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Strategic uses of information technology focus on the improvement of customer/client services to increase the value of products, which in turn provides market power, enhancing profits. An external focus on customer/client services leads typically to higher revenues via product‐differentiation strategies, whereas the traditional data processing use of computers has been applied mainly to reduce costs. The leadership and expertise of modern management are necessary to shift emphasis to applications of information technology. Strategic opportunities are in (a) helping buyers, suppliers and consumers to improve the purchasing, supplying, using, maintaining, and replacing products or services, (b) introduction of new products or services based on surplus market information plus information processing capability, and (c) changing the public's ability to use information technology and providing new ways to serve customers.

The purpose of this chapter is to highlight the importance of including emotional intelligence training with programs related to providing mentorship to others. Formal mentoring programs, established with specific goals and objectives, need foundation work for context in order to be successful. This chapter pulls from professional literature, important basic components of both emotional intelligence skills and attributes for successful mentoring. By demonstrating the relationship between emotional intelligence and mentors who are successful, future programs and activities within the workplace regarding formal mentorship structures can be influenced positively. There is a relationship between having good emotional intelligence skills by people who mentor and being successful within the mentoring relationship. Mentors who are more self-aware of their own emotions are more likely to manage a mentoring relationship more positively and with better outcomes. Library and information science professionals are undergoing tremendous change within the professional environment, the establishment of mentoring networks can greatly influence professional turnover. The opinions and concepts presented from professional literature has been used and adapted by the author in various workshops and presentations. It is this practitioner’s opinion that any formal mentoring program should start with providing a foundation of emotional intelligence skills for the mentors.

The purpose of this paper is to put forward the position of chief learning officer (CLO) as a potential new role or models for new roles in libraries wishing to integrate human resources, strategic planning, and budgeting.

The paper reviews the history and present functions of the CLO role in the corporate world, correlating work within the library field with key aspects of the position as way by which to conceptualize the integration of disparate library operations.

The position of CLO has not yet entered the library and information science (LIS) discourse.

Libraries that do not have CLO-like positions in their organizations may benefit from adopting or adapting the position to their libraries.

The paper introduces the CLO position to the field of LIS.

If aeroplanes and passengers, as well as property and people on the ground are to be protected, potential perpetrators of aviation terrorism must be prevented from breaching security checkpoints and gaining access to ‘secure’ airport areas and to aircrafts. Given the interconnectedness of the air transportation system, a sufficiently high level of security must be provided throughout the entire system. In this chapter we examine terrorism issues relevant to airline and airport security internationally, a topic that has received much attention since 9/11. Understanding the key issues is crucial in evaluating the various methods of regulating and providing aviation safety and security. The purpose of this chapter is to review the key features of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act and the characteristics of the resulting security policy. Then we examine terrorism, previous terrorists' acts against aviation as well as current and future aviation threats. A summary of our major points completes the chapter.

The purpose of this study is to examine motivation for grant writing among academic librarians.

Librarians identified as successful grant authors were sent invitations to an online survey.

The data collected were analyzed in the context of existing studies of librarian motivation, especially those relating to academic publishing and entrepreneurship, as well as the theoretical frameworks of motivation, including those of Maslow and Herzberg.

Results of the study should be useful to those in the library field interested in grant writing. No previous studies on this topic were located.

While assessment and user experience (UX) have been identified as areas of growing focus in all types of libraries, there is currently little infrastructure to prepare students for these roles (Applegate, 2016; Askew and Theodore-Shusta, 2013; Nitecki et al., 2015; Oakleaf, 2013; Passonneau and Erickson, 2014). As a step toward addressing this gap, a team from an American Library Association-accredited master’s program situated at a large public land-grant institution (LGU) worked with practitioner partners from academic libraries and information agencies to develop a new model for preparing information professionals with assessment and UX expertise. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In fall of 2015, faculty members applied for funding from the US Institute for Museum and Library Services Laura Bush 21st Century Librarians program for a program to develop formalized assessment and UX training in Library and Information Science (LIS) education. The student cohort would have interests in two areas: academic libraries and specialized information agencies. The two groups would complete much of the same coursework, earn the ALA-accredited master’s degree and have the opportunity to engage in co-curricular activities focused on UX and assessment. However, each sub-group would also pursue a subject-specific curriculum. In April 2016, IMLS funded the program.

In addition to reviewing the literature related to best practices in curriculum development, the authors describe the process of designing the program, including the curriculum, co-curricular mentoring and practicum opportunities, and the tools developed to evaluate the program’s effectiveness.

At a time in which the library practitioner and LIS educator communities are contemplating how best to prepare professionals with much-needed expertise in assessment and UX, UX-A represents an innovative approach in professional preparation. Although the UX-A program is grant-funded, several of the program components could be adapted and incorporated without such support.

This paper discusses the structure and history of the program, issues related to developing a new curricular program for LIS education, and the educational and professional development needs of the assessment and UX professional community. It includes an extensive review of literature related to LIS curriculum development, practica, and professional mentoring, as well as suggestions for implementing elements of the program in other settings.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.

Introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2013.

Provides information about each source, discusses the characteristics of current scholarship and describes sources that contain unique scholarly contributions and quality reproductions.

The information may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

The main purpose of the present study is to develop appropriate construct to benchmark occupational health and safety performance in industrial setting so that deficiencies can be highlighted and possible strategies can be evolved to improve the performance.

Data envelopment analysis (DEA), being a robust mathematical tool, has been employed to evaluate the safety performance of industries. DEA, basically, takes into account the input and output components of a decision‐making unit (DMU) to calculate technical efficiency (TE). TE is treated as an indicator for safety performance of DMUs and comparison has been made among them.

A total of 30 Indian organizations under three industrial categories such as construction, refractory and steel are chosen for comparison purpose. It has been observed that safety performance of construction industries is consistently low as compared to other categories of industries. TE has been calculated using two types of models of DEA such as constant return to scale (CRS) and variable return to scale (VRS). A paired two‐sample t‐test indicates that TEs obtained using two models are significantly different. Mean efficiency of 30 samples is found as 0.898 using CRS model whereas same is calculated as 0.942 using VRS.

The limitations may be number of input and output components considered for each DMU. If different set of inputs and outputs may be considered, the results may be different. Another limitation may be the number of industrial sectors considered in the study.

The method, being a generic one, can be adopted by the managers to assess present safety performance and find a suitable peer to which, it should follow to improve own TE followed by in what respect it has to improve. Industrial safety and occupational health concerns in industries is not only important from government regulation point of view but also essential for enhancing productivity and profitability to become competitive in the marketplace. The practical limitation may be collection data quantitatively from various DMUs because many a time the DMUs are unwilling to share data.

This work proposes use of simple mathematical tool like DEA for benchmarking based on safety performance in Indian industries. In Indian context, safety performance of industrial settings has hardly been assessed. The study provides a simple but comprehensive methodology for improving safety performance. The study also outlines comparative evaluation of safety practices in different industries.