Generating, collecting, and analyzing building usage statistics can greatly increase the ability of an access services unit to meet the changing dynamic of patron needs in an academic library. By analyzing three different data points, the Access Services Unit in Malpass Library at Western Illinois University was able to determine the most…

As part of the federally-funded grant project "SLIDE: The School Librarian Investigation--Decline or Evolution?" this study analyzed the status of school librarian employment for almost 13,000 U.S public school districts from 2018-19 and 2020-21. The purpose of the study was to learn how the COVID-19 pandemic, which radically disrupted…

As access services emerges as a discrete discipline within the field of librarianship, opportunities for access services librarians to meet and discuss the issues facing today's libraries continue to grow. One annual meeting that has attracted less attention over the years is the Ivies + Access Services Symposium. Held at various member…

This special issue of "portal: Libraries and the Academy" grew out of a discussion about the need for speculative, creative space within the library and information science (LIS) literature.1 While venues for exposing important research and illuminating case studies are plentiful, the LIS literature lacks an obvious platform on which to…

Since the late 1970s, the access services librarian or equivalent position has become commonplace in academic libraries, and degreed professionals have been sought for these positions since the beginning. In 2009, David McCaslin, California Institute of Technology, examined the place of access services in American Library Association-accredited…

In 2011 the University of Wollongong Library undertook a significant review of its Resource Sharing services. This was prompted by constraints in the systems supporting this service, changes to the Library's key suppliers, Infotrieve Australia and the British Library Document Supply Service, and the need to deliver effective library services…

The majority of research that has been conducted on structuring mentorship programs has been on career support in terms of transferring tacit and explicit knowledge from the supervisor to the protégé. While the instructional design literature touts that cognitive apprenticeships provide a great framework for constructivist and situated learning…

This paper aims to present the role, values, and legal policy issues facing public Library resources in supporting students to achieve academic success. Research indicates that majority of people that own or work in the Library tend to ignore some of the vital roles, values and legal policy issues paramount to libraries. Some of these issues are…

This article describes the implementation of two inexpensive social learning library laboratories for advanced students in Latin American and Chicana/o studies. Drawing on philosophical literature from these interdisciplinary areas and ethnic studies, these cases present a "third space" option for library learning called…

Information is a bedrock of any developing society and that is the core purpose of university libraries. This enables staff and student to learn and teach students not just in theory but in practice. However, without well-established libraries the above role may not be implemented. Therefore, there is need for globally competitive libraries in…

Focusing on evidence-based practice (EBP) aligns with the school librarian's leadership role acknowledged by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) in "Empowering Learners: Guidelines for School Library Programs" (2009) and in AASL's newly adopted mission statement. "The American Association of School Librarians…

It has been almost 50 years since Robert Taylor published his classic 1968 article, "Question-Negotiation and Information Seeking in Libraries," in "College & Research Libraries"; yet much of what that article discussed is as fresh today as it was back then. It has been identified as a classic because it has enduring themes…

Despite a heightened focus on information literacy, students and adults alike struggle to assess online information. In this article, the authors argue that the K-12 information literacy curriculum needs to focus on supporting students to develop identities as expert information seekers to address complex and mutable modern literacy needs. The…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of service quality on graduates' satisfaction as perceived by Middle East University (MEU) graduates. Design/methodology/approach: This research is cross-sectional and aims to explore the effect of service quality dimensions (academic staff, administration, classrooms and library…

Awareness of faculty research interests is an important aspect of a subject librarian's responsibilities. This paper illustrates the potential of Voyant Tools, an application in wide use among digital humanities researchers, to reveal word patterns in the research output of applied science faculty. A corpus of recent article citations from Web of…