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The purpose of this paper is to report on bibliometric research on the activities and services offered by distance libraries that serve distance learning institutions.

The analysis of scholarly communication has always been a valuable tool for researchers and policymakers in order to understand trends, gaps and patterns in a specific field. In this paper, a bibliometric analysis has been applied based on a well-known bibliometric tool called “VOSviewer.” The articles that constitute the dataset of current research were drawn from two journals: the Journal of Library Administration and the Journal of Library and Information Services in Distance Learning.

The bibliometric analysis applied in distance libraries showed that the researchers in this domain are mainly introverts and need to prioritize engaging in the scientific research process over merely publishing good practices. Although there are a lot of libraries serving distance learning institutions (formal and non-formal), there is a notable lack of activity in the scientific publication field.

Distance libraries have played a significant role in supporting distance learning, and since distance education has become more important in the educational ecosystem, the analysis of its scholarly production would provide administrators, researchers and policymakers with insights for the next era of conventional libraries.

The purpose of this study is to conduct a bibliometric analysis to discover the published information on the effects of e-learning technologies on innovative competency development of university librarians and smart library services.

This study is based on bibliometric research methodology. The data were retrieved from the leading database Web of Science to analyze the scholarly publications on the topic during 1965–2023. VOSviewer and Biblioshiny software were used to analyze the bibliometric data on the subject.

Results displayed that the topic of e-learning technologies in the domain of librarianship has been greatly used by several authors as a title to publish their research work. The dominance of countries such as the USA, China and the UK in research output reveals their leadership in advancing research and innovation in the field of e-learning technologies for university libraries.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first bibliometric study that has been conducted to measure the productivity of literature at the international level on the effects of e-learning technologies on innovative competency development of university librarians and smart library services.

Library quality assurance systems are collaborative governances that facilitate the presentation of data on international accreditation of departments, which contains data on services, human resources, library facilities and infrastructure. This research analyzes the supporting and inhibiting factors and the advantages of the library quality assurance system in supporting international accreditation of departments at Sebelas Maret University (UNS) Surakarta, Indonesia using Talcott Persons' theory of structural functionalism.

Primary data in exploratory research and action research obtained from the Quality Assurance Team at the university level under the Educational Quality Assurance and Development Institute (LPPMP), the Quality Assurance Unit (UPM) at the faculty level and the Quality Control Group (GKM) at the department, librarian and academic community levels. Supporting informants are international assessor practitioners. Data validation using source triangulation, namely information obtained through different sources, and method triangulation through different methods. Data obtained from library studies, observations, Focus Group Discussions (FGD), documentation and interviews with staff, library leaders, lecturers from departments that have and will carry out international accreditation and UNS students and analyzed interactive analysis models, namely data reduction, data presentation and concluding.

The research results show that the UNS Library quality assurance system facilitates higher education organizations, such as bachelor's, master's and doctoral departments at UNS; search and presentation of international accreditation data. Supporting factors include the availability of digital library systems, online catalogs (UNSLA), e-journal and e-book databases, library websites and library data links for accreditation; facilities and infrastructure consist of indoor-outdoor study rooms; library social media; Self Access Terminal room; facilities for international students; involvement of librarians in international internships/conferences, librarians who have had competency tests and certification; librarians pursuing doctoral degree and support for student interns in system development. Inhibiting factors include the unavailability of programmers and dependence on UNS Information and Communication of Technology Unit. The benefits of the department quality assurance system include accelerating and improving the organization's quality and presentation of international accreditation data for departments at UNS.

This type of qualitative research with an exploratory approach takes library study data, observations and in-depth interviews with library staff and quality assurance of departments. The informants were selected using purposive sampling, which was adjusted to the needs and interests of the research. It also uses the action research method, a collaboration between the quality assurance unit, librarians and academics. Action research is a form of collective self-reflection that involves a series of daily activities, which include the processes of research, diagnosis, planning, implementation, monitoring and establishing the necessary relationships between evaluation and self-development. The research object is something that will be subject to conclusions resulting from something that will be discussed in the research. The object of this research is the quality assurance of the UNS Library. Primary data was obtained from the Quality Assurance Team at the university level under the LPPMP, the Quality Assurance Unit (UPM) at the faculty level and the Quality Control Group (GKM) at the department, librarian and academic community levels. Supporting informants are international assessor practitioners. Data will be collected using observation, in-depth interviews, Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and documentation. To ensure the validity of the data, source triangulation is used, namely, information obtained through different sources, as well as method triangulation through different methods, for example, interviews with observation or FGD. Data analysis using an interactive analysis model, namely data reduction, data presentation and concluding. This research was conducted at the UNS Library, with the research object being all departments at Sebelas Maret University, which have and will undergo international accreditation.

