Library and Information Science Commons^™

The Ogallala Aquifer In Nebraska: Gray Literature (1891–2010), Adonna Fleming, Leslie M. Delserone, Elaine Maytag Nowick

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

The Ogallala Aquifer is a key water resource for several U. S. states. TransCanada, a Canadian company, proposes to construct the Keystone XL pipeline to transport tar sands crude oil from Alberta to refineries in Texas; one proposed route would bury the pipeline in the Aquifer, raising water quality and environmental concerns. A rich inventory of information about the Aquifer predates the current controversy. This article presents a key subset of an extensive, ongoing bibliography: 128 citations to gray literature about the Ogallala Aquifer in Nebraska, which are inaccessible online and/or held in only a few libraries. The authors present …

Inciting Curiosity And Creating Meaning: Teaching Information Evaluation Through The Lens Of “Bad Science”, Catherine Fraser Riehle

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

Ability to evaluate information is a critical component of information literacy. This article provides strategies for engaging students in learning about information evaluation in the contexts of the scientific publication cycle and communication in the digital age. Also included are recent findings regarding undergraduate student research behavior and ideas for integrating constructivist learning theory in order to develop effective learning activities that encourage curiosity and critical thinking.

An Analysis Of The Variants Of The Okmulgee Constitution, Charles D. Bernholz

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

The creation of the Okmulgee Constitution was a significant chapter in the history of Indian Territory and Oklahoma, but it is less well-known beyond those boundaries. This instrument was initially fashioned in 1870 and later contemplated at joint tribal meetings mandated by the federal government following the Civil War. The Five Civilized Tribes had been removed from the southeastern United States to lands obtained through the Louisiana Purchase in the first half of the nineteenth century, and at the beginning of the Civil War these and other tribes of Indian Territory consummated nine treaties with the Confederate States of America. …

Continuing Education For Distance Librarians, Mary Cassner, Kate E. Adams

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

Distance librarians as engaged professionals work in a complex environment of changes in technologies, user expectations, and institutional goals. They strive to keep current with skills and competencies to support distance learners. This article provides a selection of continuing education opportunities for distance librarians, and is relevant for all practicing librarians. Suggestions include physical and virtual conferences, professional journals for reflective reading, short-term webinars about current topics and innovative approaches, blogs for sharing ideas, and discussion and interest groups for networking with colleagues about best practices, leadership, and serving academic populations.

Obtaining And Using Copyrighted Research Journal Content—Convenience Vs Ethics, Paula K. Ritter-Gooder, Nancy M. Lewis, Leslie M. Delserone

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

Members of American Dietetic Association (ADA) or those credentialed by the Commission on Dietetic Registration agree to abide by the ADA/Commission on Dietetic Registration Code of Ethics for the dietetics profession (1). A fundamental principle within the Code is to conduct dietetics practice with honor, integrity, and fairness and to comply with all laws and regulations applicable or related to the profession. Dietetics practitioners read and apply the results of research published in professional journals and other publications to guide their evidence-based practice. Authors of research articles can, in some cases, make their work more accessible to practitioners by amendment …

Institutional Repositories: Keys To Success, Joan Giesecke

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

Institutional repositories are a relatively new activity for higher education. They are defined most often as a set of services that are offered by an institution for the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the members of the institution or scholarly community. This article will describe the challenges institutions are facing in creating repositories, will explore the economics of managing repositories, and will offer a model for creating a successful set of services.

Chatbots In The Library: Is It Time?, Deeann Allison

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

This paper describes a pilot at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for a chatbot that answers questions about the library and library resources. The chatbot was developed using a SQL database to store the question and answers using Artificial Intelligence Mark-up Language metadata. The user interface was built using PHP, adapted from Program-O. The open source PHP program was modified to support better display and the launching of URLs within the chatbot screen. Database content was created by “mining” library websites for information, and analyzing chat logs.

