Library and Information Science Commons^™

Teaching Research As An Interdependent Practice: Bringing Alternate Models Into The Scholarly Conversation, Natalia Kapacinskas, Veronica Arellano Douglas

Communications in Information Literacy

The customs and practices of research in academia are often mischaracterized as individualistic pursuits, ignoring the reality that research requires a great deal of collaboration. As teaching librarians, our research instruction often reinforces individualism as a scholarly virtue, even as we simultaneously engage with themes of connection between researchers and their ideas. We propose an approach to teaching research and information literacy grounded in the concept, intention, and practice of interdependence rather than individualism. In doing so, we will call in models of interdependence from critical disability studies, relational-cultural theory, Indigenous Ways of Knowing, and the Cite Black Women movement. …

The Librarian Teaching Self-Efficacy Scale, Maoria J. Kirker, David X. Lemmons

Communications in Information Literacy

Teaching self-efficacy is a critical factor in instructional success. Little research has been conducted on how academic librarians perceive their own teaching abilities. This study introduces and validates the Librarian Teaching Self-Efficacy Scale, a tool designed to measure self-efficacy beliefs among academic librarians engaged in information literacy instruction. By adapting established self-efficacy scales to the library instruction context, this study examines key factors influencing librarian teaching self-efficacy, including instructional strategies, lesson planning, and collaboration with faculty. Collective self-efficacy, which is perceptions of colleagues’ teaching confidence, is also examined. Statistical analysis indicates a reliable and valid scale which may benefit …

Go The Distance: Student Workers & Repository Impact, Jessea Young

Librarian Publications & Presentations

Have you often dreamed of a fully staffed scholarly communications team? If you're like me—the only full-time employee managing the institutional repository (IR) and research information management system (RIMS)—this great, warm place is just a dream. This lightning talk shares how strategic hiring and training of undergraduate student workers can help bridge the gap. At Loyola Marymount University, students support scholarly communications services by assisting in the management of our RIMS, Scholars @ LMU, and IR, Digital Commons @ LMU. During the hiring process, students complete an attention-to-detail assessment, helping both the librarian and the student understand the expectations and …

A Decade Of Knowledge Without Borders: Open Access And Global Reach Of School Social Work Research, Leticia Villarreal Sosa

School of Social Work Faculty Publications

As we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the International Journal for School Social Work (IJSSW), this article provides a reflection on a decade the last decade of breaking barriers and building bridges across practitioners, researchers, communities, and continents and looks forward to our responsibility for the future. This article discusses the benefits and challenges related to Open Access publishing, and addresses how Open Access is a public good—ensuring that practitioners, researchers, students, and policymakers can engage the best evidence regardless of geography, resources, or institutional affiliation. The impact of IJSSW is reviewed, including a summary of accomplishments, most downloaded …

Tips On The Prisma Flow Diagram & Methods Section Write-Up, Sandra Y. Desjardins, Jenny Stockton

TMC Library Newsletter (2015-)

Clearly communicate your research methodology with a well-crafted PRISMA flow diagram. This 30-minute class provides practical tips and a step-by-step guide to creating a clear and informative methods section for your research papers. Related LibGuide: Where to Publish Your Research by Tracy Ashby. Come learn the foundational skills needed for successful research in a welcoming and practical "Lunch & Learn" environment. Register here to attend the session.

Open Access Fee Waivers And Discounts, Joanne Romano

TMC Library Newsletter (2015-)

Open Access Publishing at No Cost

PubMed Central (PMC) Eligible authors can deposit accepted manuscripts free of charge. Visit the PMC website for details.

TMC Library Publisher Agreements Affiliated authors may qualify for waived or discounted open access fees through select publishers.

Library Holiday Hours, Beatriz Varman

TMC Library Newsletter (2015-)

The TMC Library will observe the following schedule for the winter holidays.

Regular library hours resume on Saturday, January 3rd, 2026. Happy Holidays!

