Library and Information Science Commons^™

Creating And Deploying Usb Port Covers At Hudson County Community College, Lotta Sanchez, John P. Delooper

Publications and Research

In 2016, Hudson County (NJ) Community College (HCCC) deployed several wireless keyboards and mice with its iMac computers. Shortly after deployment, library staff found that each device’s required USB receiver (a.k.a. dongle) would disappear frequently. As a result, HCCC library staff developed and deployed 3D printed port covers to enclose these dongles. This, for a time, proved very successful in preventing the issue. This article will discuss the development of these port covers, their deployment, and what worked and did not work about the project.

“Don’T Make Me Feel Dumb”: Transfer Students, The Library, And Acclimating To A New Campus, Matthew Harrick, Lee Ann Fullington

Publications and Research

Objective – This qualitative study sought to delineate and understand the role of the library in addressing the barriers transfer students experience upon acclimating to their new campus.

Methods – A screening survey was used to recruit transfer students in their first semester at Brooklyn College (BC) to participate in focus groups. The participants discussed the issues they encountered by answering open-ended questions about their experiences on campus, and with the library specifically.

Results – Transfer students desired current information about campus procedures, services, and academic support. They often had to find this information on their own, wasting valuable time. …

Teaching Students To Critically Evaluate Textbooks, Christopher Mchale, Ian Mcdermott, Steven Ovadia

Publications and Research

This chapter is a case study describing how library faculty combined service learning and information literacy to help students evaluate textbooks, comparing commercial ones to Open Education Resources. The underlying idea was to give students not only a scholarly grounding that would help them as they move through their academic careers but also a practical vocational orientation to help them succeed in the workforce and, hopefully, become future contributors to the free culture movement.

Local Language, Local Knowledge, And Local Publishing: What Can We Learn From Latin And South America?, Monica Berger

Publications and Research

Scholarly publishing is hegemonic: a handful of international, commercial publishers dominate. Because the system favors English-language authors at well-resourced institutions, many academics and scientists are left out. But what if there was an alternate vision for scholarship that focuses on research in local languages, where research addresses issues of local concern, and open access occurs without fees to authors? In this presentation, we’ll learn more about initiatives in other countries, why bibliodiversity and local research is so important, and more about how local research is supported internationally.

Latin and South America have proven that they can “do it for themselves.” …

Makin’ Bots: Using Hands-On Workshops To Teach Essential Coding Skills, Mark E. Eaton

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Remixing An Open Educational Resource: A Case Study Of The Uncommon “R”, Lusiella Fazzino, Julie Turley

Urban Library Journal

Open educational resources address the crisis college students face purchasing textbooks. Although academic librarians play a prominent role implementing the open educational resource solution, by engaging faculty in their use and creation, librarians could go further. At the College of New Rochelle, instruction librarians teamed up with the Scholarly Communications Librarian to revise and remix an already existing information literacy textbook. This case study outlines how an open educational resource textbook was altered and localized to reflect students’ lived reality. The textbook was used in a credit-bearing information literacy course for the College’s Liberal Arts adult education B.A. program.

Notes From The Editor, Derek Stadler

Urban Library Journal

Notes from the Editor.

Keeping The Equity, Inclusion, And Diversity Conversations Going, Mona Ramonetti, Victoria Pilato

Urban Library Journal

This article focuses on the challenges and successes Stony Brook University Libraries’ Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity Committee encountered from its inception in 2017 to the present. The formation of this committee was in response to a new university-wide program. A pool of more than 80 library personnel made quick and thoughtful decisions to determine the composition of the Committee. In the months that followed, members learned to navigate the challenges of goal setting, collaborating with others outside the library, funding, event planning, and marketing. One of the primary goals of the Committee was to initiate and maintain conversations and collaborations …

Book Format Preferences Of Community College And Four-Year College Students: Results From Two Urban Campuses, John Carey, Ajatshatru Pathak

Urban Library Journal

This study compared the preferences of community college (two-year) and four-year college students at two public institutions with regard to accessing monographs in print or electronic formats. Results from 79 completed surveys indicate some preference for print among both populations, with approximately 52% of study participants preferring print books and 39% preferring e-books. While the popularity of print prevailed across a wide range of demographic groups and fields of study, the researchers also identified specific cohorts of participants who preferred e-books. Librarians at both community and senior colleges can use these findings to help inform collection development decisions.

Usability Study For A Community College Library Website: A Methodology For Large-Scale Data Gathering, Mark E. Eaton, Carlos Arguelles

Publications and Research

Usability studies (UX) are increasingly common in libraries. A UX methodology is a useful tool to support librarians’ decision-making processes during a website (re)design. This article describes a UX process using a custom-built usability-testing environment and a data-collection tool, written in JavaScript and Python respectively. The resulting automated approach allowed us to collect usability data from a sample of 225 students. The methodology described in this study will be of interest to those considering or planning a UX study in their libraries.

