A survey concerning perceptions of academic librarians was conducted at a large, 4-year university with three populations: librarians, faculty, and undergraduate students. The high response rate and the use of an instrument based on previous studies offers the possibility of longitudinal comparison and the identification of relationships between…

Academic libraries have long been called the heart of their campuses. As priorities have shifted away from print collections and other repository services, college libraries have expanded their services to be welcoming spaces that support students' sense of belonging and meet a wide range of needs. This is perhaps especially true of community…

According to the author, we are all creators and consumers of media. Technology has made it easy to copy, paste, and transfer anything educators might want to use in their classrooms. As educators, school librarians have an obligation to honor the law and be the role models that learners and other staff members need them to be. So many times the…

For a librarian with an innovator's mindset, inquiry can be a collaborative strategy for continual growth. When a librarian innovates with their community, radical, human-centered change is possible. According to the author, school librarians see the needs in the communities across grades, content areas, and demographics. The best advocacy is…

News aggregator databases offer different content and features, but there is little guidance on how these databases compare. This article compares the coverage scope, availability of 35 U.S. newspaper titles, and features of six news aggregators available to U.S. academic libraries: "Newspaper Source Plus" (EBSCO), "Factiva,"…

Caring for others is integral to what makes us human. We have all experienced the care of others that has helped us to survive and thrive, and in turn, others rely on us for care. A pedagogy of care, based on a feminist ethics of care, recognizes the centrality of care in our lives and thus its relevance for education. This pedagogy encourages…

In spring 2024, the Multicounty Multitype Library Systems, supported by State Library Services, conducted a census of K-12 public and charter schools in Minnesota to learn about the status of school libraries. A total of 1,528 out of 1,777 eligible schools completed the census. The findings can help legislators, school staff, librarians, and…

College fluency can help students successfully engage with and self-advocate within the culture and bureaucracy of higher education institutions to achieve their goals. To further examine and develop effective strategies to foster college fluency, the Borough of Manhattan Community College Library (BMCC) and Ithaka S+R partnered on the College…

In 2017 the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) released the "National School Library Standards." The revised standards were streamlined to reflect the attributes that dynamic school librarians, learners, and school libraries should possess. The standards provide school librarians with a framework for creating school…

For the most part, information landscapes such as libraries are structured, organized, created, and used by the dominant groups. These spaces may be unfamiliar territory for many students. Humour used in library orientation elicits enjoyment and helps to connect librarians and students. Low and high inference humour used during orientation can…

In today's digital and distributed information environment, engaging with users is imperative for the success of liaison librarianship in the academy's learning and research environment. Such associations require the liaison's personal approach for connecting and building relationships with clients. This paper addresses the main factors for…

In this article, the author explores why a school librarian's value should be wrapped up in books. First, reading is a foundational skill, and memories are built around who people are before and who they are after reading a book. School librarians get to be a part of that transformation. Second, books still make up the heart of a physical library,…

School libraries remain a hallmark of society. They are places where all students are welcome to use the abundant resources available to them to research topics for class study or explore ideas about which they are curious. At some school libraries it is also a place where students meet with military recruiters, sit for college interviews,…

This paper examines the history of epistemological conceptualizations of the library, considered as a technology. Drawing from Heidegger's philosophy, a technology is a way of human relating to the world. At its best, this relationship is in terms of belonging and understanding, but modern information technologies may not foster such aims very…

The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) poses challenges as well as opportunities for anyone or anything dealing with digital technologies, including libraries. Libraries and librarians have a twofold challenge in that they simultaneously must consider AI applications in library operations as well as AI skills and knowledge as part of…