The chatbot answers questions from a variety of users from around the world. It …

This Library Life, Richard E. Voeltz

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

Forty-three years of employment at the University Libraries have encompassed remarkable changes in collection, organization, and distribution of information in the University community. Card catalogs and files of paper serial records have disappeared, and acquisition of library materials is now a highly automated process. The Libraries staff has grown and diversified as our delivery systems evolved. Branch libraries have disappeared as electronic search and delivery systems became more common and easy to use. Library instruction has become a routine part of service to the library’s users. Adaptive equipment has been acquired to accommodate handicapped users of the library’s collections and …

List Of Sources, Cresting Toward The Sea Change: Literature Review Of Cataloging And Classification, 2009-2010, Sue Ann Gardner

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

This list of sources is meant to accompany the literature review on cataloging and classification covering 2009 and 2010, “Cresting toward the Sea Change,” that is published in the April 2012 issue of Library Resources and Technical Services (volume 56, number 2). It contains citations to English-language journal articles, books, book chapters, conference papers, manuscripts, newsletter and magazine articles, selected news items, reference sources, text books, dissertations and theses, and one poster. Not cited are book reviews, blogs, blog posts, podcasts, videos, and presentation materials. Many more sources are listed here than were discussed in the literature review.

The citations …

Simply Brilliant Science: Creating Healthier Eggs For A Healthier You, Kiyomi D. Deards

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

Guest post on June 7, 2011, on the Scientific American Guest Blog, on eggs rich in omega-3 fatty acids.

Creative Commons, Public Domain, And Why You Should Care, Kiyomi D. Deards

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

Guest post on the NUTech Ventures Blog on May 27, 2011, about digital copyright issues.

Comparing Texts Of The Okmulgee Constitution: Fourteen Instrument Versions And Levenshtein’S Edit Distance Metric, Charles D. Bernholz

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

In 1870, the Five Civilized and other tribes within the Indian Territory initiated a series of council meetings to deal with seven federal stipulations presented at Fort Smith in 1865 and with new treaties established in 1866. One development was the so-called December 1870 Okmulgee Constitution, fashioned in the Creek capital, that provided a model for a new full-fledged Indian state to replace the Territory. Various versions of the text of that document (and of a revised rendition) were published, as part of the official and unofficial record of the sequence of proceedings. This study examined fourteen variants of …

The Road To Success: Online Engagement & Identity Management, Kiyomi D. Deards

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

In the increasingly competitive job market, being good at your job isn't good enough. Potential employees must be able to do the job and have excellent interpersonal skills, enthusiasm, compassion, and ambition. Communicating these traits in a CV or resume is difficult at best. Prospective employers and colleagues will search for you online in an attempt to discover these traits; what will they find? Come join us as we talk about defining and managing your online identity in order to create and maintain a solid and professional reputation!

Comparing Nearly Identical Treaty Texts: A Note On The Treaty Of Fort Laramie With Sioux, Etc., 1851 And Levenshtein’S Edit Distance Metric, Charles D. Bernholz, Brian L. Pytlik Zillig

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

Vladimir Levenshtein’s edit distance algorithm is used to reveal disparities between delimiter stripped texts of the Senate amended Treaty of Fort Laramie with Sioux, etc., 1851 as corrected in a previous study, and of other federal copies of this transaction. All of the latter deviated markedly from that newly created version, reflecting errors of exclusion, of the absence in some transcripts of the Senate modification, of editorial decisions made by Charles J. Kappler during the preparation of his treaty compilations at the beginning of the twentieth century, and of spelling. These results confirmed that the instrument was until now …

Amber Waves Of…Ah…Ah…Achoo! What You Need To Know About Allergies, Kiyomi D. Deards

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

Guest post on March 29, 2011, on the Scientific American Guest Blog, on allergies.

