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The purpose of this paper is to consider personal digital archiving (PDA) from an academic perspective. Although elements of research data management and personal information management are relevant, it is unclear what is available on university websites supporting PDA. The following question guided the research: where is “PDA” content housed in the top-level .edu domain and what is the format and nature of the content made available?

This descriptive study analyzed Google hits yielded by searching “PDA” within the .edu domain. Results were analyzed to determine where content was housed and its format and nature. Placement in the domain, delivery methods, topics, and the nature of the most highly ranking Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) were analyzed.

In the academy, PDA is not exclusively of interest in libraries; not quite half of the .edu URLs (45 percent) pointed to a library site. Scholarly papers were the most returned content, followed by blogs and conferences information. Closer analysis of the top 20 URLs showed that libraries are popular and papers, and blogs continue to be dominant.

The results suggest good PDA practices and recommendations are evolving. Academic librarians should examine these practices, refine them, and make them available and discoverable on the web.

This is the first paper, to the knowledge, to consider PDA content from the perspective of universities and university libraries.

Author information is one of the primary metadata elements for information access. While assigning “author(s)” has been relatively straightforward in library systems for textual resources, challenges have emerged in recording creatorship information for collaborative creative works, with surrogates erring on the side of caution and providing little information. This study aims to present improvements to the conceptual understanding of collaborative creatorship and relevant cataloging practice in video games.

The current study is a theoretical investigation of the authorship role of individuals in collaborative creative works, using video games as a case study. The investigation is based on the literature on video game user needs and authorship theory.

Reviews of literature present a disconnect between video game information user needs and currently available author information in library systems. Further analysis of the author/creator concept reveals insufficiencies in adopting auteur theory as the theory is applied to film. Exploration of access practices for other large collaborative creative products and an analysis of user tasks show potentially fruitful directions for future studies. This study recommends identifying primary roles that individuals adopt in video game creations and leveraging crowdsourced-creator information in library databases to enhance the visibility of author information for video games.

By incorporating authorship theories and research from various domains such as film studies, intellectual history and library and information science, this study provides interdisciplinary, theoretical considerations as well as practical suggestions to enhance the current cataloging practice.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate characters and scenarios reflecting varied lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) identities in fiction in two library acquisitions platforms: a traditional library vendor (Coutts’ OASIS) and a freely available platform for self-published eBooks (Smashwords).

Using intersectionality as an approach, 200 LGBT fiction titles were examined in OASIS and in Smashwords with the goal of assessing the characters and scenarios represented. The hypothesis was that Smashwords’s titles, because they were self-published, would include more variety.

The titles in both platforms were roughly similar, with a pronounced focus on white gay males.

This research relied on limited metadata provided in each system. Additional research should evaluate the quality of the titles and the nature of the publishers.

Although the Smashwords eBook platform provides access to eBooks, a convenient way to consume genre fiction, the titles available do not represent more diverse LGBT identities than the titles available through a traditional library vendor platform, OASIS.

As libraries struggle with practical implications for selecting materials representing varied viewpoints, the question of self-published or indie eBooks has emerged as a potential option for providing these perspectives. The findings of this study indicate, however, that instead of reflecting a more diverse readership, the sample of Smashwords LGBT fiction eBooks examined largely resembles the materials that a library vendor provides.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to provide a conceptual exploration of cataloging and metadata education. Historically and currently, cataloging and metadata are an essential part of master’s-level library and information science (LIS) education.

Design/Methodology/Approach – We review LIS literature and provide evidence from their own experiences to support their argument.

Findings – Cataloging education, far from going the way of the dodo, is still a very important part of LIS education. Even though general information organization courses are still required by most LIS programs, cataloging and metadata courses that include a balance of theory and practice are often buried as electives within LIS school curricula. Information organization principles and techniques (both theory and practice) are highly relevant in today’s information environment.

Originality/Value – This chapter was written by four cataloging educators, who have extensive cataloging knowledge and experience and who have seen firsthand the benefits of cataloging education for all LIS students. As library professionals adapt, and given the increasing focus on users and their needs, the relevance and necessity of a robust understanding of cataloging and metadata creation principles is key going forward.

Some virtual, immersive stories are filled with documents that users must locate and interact with to experience a narrative. Exploring a new area of inquiry in the information science field, this study focuses on individuals' experiences with documents in a particular 3D storytelling world.

Using a qualitative approach, this study examined user interactions with virtual documents to better understand the relationship between information behavior and narrative spaces. This study employed observations of users in a story-rich world, followed by semistructured interviews using virtual artifacts and stimulated recall.

Using an interpretative phenomenological analysis, this study found that (1) environmental and personal influences, (2) the search and the narrative experience and (3) expectation and confirmation events surround a user's experiences with documents in storytelling worlds. These influences and experiences determine the user's relationship with these documents, which may be considered narrative ephemera – objects that a user accumulates to create and structure a story. This model of narrative ephemera depicts the user's search for narrative cadence, fulfillment of competence needs and visions of story events or the user's own lived experiences. Individuals may experience these phenomena from a single document, shifting back and forth between the designers' intentions and the users' own realities.

This study represents a first attempt to investigate information behavior in a distributed narrative space: a virtual world filled with documents. This study reveals that commonly employed information behavior theories, as well as literary and motivation theories, may be well suited for investigating story worlds. Continued research in this area of inquiry may benefit educators as well as designers of digital stories.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the literature on digital games designed or adapted for information literacy instruction, as well as practical design recommendations.

The paper presents an analysis of a compiled set of peer-reviewed articles on games in the provision of information literacy instruction published between 2013 and 2018, categorized by game mechanics utilized.

Application of the inclusion criteria led to 12 papers considered relevant. Synthesis of the papers suggests that although studies indicate positive outcomes for information literacy games, such games continue to rely on transcription of declarative tasks to digital environments.

While previous literature reviews provide summaries on information literacy digital games, this paper not only presents an up-to-date review but also provides step-by-step instructions and worked examples for aligning information literacy learning mechanics with game mechanics.