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To discover how UK academic libraries sought to support student mental health and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The data was from a 24-question survey of UK universities distributed in May 2021 which received 56 responses from 47 different Higher Education Institution libraries. Descriptive statistics are combined with thematic analysis of open text comments.

Libraries were undertaking a wide range of activities, targeted chiefly at students and broadcast via Twitter, other social media and library web sites. The problem being addressed was the stresses of studying in the context of the pivot online and isolation caused by social distancing. Digital well-being seemed also to be an increased concern. COVID-19 had proved the value of digital support but created a number of challenges such as loss of physical space, communication barriers and lack of extra resource. The role had a somewhat informal place in the organisation. Overall library activities were aligned but not strongly integrated into institutional efforts.

This was a study in one specific national context with a relatively limited number of total responses. There could be a non-response bias where respondents were doing more than was typical in the sector.

The paper is one of the first papers to gather sector wide data and move beyond case studies of what individual libraries due to support to mental health and well-being. It also offers a case study of the impacts of COVID-19 on management pointing to its catalysing the digital shift, creating constraints on resources and communication and prompting the emergence of staff well-being as a consideration in management decision making.

The purpose of this paper is to reconsider the role of the body in information in serious leisure by reviewing existing work in information behaviour that theorises the role of the body, and by drawing selectively on literature from beyond information studies to extend our understanding.

After finding a lack of attention to the body in most influential works on information behaviour, the paper identifies a number of important authors who do offer theorisations. It then explores what can be learnt by examining studies of embodied information in the hobbies of running, music and the liberal arts, published outside the discipline.

Auto-ethnographic studies influenced by phenomenology show that embodied information is central to the hobby of running, both through the diverse sensory information the runner uses and through the dissemination of information by the body as a sign. Studies of music drawing on the theory of embodied cognition, similarly suggest that it is a key part of amateur music information behaviour. Even when considering the liberal arts hobby, the core activity, reading, has been shown to be in significant ways embodied. The examples reveal how it is not only in more obviously embodied leisure activities such as sports, in which the body must be considered.

Embodied information refers to how the authors receive information from the senses and the way the body is a sign that can be read by others. To fully understand this, more empirical and theoretical work is needed to reconcile insights from practice theory, phenomenology, embodied cognition and sensory studies.

The paper demonstrates how and why the body has been neglected in information behaviour research, reviews current work and identifies perspectives from other disciplines that can begin to fill the gap.

Social network sites are emerging as a popular communication tool for knowledge sharing and construction. LinkedIn, which concentrates on professional networking, is reported to generate great informational benefits to its users. The purpose of this paper is to explore product users’ knowledge construction in solving technical problems on LinkedIn, which was chosen as a case example.

Discussion threads with rich knowledge elements were selected from an interest group about solving technical problems with laptops. Adopting a qualitative content analysis method, selected threads were analysed with a prior analysis framework built in the context of traditional IT company sponsored peer user support forums.

The analysis revealed that the iterative and progressive knowledge construction process and associated trial-and-error strategy used on LinkedIn are similar to those found in peer support forums. However, LinkedIn members are more engaged in knowledge construction episodes. Meanwhile, the sub-category “proposing a new idea” accounts for a larger portion of discussions reflecting the high-level of expertise. One-to-one direct interaction is quite salient. Therefore, LinkedIn can support knowledge construction in a more efficient way due to the character of its social capital, including trust, sense of belonging, norms of cooperation, visible identity, knowledge articulation skills, one-to-one direct interaction and suitable strength of ties.

This research is novel in empirically revealing how LinkedIn attributes and its social capital attributes interact with each other and together facilitate an efficient knowledge construction process.

A major development in academic libraries in the last decade has been recognition of the need to support research data management (RDM). The purpose of this paper is to capture how library research data services (RDS) have developed and to assess the impact of this on the nature of academic libraries.

Questionnaire responses from libraries in Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the UK and USA from 2018 are compared to a previous data set from 2014.

The evidence supports a picture of the spread of RDS, especially advisory ones. However, future ambitions do not seem to have seen much evolution. There is limited evidence of organisational change and skills shortages remain. Most service development can be explained as the extension of traditional library services to research data. Yet there remains the potential for transformational impacts, when combined with the demands implied by other new services such as around text and data mining, bibliometrics and artificial intelligence. A revised maturity model is presented that summarises typical stages of development of services, structures and skills.

