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The purpose of this article is to study how public libraries argue for the inclusion of non-traditional library collections and to identify public library objectives related to these collections.

The data was collected through a Web survey which was sent to public library managers in all Swedish municipalities. Data were analyzed using a model in which public library practices are divided into three categories relating to the public library’s goals, activities and tools.

Three different main arguments are used to support the introduction of non-traditional collections: as a contribution to public library goals or activities to attract non-users and as the result of external requests or needs. Through analysis of the survey results, the public library’s common goal, a socially sustainable society, was identified. Other library goals identified were an environmentally sustainable society and an improved library.

The results may inspire practitioners to reflect upon how non-traditional collections are related to library goals and activities and what consequences their inclusion may have for the library. For example, if non-traditional collections are used only to attract new users, there is a risk of creating expectations that the library cannot live up to.

Today, focus is placed on the conditions for public libraries in the digital world. It is easy to overlook the importance of non-traditional library collections, and the role they fulfill. This article draws attention to these collections and their possible consequences for public libraries.

The purpose of this paper is three-fold. Firstly, through selected case studies, to provide an overview of how non-traditional data from digital public services were used as a source of knowledge for policymaking. Secondly, to argue for a design for policy approach to support the successful integration of non-traditional data into policymaking practice, thus supporting data-driven innovation for policymaking. Thirdly, to encourage a vision of the relation between data-driven innovation and public policy that considers policymaking outside the authoritative instrumental logic perspective.

A qualitative small-N case study analysis based on desk research data was developed to provide an overview of how data-centric public services could become a source of knowledge for policymaking. The analysis was based on an original theoretical-conceptual framework that merges the policy cycle model and the policy capacity framework.

This paper identifies three potential areas of contribution of a design for policy approach in a scenario of data-driven innovation for policymaking practice: the development of sensemaking and prefiguring activities to shape a shared rationale behind intra-/inter-organisational data sharing and data collaboratives; the realisation of collaborative experimentations for enhancing the systemic policy analytical capacity of a governing body, e.g. by integrating non-traditional data into new and trusted indicators for policy evaluation; and service design as approach for data-centric public services that connects policy decisions to the socio-technical context in which data are collected.

The small-N sample (four cases) selected is not representative of a broader population but isolates exemplary initiatives. Moreover, the analysis was based on secondary sources, limiting the assessment quality of the real use of non-traditional data for policymaking. This level of empirical understanding is considered sufficient for an explorative analysis that supports the original perspective proposed here. Future research will need to collect primary data about the potential and dynamics of how data from data-centric public services can inform policymaking and substantiate the proposed areas of a design for policy contribution with practical experimentations and cases.

This paper proposes a convergence, yet largely underexplored, between the two emerging perspectives on innovation in policymaking: data for policy and design for policy. This convergence helps to address the designing of data-driven innovations for policymaking, while considering pragmatic indications of socially acceptable practices in this space for practitioners.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether visitors’ seeking and escaping motivations influence the cognitive evaluation of a non-traditional festival in Saudi Arabia, which in turn leads to the sense of joy and subsequent word-of-mouth publicity. In Saudi Arabia, leisure and tourism opportunities are limited and many Saudis have a strong desire for new leisure experiences. Although the government and event organizers have made efforts to provide visitors with unconventional experiences at non-tradition-based festivals, these festivals have not attracted many Saudi Arabian visitors.

A quantitative methodology was used based on the on-site data collected from 458 visitors attending the Abha summer festival in Saudi Arabia. A structural equation modeling was used to test the relationships among seeking motivations, escaping motivations, cognitive evaluation, sense of joy and word-of-mouth.

The result reveals that two seeking motivations (i.e. food and entertainment) and two escaping motivations (i.e. diversion and escape) influence cognitive evaluation, which in turn influences their sense of joy and ultimately word-of-mouth. However, novelty, a seeking motivation, does not influence cognitive evaluation.

The authors limited the study of seeking and escaping motivations to one non-traditional festival in Saudi Arabia. Further studies can use multiple festivals to increase generalizability to non-traditional festivals in Saudi Arabia. Another extension of this study would be to examine these motivations in both traditional and non-traditional festivals in Saudi Arabia to assess to what extent visitors’ seeking and escaping motivations are fulfilled in each type of festival.

Diversion motivation is the most important factor for non-traditional festival organizers to consider in developing strategies to attract more visitors in Saudi Arabia.

This paper is the first that applies Iso-Ahola’s motivation theory and the cognitive appraisal theory of emotion in the non-traditional festival setting in Saudi Arabia.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate tool lending library patrons’ perception of their tool borrowing, in order to explore the role of a public lending service in the context of their lives. It addresses the research question, why do patrons borrow tools from the library?

A case study was conducted, consisting of semi-structured interviews with patrons of a tool lending library. Led by a phenomenographic approach, the interviews focused on participants’ recounted experiences. Transcripts were structured into major categories and underlying themes. Findings were discussed from a perspective taking departure in Wiegand’s notion of “the library in the life of the user,” and summarized with regards to sustainable community development.

Participants are found to talk about their tool borrowing from two main viewpoints. First, reasons for making the decision. This involves weighing practical considerations, e.g., cost, storage, access, and frequency of use. It also includes ideological motivations, and sympathy with the concept. Second, effects of their borrowing, interpreted as how it enables them. This enablement includes inspiration, learning, support to self-employment, and strengthening of community. Patrons focus on local aspects of social and economic development, rather than global or environmental motivations.

A single and in part unique setting was studied. The findings provide foundation for a developed discussion on the societal role of public libraries providing “non-traditional” materials such as tools, with particular regards to community settings and sustainability.

Addresses knowledge gaps on borrowing and tool lending libraries.