This article details the process used at the Florida Gulf Coast University library to plan and implement a collection deaccessioning project as part of a larger building master plan.

The authors conducted a brief literature review, a historic usage analysis of the collection and the multi-phase deaccessioning project. The phases included a standard inclusion query, manual list inspection and department feedback. Discard rate was measured at each phase.

Different challenges were found at each phase. Although teaching faculty were skeptical, the authors involved them early to their benefit. Each collection presented interesting challenges; notable was that although the reference collection was almost completely deaccessioned, the retained items presented unique accessibility challenges. The main stacks required a new deaccessioning workflow due to the volume of materials. The findings include final retention rates per call number range. Although the authors were able to meet the plan’s goal, they discovered the need for further collection curation: there is no substitute for traversing the stacks in person.

We present a successful methodology with a high efficacy, high community engagement and low controversy, which can function as a model at other regional academic institutions.

This paper is a comprehensive review of one successful rightsizing effort set in the context of a new strategic plan and can function as a model at other regional academic institutions.

The purpose is to investigate the professional identity of public library, archive and museum (LAM) professionals in Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Norway and Sweden.

The data have been gathered through the administration of three questionnaires. A comprehensive analysis is conducted to explore the variations in the professionals’ perceptions of their professional proximities to the other LAM professions and other related professions, considering demographic factors such as age, education, gender and immigrant background of participants.

Through a lens of micro- and macro-professional identities, the findings underscore both clearly perceived role separation between the LAM professions and notable points of convergence, suggesting opportunities for collaborative efforts. The implications of these discoveries are discussed, offering a foundation for future research endeavors.

The study highlights the professions perceived to have the most and least similarity to LAMs based on questionnaire responses, providing valuable insights into the interplay between various professional domains.

There is little to no empirical research on the phenomenon of ways in which the racism of whiteness transpires within the faculties and classrooms of US-based ALA-accredited library and information science (LIS) education programs. We do have scholars publishing meaningful work exploring diversity-equity-inclusion topics and initiatives to evolve the LIS discourse on these issues (Honma, 2005; Chancellor, 2019; De LaRosa et al., 2021; Gibson, 2019; Mehra et al., 2023; Colón-Aguirre et al., 2022; Hands, 2022). This research substantiates the conceptual research that exists by empirically exposing the ways in which the racism of whiteness functions at the interpersonal level of work culture in LIS programs (i.e. the academy) in the US.

Adapting Baima and Sude’s (2020) modified Delphi Method, a focus group of 13 BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) library and information science faculty members in the United States were recruited to participate in a one-time 60-min virtual Zoom session. Participants were engaged in three iterative rounds of reflective inquiry to reach a consensus of experience. The study design was embedded with critical race theory-based (CRT) ethnographic methods such as testimony (counterstorytelling), collective affirmation (shared narratives), and silence.

BIPOC LIS faculty (tenure-track and tenured) have similar ideas about whiteness and how it is operationalized as micro- and macro-aggressions in the LIS academic workplace, most significantly inside the classroom. The experience of whiteness was prevalent among all study participants in two areas: workplace meetings with faculty colleagues and classroom sessions (face-to-face and online) with students.

The findings offer empirical evidence to support the prolific conceptual literature in LIS discourse concerning ways in which critical race theory (CRT) interrogates LIS’s socio-professional injustices and inequities (e.g. Gibson et al., 2018; Stauffer, 2020; Leung and Lopez-McKnight, 2021; Jennings and Kinzer, 2022; Snow and Dunbar, 2022). There remains a dearth of empirical research that reports how whiteness is reproduced in the practices, knowledge, and resources that make up the ethos of the LIS faculty meeting and classroom. Documenting the testimonies of BIPOC LIS faculty solidifies the existence of whiteness as a toxic reality in the LIS academy.

ORCID is well recognised as a Persistent Identifier (PID) amongst the global academic community. The international literature is generally extremely positive towards this development. A minority of vociferous critics however have continued to dispute its benefits. Particular concerns have been noted around the potential for ORCID to be used as a tool for evaluation and surveillance by University management structures. This research sought to critically evaluate in-depth perceptions of ORCID in the Technological University (TU) sector in Ireland.