“‘What Is One Takeaway You've Gotten From This Learning Experience?’ Analyzing Student Reflections On Introductory Information Literacy Instruction”, Amanda Nichols Hess, Emily Ruth Benoit, Rebecca M. Krystyniak, Stephanie Williams

Communications in Information Literacy

Reflection is a useful pedagogical tool for both learners in instructional settings and educators seeking to offer meaningful experiences; in this article, a group of academic librarians use the former to engage with the latter. We analyzed more than 830 first-year students’ responses to a reflection question posed at the conclusion of library instruction over the course of the 2023–2024 academic year with a specific eye to the concepts that were and were not resonant, as well as whether there were common areas of confusion. We used a grounded theory approach to make sense of the data and allow ideas …

The Library Instructor As Learner: A Survey Of Reflective Teaching Practices In Us Academic Libraries, Alicia G. Vaandering, Amanda Crego-Emley

Communications in Information Literacy

Reflective practice provides library workers with a critical opportunity to examine professional experiences, question assumptions and approaches, explore new perspectives, and develop innovative solutions to existing problems. When applied to instruction as reflective teaching, this practice better situates library instructors to meet the evolving needs of twenty-first-century library users. This research study explores how library workers engage with reflective teaching in academic libraries across the United States. A survey was distributed to academic library communities, and a total of 153 responses were collected. While 92% of respondents reported participating in reflective teaching practice in a variety of instructional contexts, results …

Information Literacy In The Artificial Intelligence Era: A Proposed Framework, Radwan Ali, Matthew L. Wilson

Communications in Information Literacy

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems and applications have become ubiquitous across daily life. While AI offers numerous positive opportunities, it also presents numerous challenges. Information literacy (IL) advocates are concerned about the risks that accompany AI systems. Given the universal reach of AI with its potential pitfalls and perils, researchers and practitioners from various fields and disciplines should inform the dialogue on AI’s development and application. A critical aspect of this dialogue comes in the form of information literacy. Our paper aims to answer the question “How can information literacy guide users in navigating and shaping artificial intelligence technologies?” by establishing …

Little Did I Know, Christopher V. Hollister

Communications in Information Literacy

Christopher Hollister, co-founder and co-editor-in-chief, reflects on his time with CIL in this farewell editorial.

Searching For Change: Exploring Historical Silences And Counterstorytelling Through Youth-Led Social Justice Movements, Ariana Varela

Communications in Information Literacy

During a first-year engagement program, a librarian and a cohort of students worked towards a shared understanding of dominant narratives, historical silences, and creating counterstories through research to center marginalized stories and complicate existing narratives. As information literacy professionals, we should design interactive lessons that demonstrate critical search and evaluation skills through topics that are relevant to students and encourage them to work with issues that impact their communities. Incorporating critical information literacy, feminist pedagogy, and critical race theory, this two-day micro-seminar introduced first-year students to the legacy of youth community activism in the neighborhoods around their university. They practiced …

From Principles To Protection: Leadership In Uniting Integrity And Ethics For Research Security, Seán Lacey, Tom Farrelly, Tara Doherty, Suzanne Mcmurphy, Áine De Róiste

Publications

In today's global research landscape, ensuring integrity and security is critical. The CORRIE - Collaborative Open Resources on Research Integrity and Ethics - project brought together an international, multidisciplinary, cross-jurisdictional team to develop practical principles and resources for research integrity and ethics. Using a values-driven, collaborative leadership model, the team co-created tools grounded in authenticity and accountability, establishing an actionable framework. These resources should effectively address research security, fostering a resilient, effective research culture. Through a user-informed methodology and inclusive collaboration, the project team translated principles into tangible tools reinforcing ethical conduct in daily practice. This approach ensures robust protections …

Community Approaches To Digitally Documenting And Sharing Conjunto Music In The South Texas Borderlands, René Antonio Ballesteros

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the rich tradition of conjunto music within the South Texas borderlands, examining how integrating community engagement and digital humanities methodologies can effectively enhance the documentation, conservation, and presentation of this place-based expressive culture. Recognizing existing archival gaps, the research employed community-engaged programming to gather and preserve valuable cultural data. A key methodology outcome involved creating digital maps utilizing place-based data related to conjunto music sites and activities, subsequently integrating these maps into an ArcGIS Online story map for public online access. The findings demonstrate the significant potential of community collaboration and digital humanities tools in amplifying cultural …

Uni Scholarworks Readership Snapshot, October 2025, Bepress

Library Documents & Reports (entire collection)

No abstract provided.

