Library and Information Science Commons^™

The Future Librarian: A Diverse And Complex Professional, Gunilla Widén, Maria Kronqvist-Berg

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

The library professional is an active actor in the information society and the professional identity is affected by societal and cultural phenomena as well as technological changes. The library users’ changing information behavior, different forms of information, and information overload challenge the professional perspective; what is the core expertise of the library profession and what new skills are needed in the future? The library profession meets a growing complexity in its role and it becomes difficult to balance the generalist and expertise level of the profession (Stover 2004). Desirable future skills are related to operating and navigating on the Internet, …

Science, Technology, And Library Work: Trends And Milestones, Maria Forsman

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

Nowadays it is difficult to imagine, what kind of changes research libraries have gone through during the last 40 years. In the 70’s libraries were proud of large collections of printed books and journals. Library automation was mostly in infancy, but some research fields were forerunners in developing library and information services. These fields are those that are economically useful in society. The first and most qualified international databases were in sciences like chemistry and physics, medicine, education and economics. Other sciences – like humanities and most of social sciences – were followers. Databases and different e-services were developed in …

Measuring (And Increasing) The Value Of Library Services, Carol Tenopir

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

The value of the university library to faculty, students, and administrators has long been assumed. In an era of increasing choices (and sometimes decreasing resources), academic librarians all over the world are faced with finding the best ways to measure and demonstrate the value of the library to all stakeholders, and to gather evidence that helps libraries make the best choices about new directions for the future that will sustain and increase the value. This talk will both describe some methods for measuring value and outcomes and summarize results that measure value to users.

Organisational Changes And A New Media Policy: Meeting User Demands At The Royal Institute Of Technology, Cecilia Heyman Widmark

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

This paper discusses why there is a need for organisational changes and a new policy for acquisitions within an academic library when 96.5 % of the media budget is spent on electronic resources related to the 3.5 % spent on print. At the Library of The Royal Institute of Technology the acquisitions and handling of printed material involved more time and personnel compared to that of licensing and administering electronic resources. Given the economic relation between the two expenditures it was clear that this should be reflected in the organisation.

A new media plan was developed to form a foundation …

Positioning Academic Libraries For The Future: A Process And Strategy For Organizational Transformation, Erin L. Ellis, Brian Rosenblum, John Stratton, Kathleen Ames-Stratton

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

Seeking to more effectively respond to campus initiatives and user expectations, the University of Kansas (KU) Libraries underwent a process of significant organizational review and transformation. Guided by a purposeful, open process, a diverse and representative group was elected to serve on the Libraries Organizational Review Team (ORT) to assess the existing organizational structure, determine major functions and cross-functional areas therein, and identify new and vital activities and positions essential for achieving our strategic priorities. Recognizing, too, the trends and challenges occurring within higher education and academic libraries, ORT sought to redefine professional roles and functions to strategically position the …

Unlocking The Potential Of Library Generated Data To Assess Value, Impact, And Influence, Margie Jantti, Brian Cox

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

The University of Wollongong Library (UWL) has initiated an innovative and collaborative research project to unambiguously demonstrate the value that can be provided by academic libraries. The project centres on the integration and interrogation of a series of discrete datasets, e.g. student performance, student attrition, student demographic data, and borrowing and electronic resources usage data. The project has enabled UWL to identify whether a correlation exists between usage of Library resources and academic performance (e.g. grades). Findings reveal a strong and sustained correlation; providing a new facet through which to view and understand the student academic experience.The project is different …

Problem Lah! Learning To Tell The Story Of Continuous Assessment And Improvement, Tamera Hanken

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

To succeed organizations rely on the purposeful application of the management functions, planning, organizing, leading and controlling, i.e., assessment. Assessment involves the collection and analysis of service and performance data to inform planning, organizing and leading-- opening the door to a culture of assessment and continuous improvement. Like other organizations responding to ever challenging economies and ever changing customer expectations, libraries are examining continuous improvement methods such as Lean, or Six Sigma, to ensure operations and services are customer focused and can be continuously assessed and improved with limited resources. Librarians though, often lack a general understanding of assessment and …

How Does The Information Team Today Become The Information Team Of Tomorrow, Carlo Iacono

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

As the delivery of universities’ information services becomes increasingly virtual and time-honoured library practices are deemed to add less value, literature abounds with discussions about the future of the profession. Academic librarians are generally finding technical and technological expertise is a must and that they need to be aware of emerging learning and research practises to ensure their place and value remains. These new demands create new opportunities and require new skills to be acquired.

