Library and Information Science Commons^™

Software Of The Oppressed: Reprogramming The Invisible Discipline, Erin R. Glass

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation offers a critical analysis of software practices within the university and the ways they contribute to a broader status quo of software use, development, and imagination. Through analyzing the history of software practices used in the production and circulation of student and scholarly writing, I argue that this overarching software status quo has oppressive qualities in that it supports the production of passive users, or users who are unable to collectively understand and transform software code for their own interests. I also argue that the university inadvertently normalizes and strengthens the software status quo through what I call …

Records Of A School At Sea, Annie E. Tummino

Publications and Research

This presentation is largely about strategies for dealing with archival legacy description. Not just in terms of data migration or updating standards, but what to do when you inherit a large scale collection that was organized using a methodology that no longer works in a 21st century context. How do you move forward, and how do you document your interventions and decisions? This is what happened to me at SUNY Maritime with the college’s institutional records.

Jewish Germany: An Enduring Presence From The Fourth To The Twenty-First Century, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the book Jewish Germany: An enduring presence from the fourth to the twenty-first century.

Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus For Lib 3065 (Research Methods And Resources For Writers), Christopher Tuthill

Open Educational Resources

This course explores the theoretical and practical impact of information research on writing. Students develop proficiency in evaluating, identifying, and using relevant print and web sources to locate business, government, biographic, political, social and statistical information necessary for in-depth journalistic reportage and other forms of research and writing.

Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus For Lib 3010 (Digital Traces: Memory In An Online World), Jessica Wagner Webster

Open Educational Resources

This course will help students think critically about how our society uses digital archives. Students will learn about different kinds of digital materials prevalent in our society (such as photos, data sets, and social media), and explore how the obsolescence or longevity of digital records impacts academic scholarship, government, journalism, and personal recordkeeping.

Reading A Scholarly Publication, Silvia L. Lin Hanick

Open Educational Resources

LIF 101, Liberal Arts: Social Science and Humanities

This assignment was designed to reintroduce students to library resources and to give students an opportunity to examine scholarly publications in parts and in detail, without the pressure of using the article in a formal research paper, or having to understand the entire article.

To prepare for this assignment, we started class with a writing exercise to answer, “what makes something scholarly?” All responses were written on the board; together we identified common ideas that came up more than once. I added to their responses with a short lecture about the information …

Reaching Faculty Where They Are: Lessons Learned On Outreach, Monica Berger

Publications and Research

Successful scholarly communications outreach centers on a consistent, flexible, and holistic approach. We provide training and support throughout the lifecycle of scholarly communications. Our work has had a strong, positive impact at our college and our institutional repository is the centerpiece of our work.

The value of one-on-one is critical. We reach out to faculty when receiving a Google Scholar alert for new publications. Encouraging self-depositing allows us to train on using the IR and discuss author’s rights and using the SPARC Addendum. We have taken the approach that educating faculty is our ultimate goal.

Buy-in from administration has been …

Mixed Methods Of Assessment: Measures Of Enhancing Library Services In Academia, Nilda Alexandra Sanchez-Rodriguez

Publications and Research

Collection assessment is an essential aspect of library collection development, especially for public institutions currently affected by financial budget cuts. Collection managers working with little to no budget have the task of establishing unconventional methods of selecting most relevant materials. This paper aims to demonstrate the correlation between a syllabi analysis, faculty survey and circulation statistics as a practical measure to enhance and expand the architecture library services at the City College of New York and in academia in general. This study uses mixed use assessment strategies to evaluate a library collection. The scope of the study supports combining collection-based …

Soap From Human Fat: The Case Of Professor Spanner, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the book Soap from Human Fat: The Case of Professor Spanner, by Monika Tomkiewicz and Piotr Semków (Gdynia: Wydawnictwo Róza Wiatrów, 2013).

Iopscience, Michelle Ehrenpreis

Publications and Research

Created by IOP Publishing, IOPscience is an online database which features 78 electronic journals, e-books, and conference proceedings from the Institute of Physics. Launched in 2010 on the previous Axiom platform, the database contains proprietary and Open Access content in the disciplines of physics and related sciences. Multiple pricing and packages offer a variety of options, as well as IOPscience Extra and IOPcorporate as add-ons for additional charges. As an online service for its journal content, IOPscience is a valuable service for institutions in need of access to essential physics and related subject matter research.

Representing Normal: The Problem Of The Unmarked In Library Organization Systems, Emily Drabinski

Publications and Research

The problem of bias in library classification and cataloging structures has been well documented and analyzed. Efforts to intervene in these systems have largely taken the form of advocating for added or revised subject terms to reflect the language of diverse users and diverse library content. This case study will analyze the status of marked and unmarked binaries related to social identities in LCSH.