Shifting The Balance Of Power: Asking Questions About The Comics-Questions Curriculum, Stephanie M. Margolin, Sarah Laleman Ward, Mason Brown

Publications and Research

We shift the balance of power in this paper by discussing a particular library lesson, the Comics-Questions Curriculum, with some of the students who participated in it, several years after they completed the workshop. By interviewing students and including them as co-authors of this paper, we re-center students in our analysis of this curriculum. In the process of reflecting on our work with the students and each other, we begin to see ways to engage in more meaningful, longer-term assessment of our classroom work while involving student voices in the process. We share our experiences here in order to take …

Cruzar Fronteras Em Espaços Acadêmicos: Transgressing “The Limits Of Translanguaging”, Brendan H. O’Connor, Katherine S. Mortimer, Lesley Bartlett, María Teresa De La Piedra, Ana Maria Rabelo Gomes, Ariana Mangual Figueroa, Gabriela Novaro, Marjorie Faulstich Orellana, Char Ullman

Publications and Research

Scholarship on translanguaging and related concepts has challenged traditional assumptions about how people use their multiple languages, urging us to move beyond the boundaries of named linguistic codes and toward conceptualizations of multilingual language use as flexible use of a speaker’s whole linguistic repertoire. Critiques of this theoretical shift have included assertions of translanguaging’s conceptual and practical limits—limits to its transformative potential as well as limits to its practical use. This paper takes up, in particular, the question of why we academics may assert the value of translanguaging in schools and communities while still largely failing to move beyond monoglossic …

Your Ir As The Centerpiece For Scholarly Communications Outreach At Your Institution, Monica Berger

Publications and Research

Getting buy-in and awareness for your institutional repository can be challenging, especially when we have limited time and staff to devote to the IR. Outreach success requires persistence, flexibility, savvy marketing, and a focus on the long view. Before our IR, Academic Works, went live in 2016, my colleagues and I gave talks and workshops on open access and other topics. With Academic Works, our efforts now have focus and coherence. A varied outreach approach has been very helpful. In particular, print marketing has been effective. We designed a poster and other media promoting our tag line “amplify your scholarship …

In Search Of China’S First Library: Materials, Housing And Arrangement, Junli Diao

Publications and Research

Historically, the origin of libraries has an intimate association with written records supporting administrative or ritual functions at the palace or temple. This article attempts to discuss the possibility of the existence of China’s first library in the Shang dynasty (c.1570-1045 BCE) during the beginning of the formative period of Chinese civilization. The article analyzes and synthesizes both paleographical and archaeological evidence from the perspective of available materials, houses, and arrangement, which answers the questions of what the books were made of, where they were stored, and how they were arranged. The article ends with a conclusion that there is …

"To Be Honest I’M Not Sure If We Have A Textbook:" Undergraduate Access To Course Reading, Maura A. Smale

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Anecdotes, Barriers, Cooperation: The Abc's Of A Library/It Collaboration, Lee Ann Fullington, Mariana Regalado, Jane Cramer

Publications and Research

Aim Our library’s three main computing areas are the primary computer labs on campus, with two of them managed by librarians. Our staff mediated sign-in system made for long lines, delays, and more than a few misplaced student ID cards. After several semesters of monitoring issues and securing funding, the library implemented a new sign-in system for computers in the library’s labs. This presentation discusses the types of evidence we collected and used over several stages of this transition to launch and continually improve the self sign-in process.

Methods After selecting and deploying the new self sign-in software, library staff …

Evidence-Based Library Instruction For Nutrition Research: Librarian And Faculty Collaboration, Lee Ann Fullington, Melissa Fuster, Margrethe Horlyck-Romanovsky, Susan Jakuboski

Publications and Research

Aim Undergraduate nutrition and dietetics students need to develop research skills and professional competencies to identify evidence-based nutrition and food studies research. Research skills are essential for student success in dietetic internships, graduate school, and future professional practice as nutrition and dietetics professionals. In a collaborative effort to improve student research skills, teaching faculty, the program director, and the liaison librarian developed a series of research skills one-shot sessions for an accredited undergraduate program in Foods and Nutrition at a public liberal arts college. Using a scaffolded approach, the library sessions were designed to help students build research skills essential …

Promoting Discipline Specific Literacy For Law & Paralegal Studies Students: Libguides As Transitional & Professional Tools, Marissa Moran, Kimberly Abrams

Publications and Research

Developing LibGuides for Law and Paralegal Studies students at New York City College of Technology arose from the following question: how do we change the way legal studies students think of the Library as a resource to better assist them in their transition to college level-research and a future career as a paralegal. At the heart of this question is the importance of discipline-specific information literacy at the college and professional levels. Many students have difficulty with locating relevant information to complete course assignments partly because library resources are both fragmented and cohesive. Thus, while part of the transition to …

Flexi Discs: The Audio Format That Time Forgot And Remembered Again, Junior R. Tidal

Publications and Research

Flexi discs, also known as phonosheets and Soundsheets, are “flexible” plastic sheets that can be played on turntables. This audio format was used for a wide variety of purposes including promotional materials, giveaways, and inserts into magazines, stemming from their origins in playable chocolate discs in the early 1900s (Parks, 2018). At one point in time it was a $9 million dollar business, with the U.S. government as one of the top users of the technology (Penchansky, 1979). Their disposable nature, weight, ability to print directly on material, and affordable manufacturing made the flexi disc an alternative to vinyl pressings. …