Review Of The Survey Of Institutional Digital Repositories, 2011 Edition By Primary Research Group, Paul Royster

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

This work reports the results of an online survey completed by respondants from 59 institutions, 24 of them being universities in the United States. This represents less than 3% of the 2099 open-access repositories listed in the Registry of Open Access Repositories; and less than 4.4% of the 1359 specifically identified as “Research Institutional or Departmental.” The institutions responding ranged from the Library of Congress and the British Library at one end of the spectrum to Pakistan Petroleum Limited, Keene State College, and Amgen, Inc. at the other. ... I would be sorry if any resource-challenged library invested in this …

Personal Branding For New Librarians: Standing Out And Stepping Up, Kiyomi D. Deards, Erin Dorney, Bohyun Kim, Alison Miller

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

If you blog, tweet, use LinkedIn, Facebook, ALA Connect, or other social sites, you may have already begun building your personal brand. Learn about the recent trend of social media use and its role in developing and maintaining a personal brand and professional reputation. Find out how librarians utilize social media to develop an online presence and a support network and to participate in the conversation of librarianship.

Bethany Nowviskie, Selected Bibliography, Sue Ann Gardner

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

Unpublished manuscript, compiled February 2011, for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries' Visiting Scholar Program, held April 21, 2011, and administered by the UNL Libraries' Academic Activities Committee and sponsored by the Libraries' Dean's Office and the University Convocations Committee.

Connecting Print And Electronic Titles: An Integrated Approach At The University Of Nebraska-Lincoln, Judith A. Wolfe, Joan Latta Konecky, Dana W. R. Boden

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

Libraries make heavy investments in electronic resources, with many of these resources reflecting title changes, bundled subsets, or content changes of formerly print material. These changes can distance the electronic format from its print origins, creating discovery and access issues. A task force was formed to explore the enhancement of catalog records to increase the connections between print and electronic titles, thus improving patron discovery and access to electronic resources. The investigation considered the relationships between parent and dependent titles, title changes, and publication subsets. The resulting recommendations included interdepartmental cooperation, record-display best practices, and methods for tracking catalog-record enhancements.

Finding The Right Metaphor: Restructuring, Realigning, And Repackaging Today’S Research Libraries, Joan Giesecke

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

To change from collection-centric to user-centered research libraries and to survive in tough economic times, libraries face 2 major challenges: 1st, libraries need to change how they are viewed by their constituencies so they are seen as indispensable; and 2nd, libraries need to help the librarians and staff change their own mental models of their roles to remain relevant in these changing times. Metaphors are one way to help people connect terms in new ways so they develop new images of those terms. For more than 100 years, libraries have used metaphors to seek connections that will help people see …

Tei Texts That Play Nicely: Lessons From The Monk Project, Brian Pytlik Zillig

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

Text curation, like most human endeavors, requires tools. A technique developed for the MONK Project, schema harvesting, provides a useful platform for facilitating the digital conversion and curation of text corpora. The author describes Abbot, an XSLT-based application that has had success in converting various Text Creation Partnership collections, and others, during and after MONK.

Effective Selectors? Interlibrary Loan Patrons As Monograph Purchasers: A Comparative Examination Of Price And Circulation-Related Performance, David C. Tyler, Joyce C. Melvin, Yang Xu, Marylou Epp, Anita M. Kreps

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

In the library literature, a great deal of interest in patron-driven collection development has recently been expressed, especially in those programs that link acquisitions with interlibrary loan. However, the implementation of such programs has been limited, at least in part because of concerns over the potential for wasteful spending. The authors will attempt to address this common concern by assessing whether monies spent via a patron-driven acquisitions program were more or less effective than monies spent via traditional modes of acquisition.

American Indian Civil War Treaties: The Instruments Formed By The Confederate States Of America In Indian Territory, Charles D. Bernholz, Laura Weakly, Brian Pytlik Zillig, Karin Dalziel

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

The creation of nine treaties between the Confederate States of America (CSA) and the tribes residing in Indian Territory in 1861 formed a significant historical perspective to the understanding of the relationships between governments and indigenous peoples of the United States. This research note describes a Web page – “So Long as Grass Shall Grow and Water Run: The Treaties Formed By the Confederate States of America and the Tribes in Indian Territory, 1861” – that provides access to paired CSA Statutes at Large page images and their text for each of these instruments.

