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The purpose of this paper is to use the sociology of time to understand how time is perceived by academic librarians who provide reference and information service (RIS).

This study is a qualitative secondary analysis (QSA) of two phenomenological studies about the experience of RIS in academic libraries. The authors used QSA to re-analyze the interview transcripts to develop themes related to the perception of time.

Three themes about the experience of time in RIS work were identified. Participants experience time as discrete, bounded moments but sometimes experience threads through these moments that provide continuity, time is framed as a commodity that weighs on the value of the profession, and time plays an integral part of participants’ narratives and professional identities.

Given that the initial consent processes vary across organizations and types of studies, the researchers felt ethically compelled to share only excerpts from each study’s data, rather than the entire data set, with others on the research team. Future qualitative studies should consider the potential for secondary analysis and build data management and sharing plans into the initial study design.

Most discussions of time in the literature are presented as a metric – time to answer a query, time to conduct a task – The authors offer a more holistic understanding of time and its relationship to professional work.

The methodology taken in this paper makes sense of the experiences of work in RIS for librarians. It identifies commonalities between the experience of time and work for RIS professionals and those of other professionals, such as physicians and software engineers. It suggests revising models for RIS, as well as some professional values.

This paper contributes a better understanding of time, understudied as a phenomenon that is experienced or perceived, among RISs providers in academic libraries. The use of secondary qualitative analysis is an important methodological contribution to library and information science studies.

The purpose of this paper is to build upon the studies of journalism from an LIS perspective by exploring and differentiating the purposive behavior of newspaper reporters from their serendipitous encounters with information that lead to new story ideas. This paper also provides a path toward pedagogical improvements in training the modern journalism workforce in being more open to creative story ideas.

This study utilized semi-structured telephone interviews. Participants were recruited via e-mail after collecting contact information through the Cision database. The study sample was drawn from newspaper reporters who work at or freelance for the top 25 metropolitan newspapers in the USA, in terms of circulation size, based on data from the Alliance for Audited Media. A total of 15 participants were interviewed.

This paper provides insight into the story ideation process of journalists in that the study participants generally do not think about how they are coming up with story ideas as much as they are striving to place themselves in situations where, based on their experience and interests, they know they are more likely to encounter a good idea. Each encounter proved meaningful in some powerful fashion, which speaks to the historical importance of serendipity in achieving breakthroughs and discoveries in a wide variety of fields.

The sampling frame for this study was relatively small, representing 8 percent of the total number of working newspaper journalists from the top 25 newspapers in the USA, in terms of circulation size. Therefore, the findings are not generalizable to the entire population of journalists in this country.

The findings point to the importance of a prepared mind in facilitating serendipitous episodes. In the case of journalism, that means developing a heightened news sense and cultivating routines where they place themselves in trigger-rich environments. Pedagogically, journalism education must include courses in creative storytelling to help train the modern newspaper workforce in an ever-expanding and competitive media landscape. These courses, ideally paired with techniques and models from the field of information science and learning technologies, could help train young journalists in methods that enhance their ability to identify, seek and pursue serendipitous stories.

This paper fulfills a need in journalism studies in finding variability in news routines by utilizing an interdisciplinary approach that combines journalism studies and library and information science models to probe how journalists encounter ideas incidentally. Previous research in this area has focused on how news consumers serendipitously encounter information. This paper takes a fresh approach to explore how creative ideas are encountered serendipitously in the construction of news.

Drug Treatment Courts (DTCs) offer a form of alternative sentencing for people who have been convicted of a crime related to drug or alcohol abuse. The work of rehabilitation in DTCs is client-centered, meaning that it takes into account all of the client’s needs that affect their life in regards to completion of the program and rehabilitation. DTCs employ teams of people made up of judges, lawyers, educators, clinicians, and community supervisors. There are specific ways that librarians might become involved with DTCs regarding both literacy and, more specifically, health literacy. Existing programs could be adapted to solve common health literacy problems of participants, and librarians could also forge relationships with DTCs. Training for librarians should include education about the health and literacy problems faced by this population so they can successfully connect DTC participants with people and information that will contribute to their success completing the program and building healthier lives. This chapter looks to established best practices within DTCs and to some current related programs within public libraries to find grounds for expanding services to this population.

Public libraries are great equalizers in a society that has become more divided between those who have plenty and those who can hardly survive. Anyone is welcome in a public library – there is no need to purchase anything or show identification to be there, and you can stay if you follow the rules and the doors are open. Public librarians use their skills and knowledge to help people find information to improve and enrich their lives. One way this happens is through community engagement. The more librarians become involved in their community, the better they can aid the community. This chapter explores how librarians can become more enmeshed within their communities, how libraries can transition from a traditional model of librarianship to a focus on meeting people where they are, both in terms of physical space and in overall skill, and how we can use technology to aid in these pursuits. The public library can be used as a bridge between the public and other services. Forward thinking ideas will help ensure the continued value that the public sees in libraries.

