In a study of the information behaviors of graduate students enrolled in an online Masters of Library and Information Science (MLIS) program, it was determined that learners engage in threaded discussions not only for cognitive purposes but for affective reasons as well. The information sharing among students was particularly prolific during a…

Central to the ongoing success of the liaison model is the need for liaison librarians to stay informed and up-to-date about recent developments in the subject areas of their assigned academic departments and programs. This article describes an exploratory study conducted to determine whether information obtained from the social media accounts of…

Amid growing isolationism after World War I, the American Library Association transferred its wartime programs to train librarians in Europe and promote the American model of public libraries. Working in collaboration with American philanthropists and members of the French library community, ALA established a permanent library school in Paris that…

The purpose of this study is to propose a means of reconciling the competing ideas of library and information science's identity, thereby strengthening professional autonomy. I make the case that developing a system of virtue ethics for librarianship would be an effective way to promote that reconciliation. The first step in developing virtue…

This grounded theory study explores the ways in which scholars conduct their research, including how they find and organize resources, how they identify and work with collaborators, how they interact with technology during the course of their research, and how they disseminate the results of a research project. Nine scholars were interviewed…

The Freedom Charter of the African National Congress (ANC), the triumphant South African liberation movement, proclaims that "the doors of learning shall be open" for all. Twenty years since coming to power, the doors of the universities are struggling to stay open for adult student-workers. An action research project into implementation…

Students are increasingly expecting social media to be a component of their educational experiences both outside and inside of the classroom. The phenomenon of interest in this dissertation is understanding how the educational experiences of students are affected when social media are incorporated into online and blended course activities.…

Many concepts of information have been proposed and discussed in library and information science. These concepts of information can be broadly categorized as empirical and situational information. Unlike nomenclatures in many sciences, however, the concept of information in library and information science does not bear a generally accepted…

The purpose of this study was to examine factors that may or may not contribute to the adoption of the innovation of virtual worlds by librarians. Using Everett Rogers' Diffusion Theory as a framework, the study sought to identify librarians with avatars (computer simulated representations of themselves) in the virtual world of Second Life,…

In this article, the author discusses crowdsourcing an e-book--gathering wide, diverse opinions from the school library community (including academics, practitioners, vendors, and others), and gathering those results in a free e-book. As e-book publishers, school librarians could be active agents, bolstering community energy, creating a forum for…

Welcome to the new "Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship" column entitled "ERM Ideas and Innovations," which will appear in each issue of JERL for the next 2 years, and possibly more, beginning with this issue. The overall focus of each column will be to introduce and expand ideas, discuss innovations, and ultimately encourage and foster…

Identifying topics of a textual document is useful for many purposes. We can organize the documents by topics in digital libraries. Then, we could browse and search for the documents with specific topics. By examining the topics of a document, we can quickly understand what the document is about. To augment the traditional manual way of topic…

Augmented reality technology has implications for the ways that the field of library and information science (LIS) serves users and organizes information. Through content analysis, the author examined how augmented reality (AR) is conceptualized within a sample of LIS literature from the Library and Information Science & Technology Abstracts…

Epistemology, or the study of knowledge and knowing, is foundational for Library and Information Science (LIS) programs, as the recognition of different conceptions of how people "know" can help LIS professions handle diversity, especially gender diversity. The incorporation of epistemology can provide LIS students with more…

Online enrollments in U.S. higher education programs continue to grow, a trend that is also seen in LIS education where in some cases entire MLIS programs are being offered online. Synchronous online seminar-style courses present interesting challenges for both radical inclusion and innovation. This qualitative case study explored the…