Only Connect: Graduate Students, Mobile Devices, And Academic Workflows, Lee Ann Fullington, Frans Albarillo

Publications and Research

Students often own multiple devices, including laptops, smartphones, and tablets, and work within these personal device ecosystems for academic purposes. This qualitative study explores the research question: how are graduate students using mobile technologies in their academic practices? Rather than simply counting how many devices a student uses, we delve into how they use the devices and how their workflow for completing academic tasks emerged and is adapted throughout the course of their studies. We selected graduate students, as this group is underrepresented in the literature and their responsibilities for employment and family life are often different than those of …

Sense-Making And The Community College Student, Susan T. Wengler

Publications and Research

A qualitative pilot study is underway at Queensborough Community College - The City University of New York to explore the information behaviors of community college students in the context of an assigned research task. Two research questions are addressed: RQ1: How do community college students make sense of research assignments?; RQ2: What role does the academic library play in community college students’ sense-making processes?

This project is framed using Dervin’s Sense-Making Theory of Information Behavior (Dervin, 1998). Community college students are interviewed and asked to reconstruct their experience in the completion of a research assignment. Per Dervin’s model, the assignment …

Msw Interns At Public Libraries: Fostering Collaboration For Change, 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. Currently 40,000 students are enrolled in M.S.W. programs through the United States and nearly all are required to complete approximately 900 hours "in the field." Such students provide untapped skills, knowledge, and values that can help take diversity in public libraries to the next level.

Transformed, I'M Sure: A (Polite) Introduction To Fair Use In Dh, Jill Cirasella

Publications and Research

This presentation looks at how the words "including" and "such as" in the fair use section of United States copyright law (i.e., Section 107 of Title 17 of the United States Code) allow for unforeseen fair uses, including transformative works made by digital humanists.

"The Shoe Is Too Small And Not Made For You!": Racial "Covering" And The Illusion Of Fit, Silvia L. Lin Hanick

Publications and Research

This chapter appears in In Our Own Voices, Redux: The Faces of Librarianship Today, edited by Teresa Y. Neely and Jorge R. López-McKnight. Using Kenji Yoshino's writings about racial covering, I use an autoethnography approach to investigate how I came into the field of librarianship. I reflect on my experience as a second-generation Taiwanese-American woman growing up in Southern California, going to library school in Illinois, and starting my career in New Mexico.

Advancing Information Literacy In A Semester-Long Library Instruction Course: A Case Study, Derek Stadler, Ian Mcdermott

Publications and Research

The following case study investigated the efficacy of Information Literacy (IL) pedagogy on undergraduate research in a credit-bearing library instruction class. More specifically, the study analyzed student success and sought to determine whether written reflection and practice strengthen IL skills, including the fundamental ability to develop a research question and thesis statement. Developing research questions and formulating thesis statements are among the most challenging duties of a young researcher. From high school through undergraduate, students often have minimal experience conducting research. They may not know where to begin the research process and what steps are necessary. Student frustration is exacerbated …

A Comparative Analysis Of The Use Of Github By Librarians And Non-Librarians, Mark E. Eaton

Publications and Research

Objective – GitHub is a popular tool that allows software developers to collaborate and share their code on the web. Librarians have adopted GitHub to support their own work, sharing code in support of their libraries. This paper asks: How does librarians’ use of GitHub compare to that of other users?

Methods – To retrieve quantitative data on GitHub users, we queried the GitHub APIs (application programming interfaces). By assembling data on librarians’ use of GitHub, as well as on a comparison group, we provided preliminary comparisons of these two samples. We analyzed and visualized this data across a number …

Use And Awareness Of Library Services Among Faculty At Two Armenian Universities, D. Aram Donabedian, John Carey, Arshak Balayan

Publications and Research

This study surveyed instructional faculty at two Armenian universities to determine use and awareness of academic library services or resources including reference, interlibrary loan, subscription databases, subject liaisons, and more. A minority of respondents reported making frequent use of the services investigated, with usage varying according to such factors as academic rank, length of employment, and full- or part-time status. Many participants also had suggestions for services not available at their libraries. These results help illuminate user preferences among faculty at these universities and could help librarians at similar institutions identify underutilized resources to promote or new services to offer.

Writing Effective Annotated Bibliographies Using Blackboard’S Discussion Board [Library], Derek Stadler

Open Educational Resources

This assignment is the midterm for the one-credit course LRC103, a library instruction course that teaches analytical thinking, problem-solving, and information literacy skills necessary for academic research and digital citizenship. It is aligned with LaGuardia’s Inquiry and Problem Solving Core Competency and Digital Communication Ability rubrics. This assignment was peer reviewed and revised in the “Learning Matters: The Pedagogy of the Digital Ability” CTL seminar in 2017-2018. In the seminar, my work was reviewed by each of the participants as well as the leaders. I used their feedback to revise the assignment. In this sense, the seminar not only helped …