The research models show how RDS are developing. It also reflects on the extent to which RDM represents a transformation of the role of academic libraries.

Practitioners working in the RDM arena can benchmark their current practices and future plans against wider patterns.

The study offers a clear picture of the evolution of research data services internationally and proposes a maturity model to capture typical stages of development. It contributes to the wider discussion of how the nature of academic libraries are changing.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the value of Actor-network theory as an approach to explain the non-adoption of collaborative technology.

The notion of translation and related concepts pertaining to Actor-network theory are used to explore the case of non-participation in an organizational online community. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 HR professionals belonging to a multi-campus university system in Mexico.

The study shows that participation in the online community did not occur as expected by those promoting its use. An initial inductive analysis showed that the factors that undermine participation had to do with the interface design of the technology and the individual motivations and benefits derived from participation. A second analysis, using ANT showed how processes of negotiation, conflict, enrolment, alignment, and betrayal that occurred during the emergence and evolution of the new network played a critical role in technology adoption leading to the dissolution of the initiative to adopt the collaborative technology.

The study shows the value of ANT as a tool to better understand the adoption and use of collaborative technology. The analysis goes beyond existing explanations of participation, which tend to focus attention on matters such as the interface design or the personal motivations and benefits derived from participation. It does so by moving away from solely looking at what occurs within the boundaries of a community and understanding the context within which it is being introduced. It prompts the analysis of moments of problematization, interessement, enrolment, and mobilization to explore the adoption process, including the role of non-human actors.

El objetivo del artículo es explorar el valor de la Teoría del Actor-Red como lente teórico para explicar la no adopción de una tecnología colaborativa.

La noción de traducción y conceptos relacionados pertenecientes a la Teoría del Actor-Red son utilizados para explorar el caso de no participación en un a comunidad virtual en el contexto organizacional. Se realizaron treinta entrevistas semi-estructuradas con profesionistas de RH pertenecientes a una universidad con múltiples campus en México.

El estudio muestra que la participación en la comunidad virtual no ocurrió como se esperaba por aquellos que promovieron su uso. Un primer análisis inductivo mostró que los factores que minaron la participación fueron aquellos relacionados con el diseño de la interface de la tecnología así como con las motivaciones y beneficios individuales derivados de la participación en la comunidad virtual. Un segundo análisis usando la TAR, mostró como los procesos de negociación, conflicto, enrolamiento, alineamiento y traición que ocurrieron durante el surgimiento y evolución de la red emergente jugaron un rol crítico en la adopción de la tecnología, llevando así a la disolución de la iniciativa para adoptar la tecnología colaborativa.

El estudio muestra el valor de la TAR como herramienta para entender de una mejor manera la adopción y uso de la tecnología colaborativa. El análisis va más allá de las explicaciones existentes sobre participación, mismas que han tendido en enfocar su atención a aspectos como el diseño de la interface o las motivaciones y beneficios individuales derivados de la participación. En cambio, el análisis deja de solamente estudiar lo que ocurre al interior de la comunidad para entender el contexto en el que la comunidad virtual se encuentra, utilizando los momentos de problematización, interesamiento, enrolamiento y movilización para explorar el proceso de adopción así como el rol que juegan los actores no humanos.

This research aims to explore the nature of Chinese students' mental health information needs and to identify the online resources they use to meet those needs.

Data was collected from three Chinese research-oriented universities using semi-structured interviews and a survey. Twenty-five university students with varied backgrounds were selected for semi-structured interviews to explore the triggers and nature of their needs. Then, printed and online questionnaires were distributed to undergraduate and postgraduate students and 541 valid responses were processed for descriptive statistical analysis and variance analysis.

The following findings were incurred. First, the triggers of university students' mental health information needs mainly are mental health being in the news, personal interest in gaining mental health knowledge, mental health issues, required formal learning and preparation for mental health counselling. Second, eleven types of information are used, with an emphasis on employment pressure, study stress and self-understanding. Third, mental health information needs differ with mental health status and some social-demographic factors (including gender, urban or rural origin and educational stage). Fourth, information needs can be characterized as dynamic; complex and diverse but concentrated on a few types; ambiguous and hard for participants to define; private; stigmatized; self-dependent and substitutable. Fifth, Internet sources used to meet such needs are mainly search engines, Question and Answer platforms, public social media platforms. Finally, a model of mental health information needs was built based on the above findings to map the whole process from what triggers a need, to the content and characteristics of information need, and online resources used to meet those needs.