In this complex and rapidly changing environment, managers need to remain on top of the requirement for new skill sets. The starting point is understanding …

Examining Library’S Information Literacy Instruction In Support Of Student Research Skills Competencies, Mirela Djokic

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

The presentation focuses on liaison model approach to integrating information literacy (research skills sessions) into curriculum, primarily focusing on first-year courses. It examines effectiveness of a variety of instruction modes and delivery, ranging from one-shot to sequenced sessions.

The Library offers comprehensive research skills sessions for courses at all levels based on the standards, performance indicators, and outcomes published in the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education actively supported by the Library. Over the past few years, the Library adopted the Liaison model, where librarians collaborate with Instructors in their respective subject …

Assessing The Impact Of Publications Saved By Mendeley Users: Is There Any Different Pattern Among Users?, Zohreh Zahedi, Rodrigo Costas, Paul Wouters

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

The main focus of this paper is to investigate the impact of publications read (saved) by the different users in Mendeley in order to explore the extent to which their readership counts correlate with their citation indicators. The potential of filtering highly cited papers by Mendeley readerships and its different users have been also explored. For the analysis of the users, we have considered the information of the top three Mendeley ‘users’ reported by the Mendeley. Our results show that publications with Mendeley readerships tend to have higher citation and journal citation scores than publications without readerships. ‘Biomedical & health …

Altmetrics Is An Indication Of Quality Research Or Just Hot Topics, Chia Yew Boon, Joan Wee Jee Foon

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

With the widespread use of social media tools in the discovery, dissemination and discussion of research output, altmetric measurements are fast gaining popularity and they supplement the traditional research metrics by tracking the number of social mentions of research articles. In recent years, there a few such tools and they adopt different models and have different coverage. Publishers such as Scopus and PLoS have already incorporated altmetrics in their websites. This paper seeks to make sense of these available tools and evaluate their effectiveness. Do they identify quality research or just HOT topics? This paper also analyses most cited papers …

Measures For Success: Library Resources And Effectiveness Under Scrutiny, Aija Janbicka, Jolanta Ivanova, Lāsma Zarina, Sarmīte Krauze

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

Library organization and redesign.

Creation of common territorial complex for RTU

„RTU – City within a City” is a project the implementation of which will create the most advanced study centre for engineering sciences in the Baltic region – a campus that in future will be formed of RTU faculties, administrative buildings and the scientific library.

The first stage of the project was realized starting from spring of 2010 till the end of 2013, with the help of national and European Regional Development Funds.

Within the framework of the project in the library:

• Mobile shelves in the book repository have …

Comparison Of Engineers Australia Online Library Offerings With Services Of Equivalent International Engineering Organisations, Elena Vvedenskaia

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

For the last 94 years, Engineers Australia has provided a forum for all members of the engineering workforce with the appropriate qualifications and experience, those prepared to indorse a common code of ethics.

Almost uniquely positioned in the world from this perspective, Engineers Australia been able to draw upon an extensive network of technical and professional expertise accumulated across 50 Colleges, Technical Societies and Special Interest Groups covering every field of engineering.

This body of knowledge has been systematically collected, preserved and made available to members by Engineers Australia Library since the formation of the Institution in 1919.

This presentation …

Does Il Education Have An Impact On Undergraduate Engineering Students' Research Skills, Marja Talikka, Harri Eskelinen, Hanna Varri

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

This paper presents the first results of testing a model of studying the change in undergraduate students’ research skills after receiving information literacy (IL) instruction. The model is tested with a group of Master’s level engineering students attending a construction materials’ seminar. The IL instruction consists of presenting the basics of information searching in general, the basics of bibliometrics, and searching guidelines of the most important databases in the field of mechanical engineering and material science. After the lecture, the students attend an instructed hands-on information retrieval training session. In order to enable information retrieval from the most important …

Redefining The Nexus: The Convergence Of Information Literacy, Scholarly Communication And Data Literacy, David Scherer, Lisa Zilinski

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

The March 2013, ARCL Committee on Research and the Scholarly Environment White Paper, “Intersections of Scholarly Communication and Information Literacy”, discussed the intersection of two initiatives and the evolving environment in academic libraries, as well as explored the “economics of the distribution of scholarship, digital literacies, and our changing roles.” However, in technical libraries, scholarly communication and information literacy initiatives are converging with data literacy initiatives. Until recently, as highlighted in Common Ground at the Nexus of Information Literacy & Scholarly Communication, the conversations surrounding scholarly communication, information literacy, and data literacy have taken place in disparate and siloed environments …

