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Gail Bader is Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana. A cultural anthropologist, Bader’s research interests include educational anthropology, the cultural construction of work, computing and technology, and U.S. and Japanese culture.John M. Budd is Professor and Associate Director of the School of Information Science and Learning Technologies at the University of Missouri – Columbia. He is the author of numerous journal articles and books, including The Academic Library and Knowledge and Knowing in Library and Information Science.Bambi Burgard has served as Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs/Student Achievement at the Kansas City Art Institute since May 2002. Upon completion of her undergraduate education, she began doctoral study in counseling psychology at the University of Missouri-Kansas City where she earned her Ph.D. in 1999. She completed her predoctoral and postdoctoral internships at the University of Missouri-Kansas City counseling center.Harvey R. Gover is on the library faculty of Washington State University (WSU) Libraries and is the Assistant Campus Librarian for WSU Tri-Cities. Formerly, he was Public Services Librarian, Tarleton State University, a branch campus of Texas A&M. He was a principal author of the 2000 edition of ACRL Guidelines for Distance Learning Library Services.William Graves III is Associate Professor of Humanities at Bryant College in Smithfield, Rhode Island. A linguistic anthropologist, Graves is interested in the diverse roles that language and communication play in social and cultural change. He has conducted fieldwork on issues of social and cultural change among Native Americans, in diverse organizational settings in the U.S., in enterprises undergoing privatization in Russia and, most recently, among small-scale entrepreneurs in Belarus.José-Marie Griffiths served as the Chief Information Officer at the University of Michigan and Vice Chancellor for Information Infrastructure at the University of Tennessee. She was responsible for strategic IT planning; the development and implementation of academic and administrative computing, telecommunications and networking activities; and IT alliances with external organizations. She is the recipient of numerous awards for her contributions to information science, the development of the IT industry, and support for women in computing. She currently holds an endowed chair and professorship in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh and is Director of the University’s Sara Fine Institute for Interpersonal Behavior and Technology.John B. Harer has been a school and academic librarian for over twenty-seven years. As an academic librarian, he has held various positions in access services, reference, and personnel administration. He is currently the Director of the Library at Catawba College in Salisbury, NC.Donna Meyer’s career has included management of computer labs, teaching computer skills, designing curricula that integrated information skills into core subject areas, creating web sites, and managing library collections. She currently works as Director of Library Resources at Northcentral University in Prescott, Arizona, providing quality online graduate research services.Rush Miller has been Hillman University Librarian and Director of the University Library system at the University of Pittsburgh for eight years. He serves as co-chair for the Association of Research Libraries e-Metrics Project. Miller is active in the profession and writes regularly on library management, international librarianship, diversity, digital library content and e-Metrics.James M. Nyce, a cultural anthropologist, is interested in how information technologies are used in and can change workplaces and organizations, particularly in medicine and higher education. A docent at Linköping University, Nyce’s research interests include the historical, social aspects of library and information science, the design and evaluation of information systems, and information use in science and medicine. Nyce is Associate Professor at the School of Library and Information Management, Emporia State University, Emporia, Kansas, and Visiting Associate Professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis.Charles Oppenheim is Professor of Information Science at Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK. His main professional interest is where the law interacts with information services. He is also interested in knowledge management, measuring the value and impact of information, citation studies, bibliometrics, national and company information policy, the electronic information and publishing industries, ethical issues, chemical information handling, patents information and policy issues related to digital libraries and the Internet.Roswitha Poll is chief librarian of the University and Regional Library Münster. From 1991 to 1993 chair of the German Association of Academic Librarians, since 1997 chair of the German Standards Committee for Information and Documentation. She chaired the IFLA group for the handbook on performance measurement in libraries and is now convener of the ISO working group for the International Standard of Library Statistics and member of the ISO group for performance measurement. She is working in national and international groups on collection preservation, quality management, statistics and cost analysis in libraries.Mary Jane Rootes is a Public Services librarian at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, Georgia. She worked previously at the Pitts Library of Andrew College in Cuthbert, Georgia.Sherrie Schmidt is the Dean of University Libraries at Arizona State University. She began her tenure at ASU as Associate Dean of Library Services in 1990 and was named Dean in 1991. Prior to that, she worked at Texas A&M University, the University of Texas at Austin, the FAXON Company, the University of Texas at Dallas, AMIGOS, the University of Florida, and Ohio State University. Most of her professional activities relate to the use of technology in libraries.Joan Stenson is a Research Associate in the Department of Information Science at Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK, where she is currently undertaking a doctorate.Richard Wilson is Professor of Business Administration and Financial Management at Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK. He has inter-disciplinary interests in the valuation of information assets. His publications reflect his research interests in management control, financial control, marketing control and strategic control.

The call for value addition to library products and services has tremendously increased over the years worldwide. In Zimbabwe, that call has also been echoed in various forums and in support of that, the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (ZimAsset) pointed out the importance of value addition. The education sector has not been spared as it is responsible for producing graduates who feed into the labor market. This chapter seeks to explore how the libraries in institutions of higher learning have added value to education in support of the research, teaching, learning and community activities that are undertaken in higher education. A case study of Bindura University of Science Education (BUSE) Library was done. A qualitative study using interviews was carried out and content analysis was used to analyze the data. It was discovered that BUSE Library plays a pivotal role in adding value to the learning, teaching, research and community activities that take place in institutions of higher learning. The author recommends that libraries should move along with technological changes that are taking place so as to remain relevant in adding value to institutions of higher learning. It is also important to continue building the capacity of librarians in higher education institutions to ensure that they continue to add value in academic institutions.