The purpose of this paper is to describe different collective ways that archivists, librarians and those with dual-roles experience archives.

Using a phenomenographic approach, a total of 24 librarians, archivists and dual-role individuals were interviewed, and interview transcripts were analyzed to create categories that described the varying ways in which archives are experienced.

Librarians experienced archives in four ways: historical resources, preserving history, preserved access and political. Archivists experienced archives in four ways: accessible collections, connection, collaboration and stewardship. Dual-role individuals experienced archives in five ways: collections, preserved access, progress, connection and knowledge creators. There are variations among and within each group on how archives are experienced. However, there is a significant overlap in many categories in terms of access, preservation, use and collections.

Understanding each other’s different perspectives could lead to stronger partnerships among librarians, archivists and dual-role individuals. These partnerships have the potential to increase the visibility of archives, providing greater access and engagement for community members.

The study supports previous phenomenographic research on experiences of archives and provides a more nuanced understanding of information professionals’ varying collective experiences of archives.

In 2013, the National Information Standards Organization launched a three-year project to identify areas of potential community consensus around these new metrics and then develop recommended practices in those areas. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

After collecting community input on potential activities, NISO surveyed the community to prioritize five areas of work around which to develop community consensus.

The NISO Working Groups produced a set of recommended practices that included: definitions and use cases for alternative metrics, applications of metrics for non-traditional scholarly outputs, collections of persistent identifiers around which metrics can be built, and a Code of Conduct for metrics providers.

The development of standards and recommended practices around altmetrics will encourage adoption of these new metrics forms and will add to the trust in those metrics for the academy.

Under the Illinois Library System Act, the head librarians of the University of Illinois, Southern Illinois University, Chicago Public, and Illinois State Libraries, with the Chairman, Illinois State Library Advisory Committee, serve as the Research and Reference Center Committee. The R & R Committee's first duty in encouraging and in making available adequate library research and reference facilities for the residents of Illinois is “to develop long range acquisition policies to strengthen the existing collections and to avoid unnecessary duplication.” To this end, a subcommittee, broadly representative of the Illinois library community, was appointed late in 1975 with specific charge to identify unmet needs of the Illinois library and information network and to make recommendations to identify or to develop collections to meet these needs. The Subcommittee's report, accepted by the parent committee in February, 1977, follows. The R & R Committee directed that the report be distributed widely to library systems and to other appropriate groups in the state and that their consideration and response be aggressively sought, supported, and encouraged before the casting and adoption of the plan, the determination of priorities, and the implementation of the grand design. This plan is now before the Illinois library community for preview, with the anticipation that it will provoke the thought, reaction, and action vitally necessary to make it a vehicle for the continuance of the state's record of dynamic library development.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the state of contemporary publishing, specifically the realms of fanfiction and self-publishing, for the ways in which readership is represented in conjunction with authors and publishers within the publication process. The structure of this process is then compared with Robert Darnton’s communications circuit in order to propose a new model for the publication. As the publication process has a profound impact on the teaching and practice of collection development and reader studies in LIS, the discipline must be aware of any changes to the publication process.

Using the case study approach, this research examines the cultural product, Fifty Shades of Grey (FSOG). Evidence included fanfiction and self-published manuscripts, reader reception of these texts, and a timeline of how the texts developed.

Evidence gathered from the case study illustrate a variety of players and infrastructure present in the development and trajectory of FSOG. Throughout the entire development of the cultural product, readers were found to be active agents in the publication process promoting strong connections between reader and author. Findings focus on the themes of textual development and their publicity.

Proposes a new model for the publication process that includes fanfiction and self-publishing.

In the fall of 2002, the University of Illinois Library at Urbana‐Champaign received a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to implement a collection registry and item‐level metadata repository for digital collections and content created by or associated with projects funded under the IMLS National Leadership Grant (NLG) program. When built, the registry and metadata repository will facilitate retrieval of information about digital content related to past and present NLG projects. The process of creating these services also is allowing us to research and gain insight into the many issues associated with implementing such services and the magnitude of the potential benefit and utility of such services as a way to connect, bring together, and make more visible a broad range of heterogeneous digital content. This paper describes the genesis of the project, the rationale for architectural design decisions, challenges faced, and our progress to date.

The study is concerned with gathering factual data on the use of local online information systems, automation, online connections, online public access catalogs (OPACs), CD‐ROM‐based systems in 19 Jordanian university libraries.

Information was sought through a written questionnaire; personal interviews; literature review, and field visits. The implementation of local online information systems; OPACs, CD‐ROM databases, online searching, networks/databases subscribed to, methods of online services to users, problems and solutions are investigated.

Of the 18 (94.7 percent) libraries responded, half (50 percent) are using MINISIS or CDS/ISIS, one‐third (33.3 percent) is using either M2L, or ORACLE based systems, and 3 (16.7 percent) are using locally designed packages. Technical processing, information retrieval, circulation, reference services, and serial control are the prime systems functions. All respondents are linked to the internet. A total of 15 (83.3 percent) respondents have developed collections of databases on CD‐ROMs; 11 (73.3 percent) use single‐ access, and four (26.7 percent) use multi‐user systems.

Online services are provided mostly by traditional means. Lack of skilled staff, shortages of fund, and insufficient hardware are prime obstacles hindering systems optimal utilization. Outdated databases, cost, and users incompetence are problems limiting the optimal use of online systems. Developing intranet, funding, trained manpower, training courses to users, sharing subscription expenses in electronic full‐text database, and promote cooperation to exchange OPACs records through the internet, are suggested solutions to overcome these problems.

Academic libraries in Jordan are changing emphasis from ownership of information sources in printed forms, to the access to online databases or local area networks systems based on CD‐ROMs, to linkage with the internet as a prime gateway to information sources.