Faxes, Emails, And Cad: A Case Study Of The Changing Landscape In Born-Digital Design Records, 1994-2006, Julia D. Larson

Journal of Western Archives

The article examines the technological changeover from analog to born digital design records in the mid-1990s, and is a case study in how one San Francisco Bay Area landscape architecture firm navigated the paradigm shift. The firm retained extensive documentation of the project management/construction administration for large scale projects, and this case study shows how archivists can utilize the analog documentation (like faxes and printed emails) to gain a greater understanding of how design firms began using Computer Aided Drafting and how CAD changed design and the process of archiving.

The Art Of The Review: A 9-Step Guide For Beginning Researchers, Sandra Y. Desjardins, Jenny Stockton

Library Class: Lunch & Learn

Master the systematic review process from start to finish. This 30-minute course provides a comprehensive overview of nine essential steps. Learn how to plan, execute, and report on your systematic review with confidence.

Understanding Faculty Engagement With Transformative Publishing Agreements, Benjamin H. Saracco, Marlowe Bogino, Daniel G. Kipnis, Andrea Goldstein Shipper

Libraries Scholarship

Presented at STEM Librarian Collaborative Conference 2025:

https://www.stemlib.co/schedule.html

Transformative agreements, also known as read and publish agreements, are a relatively new journal subscription model used by academic libraries to facilitate both access to scholarly content and open-access publishing for institutionally affiliated researchers. In these agreements, institutions pay publishers a single fee that covers both access to subscription content and the publication costs for their affiliated authors, thereby shifting the traditional subscription model towards a more sustainable and equitable system for scholarly communication.

A preliminary literature review has revealed previous studies that address several of the topics being investigated in this …

Ai Resources In The Library: Exploring Artificial Intelligence Tools And Resources Available Through Unf Libraries To Enhance Research And Learning, Lauren Odom, Beryl White-Bing

Library Faculty Presentations & Publications

The Problem: Students increasingly submit AI-generated citations that lead to "hallucinated" or inaccurate sources--references that don't actually exist.  The Solution: verify citations using UNF's OneSearch, cross-check with Google Scholar, schedule library research consultations, consult the AI Library Guide for best practices.

Museums In Public Libraries: An Ethnographic Case Study Of The Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library, Yadira Y. Quintero

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Access to information is a human right, and this thesis explores the benefits and challenges of integrating museums into public libraries by conducting an ethnographic case study of the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library. The study's findings highlight the complexities of integration. The biggest benefit is the increased access to museum collections, information, and resources. However, challenges arise from the lack of cohesion within the museum and library disciplines, as well as strained community relations. Engaging the community is crucial for successful collaboration, emphasizing the importance of a bottom-up approach that allows for active participation. Integrating museums into public libraries …

Lessons From Tiktok: Using Popular Social Media Platforms To Engage Gen Z, Debra Bernstein

Urban Library Journal

This study looks at how academic libraries in the New York City metropolitan area are using TikTok to engage with their communities, particularly students. It analyzes the most popular videos from five active library accounts, categorizing content types and measuring engagement through TikTok’s built-in metrics. Results indicate that humorous and lighthearted content consistently receives the highest engagement, while instructional or “how-to” videos tend to underperform. These findings suggest that while TikTok may not be the most effective platform for instructional outreach, it holds potential as a tool for visibility, community engagement, and humanizing the library’s presence. As students increasingly turn …

Rebuttal To Winn Et Al. (2024) ’S “Redefining Searching In Non-Medical Sciences Systematic Reviews”, Laura Lipke, Jenn Monnin, Catherine Marie Fonseca

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Letter to the Editor and Rebuttal to Winn et al. (2024)

To the Editor and Readership of the Journal of Librarianship and Information Science:

We are writing to express concerns regarding the article, Redefining searching in non-medical sciences systematic reviews: The ascendance of Google Scholar as the primary database (https://doi.org/10.1177/09610006241256393). Our concerns are numerous, and include issues involving the research questions, data availability and validity, representations of evidence synthesis methods, and the disregard for established scholarship which refutes the reliability, transparency and reproducibility of Google Scholar searches for evidence synthesis reviews.

Notes From The Editor, Derek Stadler

Urban Library Journal

I am very pleased to welcome you to the first issue of the 31^st volume of Urban Library Journal. This issue includes articles about history and archives, training programs in librarianship, recommendations on how to improve the onboarding of librarians, and the social media platform TikTok.