This study aims to provide insight on the meaning of communication overload as experienced by modern academic librarians. Communication is the essence of reference librarianship, and a practically endless array of synchronous and asynchronous communication tools (ICTs) are available to facilitate communication.

This study relied on a phenomenological methodology, which included nine in‐depth interviews with academic librarians. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using RQDA, a qualitative analysis software package that facilitates coding, category building, and project management.

Seven themes about librarianship emerged from this research: attending to communication abundance, librarians of two types, instruction not reference, twenty‐first century librarianship, user needs, trusted methods: filter not retrieve, and self‐impact. The shared meaning of communication overload among these librarians is that it is a problem when it detracts from or hinders their ability to assist their users.

Further research should contribute to an understanding of communication as a problem when it interferes with serving the librarians' users, or to an understanding of interpersonal communication within the librarians' organizational structures and in their broader professional networks.

Research in popular psychology has focused on the negative impacts on productivity and concentration of living in an always‐plugged‐in environment. This research confirms that librarians should have time to work away from digital distractions to maintain job satisfaction.

Important work by Radford and Dervin has focused on communication with users. This study focuses on the impact of ICTs on librarians' work and personal lives.

This chapter introduces the focus of this volume – the many ways in which libraries and librarians are helping to increase people’s health literacy and reduce health disparities in their communities. The rampant and rapidly increasing health injustices that occur every day throughout the world are, in large part, caused and exacerbated by health information injustice – something which libraries and librarians are playing an instrumental role in addressing by ensuring the physical and intellectual accessibility of information for all. This chapter opens with an introduction to the central concepts of health justice and health information injustice, focusing on the many information-related factors that shape the degree to which individuals have the information they need to be able to have a sufficient and truly equitable chance to live a long and healthy life. Next, the authors present a timely case study to emphasize the importance of health information justice, looking at the dire importance of health literacy as we navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors then provide a brief glimpse into their 13 contributed chapters, grouped into five categories: (1) Public Libraries/Healthy Communities; (2) Health Information Assessment; (3) Overcoming Barriers to Health Information Access; (4) Serving Disadvantaged Populations; and (5) Health Information as a Communal Asset. In conclusion, the authors discuss their aims for this volume, particularly that readers will become more aware of librarians’ efforts to address health disparities in their communities and excited about participating in and expanding these efforts, moving us closer to health justice.

This chapter introduces an initiative of the Spectrum Doctoral Fellows to build an online resource that engages the Library and Information Studies (LIS) community in a discussion of social justice initiatives within the field. This tool further develops a social justice framework that raises awareness of and integrates social justice methodologies into LIS curricula and library practices. This framework facilitates community building and the empowerment of the populations they serve.

Using an iterative approach to user-centered design, the Social Justice Collaboratorium (SJC) development process consists of input from a community of engaged users to inform the wireframe, prototype, testing, and development phases. This includes gathering substantial qualitative and quantitative data such as surveys of LIS faculty, practitioners and students, as well as tracking web analytics once the tool is live.

The SJC allows for the confluence of research, resources, networks, best practices, and LIS school models in a centralized medium. Designed for LIS practitioners, faculty, staff, and students, as well as those interested in project management, resource development, and collaborative work, the SJC supports different approaches to social justice in LIS.

The SJC will be accessible to a distributed community of social justice LIS scholars, practitioners, students, and activists. Contributions from the community of users throughout every stage of the development process ensures participation, stewardship, and intentionality. In this way, the SJC will be a transformative tool for the LIS community as a vehicle for promoting equity and social change.

The authors ask the question of how libraries can advocate for themselves and for those who most need the library during the pandemic, and evaluate how the authors adapt to a future of helping underserved and underrepresented populations in new ways after it subsides.

Using data currently being provided by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other sources, prior issue analyses dealing with library programs and advocacy, and lessons from a few dystopian novels, the authors lay out the political and social implications of the coronavirus on libraries now and in the future.

Because the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic shut down physical library buildings everywhere, forcing extremely slow re-openings and decimating library programs, conversation is building now on how libraries will overcome its massive blow. Underrepresented populations who most need library information (namely, the homeless, Native Americans, Black and Hispanic peoples among others) are suffering disproportionately from the pandemic and its aftereffects that are just beginning to reverberate.

This paper presents a viewpoint backed by lessons from American history, specifically the Civil Rights Movement, and the dystopian novel 1984 by George Orwell. Currently, the conversations around what will happen to libraries are limited, but will hopefully grow as libraries (and the rest of the world) attempt to move forward in an unprecedented situation.