can be integrated into social work curriculum in alignment with the 2022 Council on Social Work Education’s Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards, with particular emphasis on Competency 3: Engaging in Anti-Racism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion practice. When embedded in coursework, the Human Library enables students to engage in brave and authentic conversations with storytellers who share aspects of their lived experiences, promoting mutuality, …

Notes For The Stalled, V18n04, December 2025, University Of Northern Iowa. Rod Library.

Rod Library newsletter: Notes for the Stalled

Contents:

--- De Stress Days
--- When You Return
--- Did You Know?
--- Student Technology Fee
--- Upcoming Events

Review Of Information Literacy And Social Media: Empowered Student Engagement With The Acrl Framework, Rebecca M. Mccall

Communications in Information Literacy

Review of Santamaría, M., & Pfannenstiel, N. (2024). Information literacy and social media: Empowered student engagement with the ACRL Framework. Association of College and Research Libraries.

Teaching Research As An Interdependent Practice: Bringing Alternate Models Into The Scholarly Conversation, Natalia Kapacinskas, Veronica Arellano Douglas

Communications in Information Literacy

The customs and practices of research in academia are often mischaracterized as individualistic pursuits, ignoring the reality that research requires a great deal of collaboration. As teaching librarians, our research instruction often reinforces individualism as a scholarly virtue, even as we simultaneously engage with themes of connection between researchers and their ideas. We propose an approach to teaching research and information literacy grounded in the concept, intention, and practice of interdependence rather than individualism. In doing so, we will call in models of interdependence from critical disability studies, relational-cultural theory, Indigenous Ways of Knowing, and the Cite Black Women movement. …

The Librarian Teaching Self-Efficacy Scale, Maoria J. Kirker, David X. Lemmons

Communications in Information Literacy

Teaching self-efficacy is a critical factor in instructional success. Little research has been conducted on how academic librarians perceive their own teaching abilities. This study introduces and validates the Librarian Teaching Self-Efficacy Scale, a tool designed to measure self-efficacy beliefs among academic librarians engaged in information literacy instruction. By adapting established self-efficacy scales to the library instruction context, this study examines key factors influencing librarian teaching self-efficacy, including instructional strategies, lesson planning, and collaboration with faculty. Collective self-efficacy, which is perceptions of colleagues’ teaching confidence, is also examined. Statistical analysis indicates a reliable and valid scale which may benefit …

“‘What Is One Takeaway You've Gotten From This Learning Experience?’ Analyzing Student Reflections On Introductory Information Literacy Instruction”, Amanda Nichols Hess, Emily Ruth Benoit, Rebecca M. Krystyniak, Stephanie Williams

Communications in Information Literacy

Reflection is a useful pedagogical tool for both learners in instructional settings and educators seeking to offer meaningful experiences; in this article, a group of academic librarians use the former to engage with the latter. We analyzed more than 830 first-year students’ responses to a reflection question posed at the conclusion of library instruction over the course of the 2023–2024 academic year with a specific eye to the concepts that were and were not resonant, as well as whether there were common areas of confusion. We used a grounded theory approach to make sense of the data and allow ideas …

The Library Instructor As Learner: A Survey Of Reflective Teaching Practices In Us Academic Libraries, Alicia G. Vaandering, Amanda Crego-Emley

Communications in Information Literacy

Reflective practice provides library workers with a critical opportunity to examine professional experiences, question assumptions and approaches, explore new perspectives, and develop innovative solutions to existing problems. When applied to instruction as reflective teaching, this practice better situates library instructors to meet the evolving needs of twenty-first-century library users. This research study explores how library workers engage with reflective teaching in academic libraries across the United States. A survey was distributed to academic library communities, and a total of 153 responses were collected. While 92% of respondents reported participating in reflective teaching practice in a variety of instructional contexts, results …

Information Literacy In The Artificial Intelligence Era: A Proposed Framework, Radwan Ali, Matthew L. Wilson

Communications in Information Literacy

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems and applications have become ubiquitous across daily life. While AI offers numerous positive opportunities, it also presents numerous challenges. Information literacy (IL) advocates are concerned about the risks that accompany AI systems. Given the universal reach of AI with its potential pitfalls and perils, researchers and practitioners from various fields and disciplines should inform the dialogue on AI’s development and application. A critical aspect of this dialogue comes in the form of information literacy. Our paper aims to answer the question “How can information literacy guide users in navigating and shaping artificial intelligence technologies?” by establishing …

Little Did I Know, Christopher V. Hollister

Communications in Information Literacy

Christopher Hollister, co-founder and co-editor-in-chief, reflects on his time with CIL in this farewell editorial.

