In fall 2019, an electronic portfolio (ePortfolio) was implemented as the capstone project requirement for the Master's degree program with majors in library science and information science at the University of North Texas. This reflection provides a synopsis of the process of implementing an electronic portfolio as a capstone project, including…

Teaching technology when technology moves at the speed of light can be a challenging task. In addition to the fast-paced changes in this field, students possess a range of skills, experiences, and attitudes about technology such that there is no common baseline for content and activities. This article reflects on a technology-related crowdsourcing…

Digital initiatives have become increasingly common in academic libraries, but inconsistent definitions, standards, and expectations limit and, in some cases, negatively impact the effectiveness of practitioners. This article explores the discourse surrounding professional titles and responsibilities in digital initiatives within North American…

The University of North Texas conducted a project involving rigorous curriculum development and instructional design to address the goal of building capacity in the Library and Information Sciences curriculum. To prepare information professionals with the competencies needed for digital curation and data management practice, the project developed…

For school librarians, being part of a "connected" community provides support for getting specific needs met, solving personally relevant and meaningful problems, and developing professional expertise. AASL provides many avenues for members of the profession to learn with and from one another. These include AASL and subgroup electronic…

This report suggests that Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan's "Five Laws of Library Science" can be reordered and reinterpreted to reflect today's library resources and services, as well as the behaviors that people demonstrate when engaging with them. Although authors Senior Research Scientist Lynn Silipigni Connaway and Associate Research…

In this article, the author discusses crowdsourcing an e-book--gathering wide, diverse opinions from the school library community (including academics, practitioners, vendors, and others), and gathering those results in a free e-book. As e-book publishers, school librarians could be active agents, bolstering community energy, creating a forum for…

The development of patron-driven acquisition (PDA) as a viable collections practice is encouraging many academic libraries to be proactive about sharing significant collection development responsibilities with their patrons. The adoption of PDA represents a challenge to some long-held understandings about libraries and collections, however, and…

Photographs tell a story and illustrate an experience more profoundly than words alone. Real-time, text-based communication is an increasingly normal part of daily life as mobile devices and social networks proliferate. Yet, in the steady stream of tweets, comments, status updates, notifications, and e-mail, the details are easily lost in the…

E-readers are increasingly popular personal devices, but can they be effectively used for the needs of academic libraries' clients? This paper employs an evidence-based approach that examines the role and efficacy of implementing an E-reader Loan Service at McGill University Library. Suggestions are offered as to what lending model and device…

Due to the development of new 21st-century technologies, the world of children's and young adult literature is continually changing. For example, one of the fastest-growing multimodal formats that today's visually literate youth embrace is the digital graphic novel. Digital graphic novels are graphic novels produced on and/or accessed on some form…

"Research Library Issues" ("RLI") is a bimonthly report from ARL (Association of Research Libraries), CNI (Coalition of Networked Information), and SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition). This issue includes the following articles: (1) Celebrating 10 Years of ARL's Initiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce (Mark A. Puente);…

S. R. Ranganathan's five laws of library science, originally published in 1931, provide the basis for reflections on current trends in academic libraries.

Provides guidelines for designing Web sites: identify audience and information needs; make addresses easy to type and remember; consider audience software; keep files short and images to a minimum; categorize information for clarity; use clear contents statements; provide a mix of original documents and others located elsewhere; provide mechanisms…

These five reports discuss electronic books; the Internet speed and digital reference; Internet publishing from the perspectives of libraries, publishers, authors, and scholars; a cross-cultural comparison of intellectual freedom in the United States and Canada; dissemination of government information; and the implications of technology for…