We posed the question of what services an academic library can best provide to support the NIH Public Access Policy. We approached the answer to this question through education, collaboration, and tool-building. As a result, over the last four years we have engaged over 1,500 participants in discussions of public access to research results, forged…

Information literacy (IL) is a necessary skill crucial for effective functioning in today's knowledge society. This study seeks to explore Israeli librarians' perspectives toward major components of information literacy. Do librarians find there is a need to redefine the concept? Who do they think should teach it? How do they think Web 2.0…

As more students, faculty, and staff from traditionally underrepresented groups enter universities and colleges, academic libraries must find ways to reach out to these groups in order to better meet their unique educational needs. In this article, librarians from two large public universities describe how they used data about their communities to…

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Standards for the 21st-Century Learner mandate that students are equipped with the skills they need to pursue lifelong learning. The Common Core State Standards, Next Generation Science Standards, and C3 Framework for Social Studies Standards all advocate for genuine student inquiry, and the…

The Darakht-e Danesh ("knowledge tree") Online Library is the first open educational resource (OER) initiative in Afghanistan, established to enhance teacher subject-area knowledge, access and use of learning materials, and to foster more diverse teaching methodologies in order to improve learning outcomes in Afghan classrooms. This…

Rural residents are at a disadvantage with regard to health status and access to health promotion activities. In many rural communities, public libraries offer support through health information provision; there are also opportunities for engagement in broader community health efforts. In a collaborative effort between an academic researcher and a…

Qualitative analysis of reflective essays by first-year students in an academic skills course documented outcomes related to the Association of College and Research Libraries Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Student narratives showed how novices encounter the clusters of concepts described in the Framework as…

This paper identifies approaches, challenges, and best practices related to planning and designing today's academic library learning spaces. As part of the Project Information Literacy (PIL) Practitioner Series, qualitative data is presented from 49 interviews conducted with a sample of academic librarians, architects, and library consultants.…

Financial literacy is the ability to understand how money works in a person's day-to-day life: how someone earns money, manages it, invests it, and donates it to help others. As librarians, we must realize that when patrons come to us for guidance in the area of financial literacy, they are trusting us to provide not only reliable information for…

Learning analytics has been defined as the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which it occurs. The potential use of data and learning analytics in educational contexts has caught the attention of educators and…

School library advocacy is increasingly important due to decreases in funding and staff. National organizations attempt to engage school librarians in advocacy and have developed resources and tools to assist with this task. However, there is little research examining how practicing school librarians engage in advocacy and how their advocacy…

The article investigated the nexus between academic libraries and accreditation in the higher institutions with special focus on the Nigerian experience. It showed that all accreditation agencies place a high premium on library provisions as a major component of requisite benchmarks in determining the status of the program or institutions being…

Academia is an ever-evolving institution. Where once it was viewed as a body primarily charged with educating students, many instances universities now consider research to be their primary raison d'être. This research surveyed library and information science (LIS) faculty members employed at institutions accredited by the American Libraries…

Service blueprinting is a process that businesses use for analyzing and improving service. Originally presented in the Harvard Business Review in 1984, it has retained a strong following ever since. At present, it is experiencing a revival at numerous academic institutions. The authors of this article present the process of service blueprinting.…

For all students in public and private schools, the need to search for themselves in books and other resources is real and ever-growing. Selection is of prime importance in collection development-second only to de-selection, and with about two and a half million LGBTQQ teens in the U.S., the weight of selection choices that reflect the needs and…