Partnering For Social Justice: Social Work Students’ Placement At Public Libraries, Sarah C. Johnson

Publications and Research

While the collaborative trend among professional social workers and librarians is garnering much deserved attention, literature about social work students partnering with public libraries is virtually nonexistent. Public librarians can advocate for social justice by initiating partnerships with master-level social work (MSW) students to enhance small- and large-scale programs to address the unique needs of patrons. In this chapter, I highlight existing collaborations among public libraries and student social workers to raise awareness of possibilities.

Critical Information Literacy, Emily Drabinski, Eamon Tewell

Publications and Research

This encyclopedia entry presents a brief introduction to critical information literacy, an approach to teaching people how information is produced, organized, circulated, and preserved.

Listening To What Students Are Asking: The Role Of An Academic Library In Institution-Wide Knowledge Management, Elizabeth Jardine

Publications and Research

Students at our public, urban community college were experiencing difficulties finding correct, consistent answers to their questions about navigating college processes, information students needed to succeed in school. These difficulties were fueled not only by our students’ backgrounds—they are often the first generation in their family to attend college, may require additional academic preparation, or lack support for their higher education dreams—but also by the siloed information environment prevalent in academia. When our college president realized the extent of student challenges in this area, she looked to the college’s librarians, campus experts in knowledge organization and provision, for direction with …

Wikipedia, Socialpedia, And Randompedia: How Could One Play By The Rules When There Aren’T Any?, Junli Diao

Publications and Research

This article documents a cataloging librarian’s personal narrative that reflects his experience of organizing Wikipedia-Edit-thon. This experience leads to a journey of self-education about Wikipedia, a divergence to preconceived notions about it, and an embrace for a change in the future.

Partnering For Social Justice: Msw Interns In Public Libraries, Sarah C. Johnson

Publications and Research

While the collaborative trend among professional social workers and librarians continues to grow, literature about the utilization of student social workers partnering with libraries is non-existent. Over 64,000 students are currently enrolled in M.S.W. programs through the United States and nearly all are required to complete approximately 900 hours of fieldwork. Such students provide the skills, knowledge, and values that can help take diversity in public libraries to the next level. Public librarians play a critical role in advocating for social justice and change. By reaching out to MSW programs, they invite budding social workers to help advance tolerance for …

The Living Archive In The Anthropocene, Nora Almeida, Jen Hoyer

Publications and Research

This paper presents the concept of the living archive as a system which reflects how social behavior and cultural production are part of the Anthropocene. The authors explore how dominant narratives of both the Anthropocene and the archive work to consolidate power and maintain cultural and disciplinary divisions. The authors refute conceptions of the Anthropocene as a purely biophysical phenomenon that is alienated from cultural practice and of the archive as a comprehensive and nostalgic space. They then introduce the living archive as an alternative representational, creative, and reactive space and illustrate how the living archive can intervene in ecological …

Insights From Library Information And Resource Sharing For The Future Of Academic Library Collections, Beth Posner

Publications and Research

The successes and challenges of library resource sharing offer important lessons for librarians considering the future of academic library collections.

What Is Critical About Critical Librarianship?, Emily Drabinski

Publications and Research

Library work structures intellectual worlds as library workers collect, organize, make accessible, and preserve materials for use. This work is not neutral. Libraries, like all institutions, are produced in and through systems marked by racism, patriarchy, and capitalist modes of production. Critical librarianship offers a framework for thinking about our work that asks how library structures came to be and what ideologies underpin them. Viewing librarianship through this frame allows us to imagine new and better worlds on our way to making them.

Library Use Survey: November 26 - December 9, 2018, J. Silvia Cho, Diana Teeter, Polly Thistlethwaite

Publications and Research

In this self-study, we observed occupancy rates and patterns at the Graduate Center Library over two weeks in November and December of 2018. The mean occupancy at the Library was 26%, or 117.5 occupants. Occupancy on all three floors ranged from 13% or 60 occupants (a Sunday at 1pm) to 38% or 170 occupants (a Saturday at 6pm).

Aligning The Curriculums For College Success: High School And College Library Collaborations, Carl R. Andrews, Dickens Saint Hilaire

Publications and Research

In today’s highly competitive global economy, City University of New York (CUNY) graduates need strong critical thinking skills. More New York City students than ever before are applying to college and enrolling into CUNY schools. This is especially the case with high schools throughout the Bronx, a good portion of these schools are feeder schools for Bronx Community College (BCC). Unfortunately, many of the students who matriculate into BCC come un-prepared for college level work, where information literacy skills are essential. A strong body of published scholarly literature discusses the importance of information literacy instruction at the high school level, …

Opening The Conversation: Getting Started, Stacy Katz

Publications and Research

This column explores the concept of Open Educational Resources and how it relates to librarianship

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