Rebuttal To Winn Et Al. (2024)'S "Redefining Searching In Non-Medical Sciences Systematic Reviews", Laura Lipke, Jenn Monnin, Catherine Marie Fonesca

Library Scholarship

Letter to the Editor and Rebuttal to Winn et al. (2024)

We are writing to express concerns regarding the article, Redefining searching in non-medical sciences systematic reviews: The ascendance of Google Scholar as the primary database (Winn et al., 2024a). Our concerns are numerous, and include issues involving the research questions, data availability and validity, representations of evidence synthesis methods, and the disregard for established scholarship which refutes the reliability, transparency and reproducibility of Google Scholar searches for evidence synthesis reviews.

Local And Community History – Ten Blocks, Johnathan Thayer

Open Educational Resources

Description

Walk or otherwise move through physical space ten blocks (or its equivalent) in any direction from wherever you call home. Take note of the component parts that make up your locality, including the weekly topics on our syllabus (nature, parks, cemeteries, burial grounds, buildings, restaurants, bars, theaters, temples, schools, and governance). Make a list of the histories of these components that you know, and a list of the histories that you wish you knew more about.

Where I plan to use this resource

In my LBSCI class Local and Community History Methods. This will be the first assignment of …

Partnering For International Student Success: Opportunities For Academic Librarians And Esl Faculty To Support Research And Information Literacy Skills, Rachel E. Trnka

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Presentation at the Graduate Student Forum of the TESOL Virtual Conference

With the growing number of international students attending American universities in recent years, academic librarians recognize the importance of serving the needs of that population. However, many librarians acknowledge that they feel unprepared to support international students, due to a lack of training or experience working with multilingual or second-language learners. This presentation offers a review of the literature exploring collaborations between librarians and instructors to better support ELLs in a college and university setting and presents recommendations for both librarians and faculty. While this session focuses on academic …

University Of Alabama At Birmingham's Research Data Catalog, Amy Reese

Libraries Professional Work

A dataset catalog can be a quickly implemented solution when hosting an institutional dataset repository simply isn’t possible. These resources can make institutional research data more locally discoverable, accessible, and reuseable. A dataset catalog (composed of metadata records) connects users with the institution’s research datasets and can be hosted on any repository platform. At the University of Alabama at Birmingham, our Research Data Catalog does not directly include or store datasets but is a functional directory that assists with discovery of datasets that researchers have deposited in external data repositories (such as Zenodo, Dryad, ICPSR, and Figshare), self-hosted, or a …

Getting Started In Graduate School: An Online Tutorial For New Graduate Students, Jill Mcmillan, Elana Geller, Angie Gerrard, Nazreen Beaulieu

Journal of Graduate Librarianship

In August 2024, our library launched an asynchronous online tutorial, Getting Started in Graduate School. The purpose of the tutorial was fourfold: to complement existing student orientation programming at the library and the university; to situate the library as a valuable resource for graduate student academic success; to align with a similar library-designed online tutorial for new undergraduate students; and to provide practical information about graduate school expectations, framed through existing library resources and programming. The tutorial was created using the Springshare LibGuide and LibWizard platform and features a mix of static and interactive elements, which were developed and …

Perspectives On Teaching Academic Publishing Skills: Helping Graduate Students Navigate The Hidden Curriculum, Martha Stuit, Christie Hurrell, Jill Cirasella, Christy Caldwell

Journal of Graduate Librarianship

Many graduate students feel pressure to publish but need guidance on navigating the scholarly publishing process, which often is not covered in their graduate curricula but rather learned in conversation with faculty mentors. In other words, publishing is often a hidden curriculum—not explicitly taught but a learn-as-you-go venture. In this article, we describe our individual approaches to teaching publishing literacy to graduate students, highlighting how our efforts are both responsive to the specifics of our campuses and informed by our own and others’ research. We also discuss how we spread the word about our services and how we advance equity …

Critically Evaluating Artificial Intelligence Output: Adapting Source Evaluation For Ai, Samantha Duncan, Allison Faix

Library Faculty Presentations

Generative artificial intelligence poses a new challenge to the teaching of source evaluation. This presentation looks at these challenges and examines why the evaluation heuristics and methods that librarians commonly use to teach source evaluation may not be up to the challenge of evaluating artificial intelligence output. This study looked at LibGuides from a random selection of ARL libraries to examine how (and if) libraries are recommending that students evaluate the output of the generative artificial intelligence tools they are using. This presentation offers suggestions for teaching source evaluation for artificial intelligence tools.