Role Of Libraries In Promoting The Use Of Open Education Resources (Oer) In India: A Study Of Nptel Resources And Major Technology Libraries, Tukaram S. Kumbar, Amruth Sherikar

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

The number of higher educational Institutions in India is growing steadily. Institutions imparting higher education in science and technology, particularly the ones setup up by Government of India as Institutes of national importance has almost doubled during last one decade. This development is a part of the national strategy to increase the capacity building in the S & T area. In order to support this major initiative, the eight major Institutes of national importance viz Indian Institute of Technology located in different parts of country and the Indian Institute of Science with support from Ministry of Human Resources and Development, …

Training And Development Of Library Employees In Research Data Management, Catherine Soehner

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

Providing services to faculty and researchers throughout the data life cycle has become an important aspect for many libraries worldwide. Considering the complexity of data management, providing these services can appear daunting. Data services worldwide have matured steadily over the past five years and the United States is only catching up. Learning about the information and services available through other institutions allows libraries to develop referral services that make effective use of current personnel. A model for training and development of library employees was created at the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah that prepared librarians to …

What Would Be The Future Of The Integrated Library Systems?, Xiaohua (Cindy) Li

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

Since the advent of Integrated Library Systems (ILSs) in 1970s, they have gone from being innovative to stagnant. In recent years, the rapid advancement of web technologies and the exponential growth of electronic resources and digital contents have increasingly exposed the weakness of traditional ILSs. The lack of flexibility, interoperability, and efficiency makes the ILSs hardly meet the needs of both internal and external library users. Meanwhile Content Management Systems (CMS) such as Drupal and open source ILSs have gotten much attention due to their technological and economic advantages, and cloud computing has allowed libraries to focus on bigger pictures. …

Visual Art: An Effective Communication Channel For Library, Marta Mazur, Dorota Wojonowska

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

The purpose of this poster is to present marketing operations and communication channels applied in the Main Library of the Warsaw University of Technology (ML WUT). Due to the influence of new twenty-first-century technology, libraries need and have to be involved with interpersonal communication and appropriate instruments of mass communication. Actions related to marketing communication should be well thought-out, planned and evaluated.

The ML WUT has been consistently pursuing and realising a communicative marketing programme based on the visual arts. Such communication channels as offered by ML WUT include: exhibition display boards located in urban open space and internal academic …

Metrics, Altmetrics, Data Visualization, Tuija Sonkkila

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

With examples from past, present and future in the making, we look how altmetrics visualizations are positioned into different visualization categories.

Co-Creating A Research Landscaping And Visualization Service For Aalto University Library, Johanna Bragge, Heli Yamaguchi, Anne Sunikka

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

The explosion of research available in digital journal databases poses increasing challenges but also opportunities to scholars. For a scholar to stay competitive, new information discovery tools such as text-mining and visualization software are needed to handle the data flood. A contemporary science library is in a key position in mediating the best practices via its services to scholars. This research depicts how Aalto University Library innovated such a service together with relevant stakeholders and customers. The dual goal of the research is 1) to ensure that the new service best fulfills the needs of scholars, and 2) to increase …

'Access As A Service' - Reframing The Service Catalogue And Measures Of Success For Information Resources, Maureen Kattau

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

As collection development and the management of information resources have shifted from ownership to access or to ownership as access (in perpetual access models) the traditional distinction between collections and services - as the basis for thinking about service delivery - is no longer a tenable model. This turn towards "access as a service" has also meant that information resources have come more to resemble 'soft services' in their attendant issues of measurement and value demonstration.

Previous input, or infrastructure, measures (volume counts, usage, etc), if not unproblematic in terms of demonstrating their contribution to University outcomes, were at least …

The Meaning Of Altmetrics, Kim Holmberg

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

A range of quantitative methods are today widely used in research evaluation (e.g. Moed et al., 1985; Moed et al., 1995). Recently, with the increasing popularity of social media, and especially the increasing use of social media in scholarly activities, a new field of research has been introduced, namely altmetrics, to investigate the use of social media in research evaluation (Priem & Hemminger, 2010). Although altmetrics does not yet have a widely accepted definition, the idea with altmetrics is that the mentions and other indicators of visibility and awareness a research article and other research products get in social media …

