In early spring 2013, a pilot study was conducted at a major public university in Ohio to explore elements of information anxiety (defined herein as a combination of library anxiety and information technology anxiety) among second-semester freshmen enrolled in all iterations of both a traditional and a remedial first-year English course. The…

This study examined the usability of five virtual reference services--instant messenger chat, e-mail, telephone, text messaging, and Skype videoconferencing--by having 31 undergraduate and graduate students evaluate the usability of the virtual reference services of two different universities. The study's results suggest that user preference and…

More and more of today's scholars conduct their research in a digital realm rather than using a print collection. The University of Arizona Libraries Guide on the Side tutorial software offers an opportunity to apply the principles of active learning with real world research scenarios. This paper reports on the design and introduction of…

With this piece, we seek to interrogate the sites at which library, archival, and scholarly work occurs in order to consider the changing nature of the future of the archive. First, we consider the work of the archive from the perspective of the long-standing tradition of scholarly publication and scholarly editing in archives and libraries.…

Though research into academic library director leadership has established leadership skills and qualities required for success, little research has been done to establish where in their career library directors were most likely to acquire those skills and qualities. This research project surveyed academic library directors at Carnegie-designated…

When the Medical Library Association identified questions critical for the future of the profession, it assigned groups to use systematic reviews to find the answers to these questions. Group 6, whose question was on emerging technologies, recognized early on that the systematic review process would not work well for this question, which looks…

This action research study explores first-year students' conceptions of the research process, with a focus on which aspects students find most challenging and how this information can guide stakeholders in developing curricular or service-based interventions. To gather student reflections on the research process, researchers assigned and collected…

This paper examines an "experimental" program in African American adult education that took place at the Harlem branch of the New York Public Library in the early 1930s. The program, called the Harlem Experiment, brought together a group of white funders (the Carnegie Corporation and the American Association for Adult Education)--who…

This research used an inductive qualitative method to examine how adolescents participated in online literature discussion, with limited guidance from adults, through a summer reading program. Using a New Literacies framework, the authors considered that literacy is social and collaborative and that adolescents often engage in such literacy…

This report summarizes results from a sample of Dual Language (DL) Program classroom observations conducted in the 2017-2018 school year. Instructional specialists used an instrument to rate aspects of program implementation which included classroom environment and instructional methods.

As the United States struggles to be globally competitive with the number of students completing a college degree higher education leaders continue seeking answers to improving student retention and graduation rates. Decades of research has been conducted on investigating factors that impact student retention and graduation with the majority of…

For over a half a century, State Library Administrative Agencies (SLAAs) have played a key role in the development and delivery of library services in the United States. While the organization and responsibilities of these agencies vary from state to state, they have two things in common: state-level planning for library services and…

In 2008, we started by pulling a sample of 483 public libraries from across the country, using 2007 public library annual report data. Because small libraries have different needs and resources than larger libraries, we stratified the sample to make comparisons by size, according to the following population groups: fewer than 10,000 served;…

This article analyzes the aging of academic librarians and the potential shortage of librarians to replace those who are retiring. Recent statistics indicate that the exodus of retiring librarians may not be as severe as predicted several years ago. Recent articles show potential benefits as new librarians enter the workforce in large numbers to…

At the Libraries Service Center, statistics are generated on a monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis by using four Microsoft Excel workbooks. These statistics provide information about what materials are being requested and by whom. They also give details about why certain requests may not have been filled. Utilizing Excel allows for a shallower…