Library and Information Science Commons^™

Al Sears' Saxophone At York Library, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Among the memorabilia in the York College Library's Music History Archive is a saxophone that was owned by the renowned Jazz musician Al Sears.

Visualizing History: Using Museum Skills To Teach Information Literacy To Undergraduates, Sandra Roff

Publications and Research

Baruch College began an information studies minor that reinforces the principles of information literacy. However, it did not employ the visual to teach information literacy skills. To fill this gap, a new course, using the process of researching and preparing an exhibit script to teach undergraduates information literacy skills, was developed. In this course students have the opportunity to become creative, while at the same time learning the organizational and research skills needed to compose exhibit proposals, write labels and press releases and finally to produce exhibit script.

The September 11 Digital Archive, Stephen Brier, Joshua Brown

Publications and Research

This article focuses on the creation and subsequent development of the September 11 Digital Archive (www.911digitalarchive.org), currently one of the largest digital repositories of historical materials on the September 11 attacks. The article reflects on archival and methodological questions and on issues raised by the efforts of staff members at the Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University and at the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning (ASHP) at the City University of New York Graduate Center to preserve and present via the Internet digital resources related to the epochal events of …

Review Of The Book Fifty Key Thinkers On The Holocaust And Genocide, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the book Fifty key thinkers on the Holocaust and genocide.

Prudence And Controversy: The New York Public Library Responds To Post-War Anticommunist Pressures, Stephen Francoeur

Publications and Research

As the New York Public Library entered the post-war era in the late 1940s, its operations fell under the zealous scrutiny of self-styled ‘redhunters’ intent upon rooting out library materials and staffers deemed un-American and politically subversive. The high point of attacks upon the New York Public Library came during the years 1947-1954, a period that witnessed the Soviet atomic bomb, the Berlin airlift, and the Korean War. This article charts the narrow and carefully wrought trail blazed by the library’s leadership during that period. Through a reading of materials in the library archives, we see how political pressures were …

Pirates And Librarians: Big Media, Technology And The Role Of Liberal Education, D. Aram Donabedian, John Carey

Publications and Research

The widespread appearance of computers in libraries during the early 1990s elicited a debate among those who welcomed new technologies and those who perceived such changes as a threat to the traditional role of academic libraries and the values of liberal education. At the same time, increasing consolidation of major media channels—including sources of scholarly communication—has allowed a small number of corporations to control distribution and access to the materials libraries offer, through tools such as licensing fees, copyright restrictions, and digital rights management. In response to these barriers, librarians and educators have embraced open access publishing and Creative Commons …

Shamanic Knowledge: The Challenge To Information Science, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

Shamanism, a form of healing involving soul travel and trance found in many traditional societies the world over, has been studied by anthropologists and scholars of religious studies. Shamanic traditions are characterized by specialized, restricted, and esoteric knowledge domains that are encoded and communicated through condensed and mystified symbols and reproduced in ceremonies. Shamanic knowledge is acquired through direct experience of the numinous, usually in the process of overcoming personal affliction. Information science so far has been silent on shamanic knowledge. This is understandable given the latter discipline's focus on formal documentary information systems and advanced information technologies. But in …

Media Services In North American Academic Libraries, Michael J. Miller

Publications and Research

Ongoing evolution of the Benjamin S. Rosenthal (BRL), Multimedia Commons was initially informed by a report from an internal task force and also by a four-year-long study of North American academic library media services units. A travel grant allowed for visits to the media service units of Barnard College, College of Staten Island - City University of New York, Columbia University, Georgetown University, New York University, University of Maryland - College Park, University of Massachusetts – Amherst, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, University of Texas – Austin. Visits have subsequently been made to the University of Washington – …

Online Instruction For Art History Research, Ching-Jung Chen, Amrita Dhawan

Publications and Research

At the City College of New York (CCNY), the Art and Architecture Visual Resources Librarian (VR Librarian) teamed up with the Information Literacy Librarian to design an online tutorial for conducting library research in Art History. The tutorial is created using Google Sites and is linked to the College’s Blackboard site for ease of access by students.

The Rights Of Readers And The Threat Of The Kindle, Alycia Sellie, Matthew Goins

Publications and Research

This talk outlines the Readers' Bill of Rights for Digital Books, recommended for librarians to consider when purchasing electronic books for their collections. These slides were used for a webinar for the Metropolitan New York Library Council in 2011.