Correlation Between Information Needs And The Library Collection: A Citation Analysis Study Of Doctoral Theses At Universidade Federal De Santa Catarina Library, Maria Bernardete Martin Alves, Karyn Munyk Lehmkuhl, Liliane Vieira Pinheiro, Dirce Maris Nunes Da Silva

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

This study aims at measuring the correlation between information needs of patrons and the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC) Library collection. The survey was carried out targeting students from a doctoral course in Scientific and Technological Education especially, analyzing the listing of sources and literature of UFSC doctoral theses submitted in 2012. The postgraduate program was selected for its multidisciplinary nature. Theses were chosen for analysis because they are original studies and represent an innovative contribution. Also, they are available at the library collection and general public can access them both in printed or online format. The goal of …

Beyond Inspec - Building A Semantic Enrichment Service To Explore How The Iet Can Better Support Academic And Commercial Researchers, Allison Haggar, Richard Hollis

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

As the amount of content in the engineering space is constantly growing it is becoming more and more difficult to retrieve relevant information. In this context the IET has commissioned a project to evaluate the feasibility of providing a semantic enrichment service based on the terms contained in the Inspec Thesaurus. The possibility of automated tagging of a variety of content types including traditional academic publishing data (e.g. journal abstracts), commercial product information (e.g. product catalogues) and social media (e.g. twitter feeds) has been explored as well as the auto generation of new terms for the Inspec thesaurus. We have …

Qualitative Scientometrics, Gustaf Nelhans

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

When scientometricians are asked about the relationship between citations and quality, they often argue along the lines that citations could be seen as indicators of use and that that this implies usefulness and impact on other research, which in turn is an argument for using them as indicators of quality. This paper questions the implicit linearity of such a ‘one-dimensional model’ of representing quality by quantity from a number of standpoints. First, the use of citations as well as any indicator that is used is performative in the sense that those getting measured by them, i.e. researchers or university administrators, …

It-Based Solutions For Users And Library Staff: Case Study Of The Tallinn University Of Technology Library, Jüri Järs

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

The new building of the Tallinn University of Technology (TUT) Library was opened in 2009. It has open stacks of about 210 000 volumes, which are located on 4 floors. The library has 32 study rooms and about 1 500 visits per day. In this paper some unique solutions are introduced, which have been worked out in cooperation between TUT librarians and library IT staff.

Information kiosk. One single access point for searching in e-catalogue ESTER and ISE database, topographic Open Stack Guide (OSG), study rooms reservation system. OSG is integrated with ESTER item records. There are two ways to …

Dynamic Dissemination And Accessibility Of Global Responses: The Iatul Conference Proceedings And The Purdue E-Pubs Repository, David Scherer

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

The necessity of providing free global online access to emerging international responses relevant to librarianship in international technological universities has been a focus of the Library and Information Science community. The International Association of Scientific and Technological University Libraries (IATUL) describes itself as an international organization that “provides an international forum for the exchange of ideas relevant to librarianship by technological universities throughout the world. It also provides library directors and senior managers an opportunity to develop a collaborative approach to solving common problems.” Purdue e-Pubs (www.purdue.edu/epubs) is one of three institutional repositories at Purdue Universities and provides free global …

Using A Portfolio Platform As A Tool To Engage: A Case Study Of Nanyang Technological University School Of Art, Design And Media, Sum Wai Yuan Hedren, Chia Yew Boon

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Libraries and the School of Art Design and Media (ADM) have recently embarked on a project to develop a school-wide portfolio platform – ADM Portfolios. Using an open-source platform, WordPress, the project aims to further engage the NTU-ADM community by collecting, curating, sharing and promoting the creative works of ADM students and alumni. Playing the dual roles of a consultant and a project manager, NTU Libraries work closely with the different ADM stakeholders, which includes the school’s top management, Office of Technical Operations, Offices of Publicity & Alumni, ADM Alumni Association (ADMAA), ADM Student Club and …

Mendeley As A Source Of Readership By Students And Postdocs? Evaluating Article Usage By Academic Status, Stefanie Haustein, Vincent Larivière

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

This paper explores readership counts provided by the social reference manager Mendeley as a source for usage statistics for scientific papers, based on a sample of 1.2 million documents published in journals from the four disciplines Biomedical Research, Clinical Medicine, Health and Psychology. It is shown that the percentage of papers with at least one user on Mendeley (65.9%) as well as the average number of readers per document (9.6) is quite high compared to the uptake and average activity on other social media platforms. The majority of users are PhD and postgraduate students as well as postdocs. Correlations with …