This unit activity describes a series of lessons designed to enhance STEM students' technical communication abilities. The lessons culminate in two separate yet interconnected projects: (1) the development of a children's book explaining a complex topic and (2) presentations of those books to members of the local community. Students learn the…

Lack of access to books has a lasting effect on children. The home literacy environment of a child impacts their emergent literacy skills, and later the level of literacy with which the child enters kindergarten. Children from lower socio-economic environments are more likely to enter kindergarten behind their peers due to factors such as: less…

Libraries provide invaluable services and supports to members of their communities, including school communities. Those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can receive particular benefits from their libraries, including supports in the areas of academics, social skills, communication, technology, literacy, leisure skills, and even employment…

The 29th Annual Pacific Islands Association of Libraries, Archives, and Museums (PIALA) Conference was held November 21 through November 26, 2019 and the primary venue was the Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Memorial Library, University of Guam in Mangilao, U.S. Territory of Guam. This volume includes a listing of 2018-2019 PIALA Officers and Board…

A survey of all 50 states and District of Columbia was conducted in Fall 2020 to gain background information to inform an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant project called SLIDE: The School Librarian Investigation--Decline or Evolution? As part of the grant, a school library leader, some in a state government/agency position or…

Libraries are the central resource for supporting faculty and students in their research and information needs, both physically and remotely. This essential role of libraries and library faculty has remained consistent amid significant technological and pedagogical changes within the community college system. As librarians continue to determine…

McMaster University's Health Sciences Library (HSL) began to transition to a new liaison service model in early 2018. One of its librarians sought to understand how an academic health sciences library can optimise its support for academic undergraduate programmes. This scoping review of the literature was pursued with the aim to submit an informed…

As students are increasingly required to consume visual information, so too are they expected to create such information. In a Midwestern research university, students in an engineering technology portfolio class assembled a visual career board and visual résumé. The instruction and research team collaborated to provide an active learning module…

Academic libraries use scavenger hunt library orientations to engage students and teach them about the library. Libraries are also starting to use augmented reality (AR) technology in orientations, instruction, and programming. Some libraries have tried augmented reality scavenger hunts for freshman library orientations, but studies have not been…

The term 'permeability' has morphed from is primarily technical origins into the lexicon of architecture as architects (and other professionals) sought better language to describe the relationships of spaces to their environments and other spaces and to the interactions of users with spaces. In higher education, permeability incorporates aspects…

This paper discusses the design, facilitation and outcomes of a pilot embedded librarian initiative that transpired in a research methods course in a political science program. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact and affordances of embedding a librarian in an undergraduate methods course. This study explored how embedding a…

The academic library plays multiple roles in the university, making even a nuanced analysis of service numbers inadequate for assessing the complexity of the library's value and contributions to the university's mission and success. This exploratory study uses social network analysis and a unique interlibrary loan (ILL) data set to examine…

During the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic colleges and universities in the United States were forced to move to remote delivery of courses and services. Academic library electronic resources naturally adapted to the virtual environment, particularly streaming video. This study considers the trends in academic streaming video usage during…

This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness and potential utility of using machine learning and natural language processing techniques to develop models that can reliably predict the relative difficulty of incoming chat reference questions. Using a relatively large sample size of chat transcripts (N = 15,690), an empirical experimental design…

During a four-year period, librarians collected student data by card-swiping undergraduate students who attended one of the core English composition class-based one-shot instruction sessions provided at a large state-supported doctoral-granting university. Data for students who attended library instruction was anonymized and compared to the same…