Information users of all categories find it difficult to search information especially in this electronic age. To access information, the user has to know the necessary commands to use when searching for any information electronically. The study discussed the concept of digital literacy, Classification of Understanding the information user in electronic Age, Studies dealing with Information need and challenges of the information user in the electronic age. Suggestions on how to reach out efficiently and effectively to users were made.

Purpose – There is a dichotomy within library and information science (LIS) education today. It has been a long time coming, and the rise of information schools (iSchools) in LIS education, with their focus on skill sets that complement libraries and their mission but ultimately prepare students for careers and jobs outside of librarianship, is one of many contributing factors. Many accredited library programs that used to focus on preparing students for work in libraries are now expanding their courses and degrees more toward “information” rather than “libraries.” This is understandable given that many library science programs have been subsumed into other departments and colleges such as business, education, and information technology, where their expertise in educating and training students toward graduate degrees is highly regarded and where the available jobs and salaries outside of libraries are much more numerous and desirable. This chapter hopes to frame the current challenges from the perspective of one member of the ALA Committee on Accreditation (COA).

Design/Methodology/Approach – This is an opinion piece, based on the author’s current membership on COA and focus on the library profession.

Findings – As an opinion piece, there are no findings.

Originality/Value – This chapter tries to show the value of the library profession and its curriculum in today’s society.

The chapter discusses the importance of capacity building and need for continuous professional development for library and information science professionals in university libraries. The changing dynamics in higher education, information and communication technologies and the shift in the learning landscape has led to more demands for skills and competencies of library and information professionals. The need for training is more urgent than before. If University Libraries are to remain relevant in the 21st Century, they need to constantly adapt and have professional staff who are able to cope with such rapidly changing environments enabling them to deliver resources and services efficiently and effectively. The chapter, therefore, document the importance of capacitating staff in university libraries.

Purpose – The authors of this chapter, through exploratory survey research, asked several simple questions about what library workers wish they had learned during graduate school and what they would focus on now if they were just beginning their library and information science (LIS) education.

Methodology – The authors designed and distributed a simple pilot survey with multiple-choice and open-ended questions.

Findings – The survey results identify several key subjects and skills that library professionals wished they had focused more directly on during their LIS education. These included management, technology, pedagogy, and others. The authors suggest collaborating with other departments within the traditional university to deliver these skills so as to prepare future librarians for the dynamic and collaborative settings of modern libraries. Moreover, the authors also suggest using this information, and similar information from your own organizations, to guide future professional development opportunities in your libraries.

School library media specialists (SLMSs) often struggle with assuming leadership roles. Discrepancies existed in perceptions of SLMSs of their leadership preparedness, their opportunities to exert leadership, and their assumption of leadership roles. The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore the perceptions of SLMSs regarding their instructional leadership and to examine the extent to which they practiced instructional leadership. The study was designed to determine whether there were differences between SLMSs perceptions of the importance of their leadership roles and their opportunities to practice those roles. The results of the study indicated that SLMSs perceived all of the leadership roles to be more important than they were able to carry out in practice and that supportive administrators were the most essential factor in providing SLMSs the opportunity to practice and expand their roles as instructional leaders.

This chapter traces the history of diversity and inclusion efforts at the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland as an example of an institution that has made diversity and inclusion central to its activities.

By exploring the successes and failures of a program that identifies itself as activist in terms of diversity and inclusion, this chapter offers a portrait of the evolution of cutting edge diversity and inclusion efforts in the field.

Widespread changes to the diversity and inclusiveness of library and information science education, professions, and institutions depend on all parts of the field committing to these issues, sharing ideas and best practices, and becoming activists for equity.

This chapter presents a gap analysis of the perspectives of small businesses and rural librarians in Tennessee in order to develop an implementation blueprint of a public library small business toolkit, a resource that the state’s rural public libraries can create for small businesses in the future.

The chapter reports on select comparison data sets collected via two exploratory online surveys with small businesses and rural public librarians, respectively, in an externally funded planning grant awarded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services’ National Leadership Grants for Libraries (Research category) to the School of Information Sciences at the University of Tennessee.

Findings from the gap analysis of the perspectives of small businesses and rural librarians provide similarities and differences between the two stakeholder groups in terms of

• existing assistance needs of small businesses,

• information-related challenges small businesses experience,

• desired public library use, and

• information-related components of a public library small business toolkit.

existing assistance needs of small businesses,

information-related challenges small businesses experience,

desired public library use, and

information-related components of a public library small business toolkit.

The study is a unique example of action research based on varied levels of participation in rural research and action, learning through collaboration, community inquiry into everyday experiences and potential impact, use of mixed methods, and the situated nature of applications and concrete outcomes. It serves as a pilot case experience and prototype assessment test bed to expand strategies for the entire Appalachian region and other rural environments in the future.