The paper provides suggestions for university mental health services in developing more tailored knowledge contents via effective delivery methods to meet diverse needs of student groups.

This research is novel in using empirical data to build a holistic model that captures the context and the nature of mental health information needs of university students.

The study aims to understand the nature of traditional knowledge by examining how it is used and reinvented in the context of Xochimilco in Mexico City.

The paper is based on field site visits and focus group interviews.

Traditional knowledge was being reinvented in two contrasting ways. One was based on heritage tourism drawing on syncretism between Aztec and Spanish culture in the formation of Xochimilco. The other was agro-ecological focussed on traditional farming practices on the chinampas, their productivity, their ability to sustain biodiversity and their link to social justice. There were some common elements, such as a passionate concern with retaining a valued past in the face of growing threat.

Traditional knowledge is often seen as a static heritage, under threat. But it also has the potential to be a fertile source of strong identities and sustainable practices.

The paper helps to conceptualise the dynamic character of traditional knowledge.

The last few years have seen a surge of interest in artificial intelligence (AI). The purpose of this paper is to capture a snapshot of perceptions of the potential impact of AI on academic libraries and to reflect on its implications for library work.

The data for the study were interviews with 33 library directors, library commentators and experts in education and publishing.

Interviewees identified impacts of AI on search and resource discovery, on scholarly publishing and on learning. Challenges included libraries being left outside the focus of development, ethical concerns, intelligibility of decisions and data quality. Some threat to jobs was perceived. A number of potential roles for academic libraries were identified such as data acquisition and curation, AI tool acquisition and infrastructure building, aiding user navigation and data literacy.

This is one of the first papers to examine current expectations around the impact of AI on academic libraries. The authors propose the paradigm of the intelligent library to capture the potential impact of AI for libraries.

This article examines the relation between place, space and information behaviour.

Concepts of place and space are explored through a comparison of three leisure pursuits: running, urban exploration and genealogy, based on the authors' research and the published literature.

A socially constructed meaning of place is central to each leisure activity but how it is experienced physically, emotionally and imaginatively are different. Places have very different meanings within each practice. Mirroring this, information behaviours are also very different: such as the sources used, the type of information created and how it is shared or not shared. Information behaviour contributes to the meanings associated with place in particular social practices.

Meaning attached to place can be understood as actively constructed within social practices. Rather than context for information behaviours in the sense of an outside, containing, even constraining, environment, the meaning of place can be seen as actively constructed within social practices and by the information behaviours that are part of them.

The paper adds a new perspective to the understanding of place and space in the study of information behaviour.

The cultural heritage of the Lanna region of upper Northern Thailand is unique. One of its distinctive features is palm leaf manuscripts (PLMs), which are viewed simultaneously as examples of sacred writing and religious symbols, means of transferring cultural knowledge, artefacts of beauty and fragile historical documents. Local people still care about these objects, and speak the language but knowledge of the script is limited. The purpose of this paper is to explore the views of community members and experts about the value and management of PLMs as the basis for developing a model of community-based collection management.

Because the purpose was to explore differing perceptions and beliefs around PLMs the study adopted an interpretivist worldview. Data were collected through interviews with local people with an interest in PLMs and experts who advised on organising them. In addition, observation and a photo inventory method was used to collect data. Data were analysed thematically.

The results showed that while both groups saw the value of the knowledge PLMs contained, the community placed particular importance on the earning of “merit” through activities related to them as Buddhist objects. Experts gave particular emphasis to the knowledge of herbal medicine contained in the PLMs. The community valued indigenous storage and preservation practices. Experts were particularly pre-occupied with the intellectual property issue around medical knowledge and convenient storage and digitisation.

Existing theory around libraries, archives and museums suggest some starting points for how community participation might be managed, but the unique circumstances of Lanna PLMs calls for a distinctive approach.

The paper identifies a pathway suitable to the Lanna context that can build on current local practices, to enhance community participation in the management of PLMs, including a consideration of the role of information professionals.

This paper is one of the first to extend thinking about participatory practices in the library, archive and museum literature to the context of Thailand and specifically to the case of PLMs, in the Lanna region. Rigorous data analysis of a substantial body of evidence has enhanced the understanding of the different types of value placed on PLMs. It identifies an important but not unbridgeable tension between how local people and experts view PLMs. It builds on previous library, archive and museum theory to propose a realistic model of how communities and experts (including librarians) can work together to protect the rich cultural resource represented by PLMs.