Peers Don't Let Peers Perish: Encouraging Research And Scholarship Among Junior Library Faculty, Jill Cirasella, Maura A. Smale

Publications and Research

Traditional mentoring has many benefits, but peer mentoring can also offer a valuable support structure along the road to tenure. The Junior Faculty Research Roundtable (JFRR) is a peer-mentoring group for junior library faculty at the colleges and graduate schools of the City University of New York (CUNY). Created to encourage junior library faculty in their scholarly endeavors, JFRR organizes professional development events and facilitates in-person and online conversations on research, writing, and publishing. Now two years old, the group has transformed a large number of scattered junior library faculty into a supportive community of scholars.

Creating Collections Through Collaboration: An Innovative Digital Library Project In Monteverde, Costa Rica, Laurie Kutner, Cindy Dykes, Stefanie Havelka

Publications and Research

The proposed presentation will focus on a successful cross-cultural and cross-institutional collaborative model, involving four institutions, that was developed to create digital library collections of research-based information generated in the Monteverde Zone in Costa Rica. Addressing a need for the Monteverde community to have easy access to locally-produced research-based information, the digital collections contain unpublished research documents produced by area international study programs focusing on local sustainable community development, community health, and tropical ecology.

Each summer, since 2008, LIS graduate student interns from Syracuse University have spent 5-6 weeks on site at the Monteverde Institute in Costa Rica, working to …

Re-Engaging/Engaging Part-Time Librarians, Wilma L. Jones

Publications and Research

In order to maintain high quality service and strengthen retention of part-time librarians, this article addresses ways of engaging new part-time librarians and re-engaging long-time part-time librarians. Part-time librarians are hired primarily to work hours outside the traditional work week or as temporary replacements for unanticipated vacancies, yet they end up providing a third of the service, solely, during evenings and weekends in most small to mid-sized academic institutions. Most are brought in with very little training or orientation to the institution and are expected to hit the ground running while maintaining quality service. This article provides managers with suggestions …

Faculty Of 1000 And Vivo: Invisible Colleges And Team Science, John Carey

Publications and Research

Within the traditional model of scholarly communications, "invisible colleges" facilitate a process of social diffusion that fuels the growth of scientific specialties. This diffusion of ideas operates not through published journal articles but rather through informal communications between researchers. In recent years, researchers have availed themselves of collaborative Web 2.0 forums such as blogs, wikis, and social networking sites to meet their need for increasingly sophisticated vehicles of informal communication. Examinations of the database Faculty of 1000 and the semantic web application VIVO help to illustrate how invisible colleges have migrated to a networked environment where they can play an …

1967 Convocation Charter, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Faculty, administrators, and students signed a charter at the opening convocation of York College in 1967.

Critical Collaborations: An Information Literacy Across The Curriculum Project, Sheila Beck, Devin Mckay

Publications and Research

The article focuses on a collaborative project aimed at investigating the effect of integrating four classroom assignments from different disciplines with critical thinking skills. Entitled "Collaboration and Information: Critical Thinking Skills Across Curriculum," the different goals of the project include having the students understand what information is, the type of information needed and its appropriateness, and the application of research skills using critical thinking. In this study, it has been demonstrated that the greater the breadth and depth of responses to the scenario, the greater the research process skills.

Information Is Social: Information Literacy In Context, Jen Hoyer

Publications and Research

This paper aims to discuss traditional conceptions of information literacy as created within an academic context to address information needs within this context. It seeks to present alternative realities of information use outside the academic sector, and to suggest that information literacy instruction within academia does not go far enough in preparing students for the information society beyond university. The aim is then to follow this by discussion of appropriate information literacy models to prepare young people for information use in a variety of workplace environments.

Learning Through Quests And Contests: Games In Information Literacy Instruction, Maura A. Smale

Publications and Research

Games-based learning is an innovative pedagogical strategy employed at all levels of education, and much research in education, psychology, and other disciplines supports its effectiveness in engaging and motivating students, as well as increasing student learning. Many libraries have incorporated games into their collections and program-ming. College and university libraries have begun to use games for information literacy and library instruction. Academic librarians use commercially-produced games, create their own games, and employ game principles and mechanics to enhance their tradi-tional instructional offerings. While there may be impediments to implementing games-based learning for information literacy, the promising benefits of this approach …

The Taliban: A Study Of Book Collections On The Taliban In Academic, Public And West Point Libraries., Seamus O'Scanlain

Publications and Research

The purpose of this study was to document and compare the extent of book collections on the topic of the Taliban in selected academic libraries in New York and New Jersey, the New York Public Library and the military academy at West Point.

Open-Access Electronic Textbooks: An Overview, Steven Ovadia

Publications and Research

The article presents an overview of open-access electronic textbooks, also known as open education resources. The article explores projects like Flat World Knowledge, Connexions and Community College Open Textbook Project.

An Early Introduction To The Google+ Social Networking Project, Steven Ovadia

Publications and Research

The article reviews the Google+ social network.