This study involved ten semi-structured interviews with academics and five with librarians in the TU sector. Reflexive thematic analysis informed by Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenological principles was used to explore transcribed interview data.

The results demonstrate a clear difference in perceptions concerning ORCID, with library staff being very positive and uncritical, even arguing for mandatory adoption. Although some academics were using ORCID IDs in a performative manner, most were suspicious of, or resigned to their use. Concerns about ORCID ranged across various issues including employer surveillance, a lack of institutional autonomy and its inappropriateness for the sector. It is argued that academics in the TU sector have so far not had an opportunity to fully explore and articulate their vision for the future. In its current form ORCID represents a foreign, imposed and inappropriate tool that may facilitate willing or unwilling inclusion in the inequitable and crude “game” of global university league tables.

The paper offers an in-depth and critical analysis of ORCID adoption in Ireland based on perceptions amongst two stakeholder groups: academics and librarians.

The article investigates the institutional setup of e-lending in public libraries in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Our point of departure is that e-lending has necessitated new library collaborations between local, regional and national levels, and therefore, institutional e-lending setups have emerged. The study seeks to provide better understanding of how the institutional setups are structured, how governance logics have shaped them and what tensions and dynamics become visible in the key actors’ problematisations of these setups.

The study is situated in the neo-institutional tradition and applies the institutional logics perspective. The research questions are answered by taking a qualitative approach, grounded in an extensive interview study with representatives of libraries, publishers and policy actors in three Scandinavian countries. To provide in-depth insight into e-lending setups, the scope of empirical material is then limited to accounts the central library and policy actors involved in establishing e-lending.

The analysis shows that the e-lending setups are both similar (especially when it comes to financing), and different across Scandinavia, especially when it comes to centralisation and involvement of librarians in this task. The differences are attributed to the influence of different governance logics (question of administrative autonomy, collaboration in the field and existing legal and political frames), and to what extent the digital and market logics are incorporated or rejected in the field.

The study provides new insights into the question of how Scandinavian public libraries face the consequences of the digitalisation of book distribution and consumption by investigating how they organise their e-lending services. This has not been explored before, notably in a comparative perspective.

This study aims to identify and theorize the conditions affecting the formation of librarians’ knowledge-hiding behaviour in academic libraries.

This study is a qualitative research based on the grounded theory approach. The data collection method involved in-depth, semi-structured interviews. The data was analysed using the MAXQDA software in three stages: open, axial and selective coding. The study included 22 faculty members and experienced librarians from academic libraries. The participants were selected using a combination of targeted and snowball sampling techniques.

The study yielded 96 open codes, 24 axial codes and 18 selective general codes related to the axial category of knowledge hiding (KH). The librarians’ KH axial coding paradigm pattern was developed in an academic library setting. The study also highlighted some general consequences of KH in academic libraries, such as lobbying and creating knowledge rents, deterioration of organizational relationships and interactions, reducing the competitive advantage of academic libraries and hindering individual and organizational learning.

This study has made a valuable contribution to the identification and explanation of the factors that affect KH. In addition, it has filled a research gap within the library and information science (LIS) field. The findings of the study may offer managers new strategies for addressing the occurrence of KH in academic libraries, and they also add to the existing literature on knowledge management in LIS.

The challenges to healthcare caused by the COVID-19 pandemic forced hospital librarians to develop their abilities to cope with change and crises, both on a social level and an organisational level. The aim of this study is to contribute to knowledge about how hospital librarians developed library services during the pandemic and how these changes contributed to building information resilience in the healthcare organisation. This paper also seeks to explore how resilience theory, and specifically the concept information resilience, can be used within library and information science (in LIS) to investigate resilience in the library sector.

Nine semi-structured interviews with librarians were conducted at four different hospital libraries in four different regions in Sweden between March and May 2022. The empirical material was analysed through an interaction between the tzheoretical perspective and the empirical material through a thematic analysis. In each theme, specific resilience resources are identified and analysed as components of the information resilience developed by hospital librarians.

The results show that hospital librarians contribute to several different information resilience resources, which support information resilience in the healthcare organisation. Three aspects characterize the qualities of resilience resources: access, flexibility, and collaboration. The findings suggest that the framework for analysing information resilience used in this study is well suited for studying the resilience of libraries from both organisational and informational aspects.

The analysis of information resilience on an organisational level presents a novel way to study resilience in the library sector.