Searching For Change: Exploring Historical Silences And Counterstorytelling Through Youth-Led Social Justice Movements, Ariana Varela

Communications in Information Literacy

During a first-year engagement program, a librarian and a cohort of students worked towards a shared understanding of dominant narratives, historical silences, and creating counterstories through research to center marginalized stories and complicate existing narratives. As information literacy professionals, we should design interactive lessons that demonstrate critical search and evaluation skills through topics that are relevant to students and encourage them to work with issues that impact their communities. Incorporating critical information literacy, feminist pedagogy, and critical race theory, this two-day micro-seminar introduced first-year students to the legacy of youth community activism in the neighborhoods around their university. They practiced …

Getting Started In Graduate School: An Online Tutorial For New Graduate Students, Jill Mcmillan, Elana Geller, Angie Gerrard, Nazreen Beaulieu

Journal of Graduate Librarianship

In August 2024, our library launched an asynchronous online tutorial, Getting Started in Graduate School. The purpose of the tutorial was fourfold: to complement existing student orientation programming at the library and the university; to situate the library as a valuable resource for graduate student academic success; to align with a similar library-designed online tutorial for new undergraduate students; and to provide practical information about graduate school expectations, framed through existing library resources and programming. The tutorial was created using the Springshare LibGuide and LibWizard platform and features a mix of static and interactive elements, which were developed and …

Perspectives On Teaching Academic Publishing Skills: Helping Graduate Students Navigate The Hidden Curriculum, Martha Stuit, Christie Hurrell, Jill Cirasella, Christy Caldwell

Journal of Graduate Librarianship

Many graduate students feel pressure to publish but need guidance on navigating the scholarly publishing process, which often is not covered in their graduate curricula but rather learned in conversation with faculty mentors. In other words, publishing is often a hidden curriculum—not explicitly taught but a learn-as-you-go venture. In this article, we describe our individual approaches to teaching publishing literacy to graduate students, highlighting how our efforts are both responsive to the specifics of our campuses and informed by our own and others’ research. We also discuss how we spread the word about our services and how we advance equity …

Budget And Collection Management Communication Strategies, Tools, And Methods, Evan Rusch, Heidi J. Southworth, Daardi Sizemore Mixon, Lisa Baures, Nat Gustafson-Sundell, Joe Holtermann

Library Services Publications

Many libraries face challenging budget situations. Communication with departments and administration about budget management and related changes to collections can be crucial to maintain constructive relationships and to improve cooperative planning. Academic libraries often rely on librarian liaisons to communicate directly with departments, but additional communication efforts are sometimes pursued. Libraries could learn from one another by sharing their communication strategies, tools, and methods. Our library has recently focused on collections communication across a range of projects and audiences. These projects have included a budget reduction plan and major print deselection project, as well as ongoing, prospective budget management. The …

Evaluating And Supporting Transformative Agreements: Five Institutional Perspectives In Discussion, Anna R. Craft, Peggy Kain, Danica Lewis, Camille Mccutcheon, William Joseph Thomas

Libraries Professional Work

Transformative—or Read and Publish—deals are impacting the open access (OA) publishing landscape, allowing libraries to test new models for funding and incentivizing OA publishing, while also providing direct benefits for authors, including discounts and waivers on article processing charges (APCs). But how sustainable are transformative deals in light of library materials budgets and workloads for personnel who negotiate these deals, manage the implementations, and support campus authors? And how can libraries evaluate the perceived value of these deals in relation to the specific needs of their institutional users?

The Long And Winding Road: Planning A Successful Library Orientation For Graduate Students, Kristen Adams, Roger Justus

Journal of Graduate Librarianship

All new university students would benefit from an orientation focusing on library resources, which should look different for undergraduate and graduate students. But finding a place for incoming graduate student library orientations within the larger campus landscape can be challenging for librarians. Contributing to this struggle is that there is frequently an overemphasis on undergraduate orientations, with the misconception that graduate students have less need for orientations. This article will review how other institutions approach their graduate student orientations and share how ours have developed over five years and will continue to do so as the needs of the library …