Managing Citations With Cost-Free Tools, Steven Ovadia

Publications and Research

The article explores cost-free bibliographic management tools for managing citations. This includes Zotero, Mendeley, and citeulike. There is also a short discussion of BibTeX, which is often used with LaTeX document markup.

Quora.Com: Another Place For Users To Ask Questions, Steven Ovadia

Publications and Research

The article offers information on Quora.com, an online question-and-answer service reminiscent of reference. Librarians providing virtual reference might want to monitor Quora informally, just to see what kinds of questions emerge and whether they might be questions from a local population.

Bundles, Big Deals, And The Copyright Wars: What Can Academic Libraries Learn From The Record Industry Crash?, Edward P. Keane

Publications and Research

This article reviews the contention that U.S. laws favor copyright owners over consumers, and pre-existing models over innovation. The relationship of commercial publishers to the Open Access movement is compared to that of the creators/users of file sharers and the Record Industry. The library literature bears out the contention that journal publishers have exhibited some of the behaviors that contributed to the decline of the major record labels. Librarians who support free scholarship will find the music industry plight instructive; just as iTunes fulfilled consumer demand, Open Access and other alternatives will transform publishing.

Other People’S Money: Adapting Entrepreneurial Techniques To Build Capital In Challenging Economic Times, Robert Farrell

Publications and Research

Drawing on the “predator” model of entrepreneurship put forward by Villette and Vuillermot in their 2009 book “From Predators to Icons,” this article argues that challenging economic times reveal that self-funded, collaborative information literacy models have in many cases unsustainably overstretched staff and budgets. In such circumstances, it is necessary for librarians to shift to an entrepreneurial approach that seeks profitable opportunities funded by parties other than the library in order to build capital for current and future instructional services. Following Villette and Vuillermot, the article seeks to refute a cultural myth that sees the entrepreneur as someone who is …

The Role Of Audiobooks In Academic Libraries, Catherine Stern

Publications and Research

The decision by the library of LaGuardia Community College to add audiobooks to its collection led librarians to examine the scope and the nature of audiobook use at other college and university libraries. The author created, distributed, and tabulated a survey that recorded a number of traditional uses for these materials as well as a number of interesting new possibilities and challenges.

Evidence-Based Practice Mentors: Taking Information Literacy To The Units In A Teaching Hospital, Carlos Arguelles

Publications and Research

This article describes Evidence-Based Mentors, an integrated strategy with librarian participation, aimed to motivate and assist nurses in the search and use of literature and evidence-based information for nursing practice in a teaching hospital. The librarian's role goes beyond searching the literature to involvement in teaching critical appraisal of information. It details the evidence-based process, including the use of the PICO model, the categorization of resources, and the synthesizing that lead to the change of nursing practices that impact on outcomes directly related to patient recovery, organizational effectiveness, and nursing competency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Student Preferences In Library Website Vocabulary, Mark Aaron Polger

Publications and Research

This study explores student preferences to library website vocabulary and compares the data with what librarians report on their library's website. Two questionnaires were distributed in the fall of 2009 to students (N=300) and librarians (N=527). Students were asked to identify the terms they prefer from a larger list of library website vocabulary. Librarians were asked to report the terms that were used on their library's website. Twenty-seven terms were selected for both the student and librarian questionnaires. The 27 terms were culled from library literature, library instruction classes, and reference desk interactions. Of the 300 students, 54% were freshmen, …

Isaac Edward Kiev: Early Leader In American Judaica Librarianship, Amy F. Stempler

Publications and Research

Isaac Edward Kiev (1905–1975), former Chief Librarian of New York’s Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, spent a lifetime facilitating Jewish research. This article, based on the author’s Master’s thesis on Kiev, focuses on his contributions to the founding of Jewish book and library organizations during the American post-war era, including the Association of Jewish Libraries, Jewish Book Council of America, Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, Inc., and numerous Jewish book foundations in the United States and Israel. In addition to providing insight into the creation of these associations, the article illustrates the parallel development of the fields of Judaica librarianship and …

Terrorism: A Guide To Resources, Karen Okamoto, Marta Bladek

Publications and Research

Prior to 9/11, terrorism was subject to political, scholarly, and media debates. A large body of literature on the topic reflected researchers’ long-standing interest in the topic. In the near decade since 9/11, terrorism and its threat have only gained urgency. This paper aims to provide a selected bibliography of resources, in print and electronic format, that focus on terrorism. Public and academic libraries have been providing access to terrorism-related resources, but no thematic bibliography has been published in professional journals since 2001. This guide aims to aid librarians in making decisions about developing and maintaining collections on the topic.