The described site’s URL is http://csaindiantreaties.unl.edu

Presidential Vetoes And American Indian Affairs, 1789–2000, Charles D. Bernholz, Laura Weakly, Brian Pytlik Zillig, Karin Dalziel

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

Between the years 1789 and 2000, nineteen Presidents of the United States vetoed 114 bills or resolutions concerning matters related to Indian affairs. These executive actions are collected in a new digital resource, and are presented with their supporting Congressional documents. A brief history of Presidential veto power and activities is included. ... The URL for this site is http://indianaffairsvetoes.unl.edu

Differently Able: A Review Of Academic Library Websites For People With Disabilities, Mary Cassner, Charlene Maxey-Harris, Toni Anaya

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

This research is based on the Library Services for People with Disabilities Policy, which was approved by the American Library Association in 2001. The policy identified focus areas for libraries including library services, facilities, collections, and assistive technology. Library websites frequently convey this information to users. Our study examined and compared academic library websites for the differently able. What services do academic libraries offer to the differently able? Is there a basic level of services that libraries identify or should offer? Are websites for people with disabilities easily located from the library’s home page?

Information Portals: The Next Generation Catalog, Deeann Allison

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

Libraries today face an increasing challenge: to provide relevant information to diverse populations with differing needs, while competing with Web search engines like Google. In 2009 the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) Libraries joined with other libraries and Innovative Interfaces as development partners to design a new type of discovery tool. Information portals as a concept best supports the research and instructional needs of our communities by organizing and presenting information that incorporates licensed databases, text, multimedia, and other relevant sources. The discovery tool under examination by UNL, Encore, integrates searches of the catalog, locally created full-text and image sources, and …

Resolving A Stolen Past: The General Allotment Act, Individual Indian Money Accounts, And The U.S. Congressional Serial Set, Charles D. Bernholz

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

In December 2009 and at the end of a thirteen-year journey through three administrations and an array of proceedings against four Secretaries of the Interior, a Class Action Settlement Agreement was reached in Cobell v. Salazar before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. This accord recommends a two-part resolution to claims of alleged federal mismanagement of American Indian tribal funds and other assets, resulting from the government’s failure to meet its fiduciary responsibilities as specified by the General Allotment Act of 1887. These paths consist of a payment to individual tribe members to address monetary claims, …

Library Services For Great Plains Idea Consortial Students, Kate E. Adams, Mary Cassner

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

The Great Plains Interactive Distance Education Alliance (Great Plains IDEA) is a multistate alliance of 11 universities that offer online master’s degrees and certificate programs in human sciences. The authors surveyed librarians at Great Plains IDEA institutions to learn how each library provides distance services to students enrolled in Great Plains IDEA courses offered through this interinstitutional alliance.

In The Most Friendly & Conciliatory Manner: A Proposed Final Version Of The Treaty Of Fort Laramie With Sioux, Etc., 1851, Charles D. Bernholz, Brian Pytlik Zillig

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

The Treaty of Fort Laramie with Sioux, etc., 1851 was one of the most important contracts formed between the federal government and the Indian tribes of the Great Plains. It served as more than just a continuation of federal Indian policy, initiated by the Lewis and Clark Expedition at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Rather, it was an attempt to protect those involved in the ever-increasing American expansion into the West by eliminating intertribal animosities and by setting rigid territorial boundaries for the tribes. Unfortunately, this critical document was never published in a correct final state. A Web site …

Review Of Agriculture In History, 3 Volumes (R. Kent Rasmussen, Proj. Ed.; Salem Press, 2009), Sue Ann Gardner

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

Review of Agriculture in History, 3 volumes (R. Kent Rasmussen, proj. ed.; Salem Press, 2009).