The Library Of Pantainos: A Unique Ancient Library, Michael W. Handis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Library of Pantainos is not typical of Greco-Roman libraries built around the same time. When comparing the library to two libraries built within 35 years of it, the Library of Celsus (135 CE) in Ephesus and the Library of Hadrian (132 CE), there are major differences in design. The Library of Pantainos proper was surrounded by two stoas, which housed various stores, the revenue from which may have been used in the upkeep of the library and its collection. The library was built on land that had been fallow since the sack of Sulla in 86 BCE. Contrary to …

Ya Banned Books Analysis, Amanda Birro, Jennifer Pappas, Briana Cimino

Student Theses

Book banning or challenging is a complex issue, in which a person takes issue with a book in the library‟s collection, complains to the librarian, and sometimes demands that the book be removed from the collection entirely. Books for young adult audiences are especially at risk, and the reasons why these books are challenged or banned are numerous. By reading fifteen different young adult books from between the years of 1990 and 2016, the researchers performed a content analysis to look at the reasons why books may be challenged or banned. They also looked for trends or patterns in books …

The Lms And The Library, Robin Camille Davis

Publications and Research

In this column, I give a brief overview of five ways that libraries can be incorporated into a learning management system (LMS), ordered from easiest to most difficult to scale, or in other words, least to most personal:

• Insert the library in the LMS template
• Offer embeddable LibGuides to faculty
• Create a collection of graded modules for faculty use
• Create an online library mini-course
• Embed a librarian in a course

Next Level Learning: Using Pedagogically-Designed Research Guides In Information Literacy Instruction, Susan T. Wengler

Publications and Research

A pilot study is currently underway at Queensborough Community College which explores the impact of a pedagogically-designed research guide (PDRG) on information literacy student learning outcomes. In contrast to pathfinder guides, the PDRG seeks to engage and support students through all steps of the research assignment. Each guide tab corresponds to a stage in Kuhlthau’s Model of the Information Search Process and includes both a micro-lecture and a quiz. The poster will discuss the creation and Spring 2018 launch of the PDRG. Poster visual aids will incorporate graphic presentation of the micro-lectures and quizzes, as well as preliminary quiz results. …

Nora Evelyn Cordingley, Keith J. Muchowski

Publications and Research

Nora Evelyn Cordingley worked for the Roosevelt Memorial Association at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace. She helped Hermann Hagedorn build the extensive collection of materials related to President Theodore Roosevelt starting in the early 1920s until the collection moved to Harvard University in the early 1940s. She also helped in the project to publish Theodore Roosevelt's letters. Ms. Cordingley died in her office within the Widener Library in 1951.

Promoting Banned Books In The City Tech Library, Junior R. Tidal

Publications and Research

This presentation is a case study of how the New York City College of Technology, Ursula C. Schwerin Library has promoted banned books from it's collection. The audience will have a better understanding of how the library's social media and "blind" book display has played a role in exposing students to the controversies of censorship. This presentation would also be useful for those working with and in academic libraries and/or commuter college campuses.

Branding Matters: Reimagine Your Library Services, Susan T. Wengler

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Teaching Occupational Outlook Handbook For Students In Career Development: A Lesson Plan, Junli Diao

Open Educational Resources

This lesson plan is designed for a 60-minute information literacy class to teach students who are taking SD110 (Student Development 110) at York College, City University of New York. The goal of this class is to facilitate SD110 students to effectively engage themselves in finding and evaluating information regarding career and vocational development.

Libraries And The Missing Narrative: Practitioner Explorations In The Use Of Design Psychology And Environmental Autobiography For Library Buildings And Designs, Amy Beth

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Environmental Autobiography as a research method of Environmental Psychology and Design Psychology informs this study of the meaning and experiences of libraries described by six library-building design practitioners. Participants were guided through an adaptation of Toby Israel’s (2010) Design Psychology Toolbox (hereafter known as the DPT or the “Toolbox”) exercises. The research is intended to expand the practice of designing libraries as places and spaces where social and emotional affordance is supported. Emphasizing the significance of libraries as place and space where people often have rich and even transformative experiences serves to augment use-efficiency and evidence-based space planning. Primary goals …

Interactive Whiteboards In Library Instruction: Facilitating Student Engagement And Active Learning, Maureen Richards, Marta Bladek, Karen Okamoto

Publications and Research

Determined to keep up with the ever-changing instructional trends, academic libraries have been quick to adopt emerging teaching and learning technologies. Recent literature features many examples of technologies that have found a place in libraries’ instructional programs: learning management systems, clickers, online tutorials, reference chats, and mobile devices, to mention the most popular ones. Curiously enough, despite their popularity in business and K-12 contexts, interactive whiteboards (IWBs) are rarely discussed in the context of academic libraries’ efforts to embrace innovative teaching methods. This article addresses this omission. Present-day IWBs have evolved to include features that accommodate a variety of teaching …