Duane Webster is a visionary leader who, throughout his career, has had a significant impact on the improvement of libraries and librarianship. His work to establish the Association of Research Library's (ARL) Office of Management Studies (OMS) and its several organizational improvement programs laid the foundation for organization development in…

This paper presents a large scale study of online MLIS students (n = 910), who completed at least one online course and were enrolled in 36 of the 58 ALA-accredited MLIS programs in Canada and the United States. The results indicate that the typical student is female, White, lives in an urban setting, and is in her mid-30s. Online students were…

The paper aims to bring out the problems and prospects of the professional development opportunities of academic library professionals in the Universities in Kerala. The study is a part of research undertaken to survey the professional development activities and educational needs of library professionals in the major Universities of Kerala in the…

This paper addresses the curriculum overlap and gap between LIS education and intelligence education by analyzing the content of the websites of the intelligence education programs and courses in 27 representative intelligence education universities in the United States, and the intelligence-related programs and courses in the 56 LIS programs in…

This paper explores the difference between "high standards" and a "high standard of standardness" of professional service provision in teacher-librarianship. That is to say, it explores the difference between a demonstrated deep commitment to 21st century learning ("high standards") and demonstrated compliance with a pre-determined checklist of…

This article proceeds from the position that obsession with technology is a distraction from librarians' true mission and explores how a constellation of emerging information technologies might empower librarians to reconsider their commitment to the technological treadmill and instead turn to a more humanistic orientation. This article presents…

As the world grows closer, as access to resources worldwide increases, as more students move from country to country, the need to connect with other librarians around the globe increases. Over the past few years, the author's participation in international associations and other professional activities has grown, which has expanded her own…

What might motivate someone with a natural science degree to forgo the lab and pursue a non-traditional career in librarianship? Are there differences between LIS graduates with and without a science degree that might impact recruitment strategies? An analysis of data from a longitudinal career study, "Workforce Issues in Library and…

The paper describes the processes and outcomes of the ranking of LIS journal titles by Australia's LIS researchers during 2007-8, first through the Australian federal government's Research Quality Framework (RQF) process, and then by its replacement, the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative. The requirement to rank the journals'…

Women who promoted library services to children in the United States in the late nineteenth century introduced the systematic use of survey research on library practice to the field of professional librarianship. They created a series of qualitative survey-based reports, the "Reading of the Young" reports, which were presented at ALA conferences…

This article discusses the development of academic research in the LIS domain and the purpose of LIS research. It is argued that there are several constituent parts of the research tradition, both theoretical and empirical, and that this has created tensions and misunderstandings between researchers and practitioners. Against this background, the…

This paper attempts to find if there is any connection between the marketing attitudes and behaviour of librarians in thirty-three different libraries of Finland. Based on market-oriented behaviour, three kinds of libraries were found: "strong," "medium" and "weak." The findings indicate a positive relation between…

This study set out to provide an understanding of how LIS programs ensure that students are prepared for the demands of graduate study in the twenty-first century, how these expectations may have evolved since Kules's and McDaniel's previous 2008 study, and how various types of programs compare in their approaches. Content analysis was used to…

This article reports the findings of an exploratory study to identify professional dispositions of school librarians. The authors employed the Delphi method, a qualitative research method that emphasizes expert knowledge and consensus within a particular field. The Delphi panel consisted of members of the editorial boards of nationally recognized…

School library professionals often complain that their principal or district-level administrators have a poor understanding of the work that they do. Reasons for this are varied and have been well documented in school library literature. The bottom line is that administrators' lack of education regarding the important contributions that the school…