Search results

The purpose of this paper is to explore stress among reference library staff in academic and public libraries in one of the European countries. The study has been conducted to ascertain whether members of the reference staff undergo stress, whether they consider the reference work stressful, how often they are exposed to stress, which situations are most stressful and how they cope with stress in the workplace and in their private lives.

A semi-structured interview is applied as a data collection technique so that interviewees are able to express their opinions on stress and to describe stress as an individual experience. A convenience sample of members of the reference library staff in ten academic and ten public libraries is prepared.

The reference library staff in the academic and public libraries is aware of stress causing damage to one’s health and work performance. The reference staff in the public libraries is more frequently exposed to stress than those in the academic libraries. The users are considered the main stressor owing to their complex reference questions, vague information needs and requests, wanting information and materials immediately, not following the library rules, etc.

The sample is small and not representative, including only two types of libraries. The research may serve as a preliminary study, as it offers insights into the work-related stress among the reference staff in the academic and public libraries.

This is the first research on the stress of the reference library staff in the academic and public libraries in the country. It contributes to the understanding of the work-related stress in the libraries. Identifying stressful situations can help the reference staff and employers take appropriate strategies to cope with stress.

The purpose of this paper is to report on research that examined the potential affects of academic library consortia activity on the scholarly publishing cycle.

Semi‐structured interviews of 30 university librarians from across Canada and representatives from six federal government agencies involved in university funding, copyright and competition policy, were used to examine consortia activity in the broad context of the scholarly publishing cycle from the competing perspectives of the market economy and the public good. The principles of competition and copyright were used to define the theoretical premise of the research.

University librarians primarily see consortia activity as supporting academic libraries' public good role of providing access to information as equitably and as barrier‐free as possible. They saw consortia as more than just buying clubs, but also as a means for libraries to share resources and expertise. Federal government agency representatives saw consortia activity firmly anchored in the market economy, levelling the playing field between libraries and publishers, and providing libraries opportunities to leverage their budgets.

This research was unique to the Canadian situation of federal funding of universities and only a sampling of university librarians was feasible.

The results show a need to educate librarians and government funding bodies and policy makers as to the goals and outcomes of consortia activity.

At the time of the defence of the thesis this work had not been done before.

This paper aims to present recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy, providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering various library types, study populations and research contexts.

This paper introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, reports and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2019.

The paper provides a brief description of all 370 sources and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians, researchers and anyone interested as a quick and comprehensive reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

This study aims to understand how artificial Intelligence (AI) and related technologies are currently being utilized in public and academic libraries and how librarians perceive the adoption of new technologies in their relative libraries.

Using an online survey questionnaire, the authors collected survey responses from both public and academic librarians that were subscribed to information science-centered listservs in North America. The quantitative survey responses (N = 242) were measured through use of multiple chi-square tests and crosstab analyses.

The current use and awareness of AI and related technologies were more reported from academic librarians; however, public librarians' reported perceptions on such technologies were generally more positive. In all, 67% of them responded that AI and related technologies will transform the library's functions, and 68% of librarians reported that they are interested in training. This study discussed the significance of training for preparing librarians for AI and related technologies and the further examination on the role of librarians in the new era.

This study examined public and academic librarians' perceptions toward the adoption of six emerging technologies which often appear in the LIS literature as well as addressed as the Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.

Introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2013.

Provides information about each source, discusses the characteristics of current scholarship and describes sources that contain unique scholarly contributions and quality reproductions.

The information may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

Few issues in recent times have so provoked debate and dissention within the library field as has the concept of fees for user services. The issue has aroused the passions of our profession precisely because its roots and implications extend far beyond the confines of just one service discipline. Its reflection is mirrored in national debates about the proper spheres of the public and private sectors—in matters of information generation and distribution, certainly, but in a host of other social ramifications as well, amounting virtually to a debate about the most basic values which we have long assumed to constitute the very framework of our democratic and humanistic society.

This paper aims to present the results of interviews conducted with public library directors and academic Chief Librarians on various topics connected with library quality in order to determine the library culture in those libraries.

Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with ten library directors.

These interviews represent some of the findings of the project “Evaluation of library and information services: public and academic libraries”. The project investigates library culture in Croatian public and academic libraries and their preparedness for the introduction performance measurement activities. The interviews reveal that library culture has changed positively over the last few years and that library leaders now have a positive attitude towards quality and evaluation activities.

The findings from the interviews with ten library directors form only a small part of the results of a much larger and comprehensive data gathering exercise (including survey and statistical data).

Library culture in Croatian libraries is a relatively new concept and as such has not been actively developed and/or created. This article brings the newest update on views, opinions and atmosphere in Croatian public and academic libraries.

This paper presents recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy. It provides an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering various library types, study populations and research contexts. The selected bibliography is useful to efficiently keep up with trends in library instruction for busy practitioners, library science students and those wishing to learn about information literacy in other contexts.

This article annotates 424 English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, theses and reports on library instruction and information literacy published in 2021. The sources were selected from the EBSCO platform for Library, Information Science, and Technology Abstracts (LISTA), Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), Scopus, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, and WorldCat, published in 2021 that included the terms “information literacy,” “library instruction,” or “information fluency” in the title, abstract or keywords. The sources were organized in Zotero. Annotations summarize the source, focusing on the findings or implications. Each source was categorized into one of seven pre-determined categories: K-12 Education, Children and Adolescents; Academic and Professional Programs; Everyday Life, Community, and the Workplace; Libraries and Health Information Literacy; Multiple Library Types; and Other Information Literacy Research and Theory.

The paper provides a brief description of 424 sources and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians, researchers and anyone interested as a quick and comprehensive reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy within 2021.

Discourses on critical librarianship have been mainly theoretical. However, discourses with a practical application of Critical Theory in librarianship, critical librarianship, or library management and operations are limited. Yet, librarianship underscores efficiency and practicality in service provision with the dominant ideology in librarianship being practicality. Based on Critical Theory and emerging power dynamics in e-services, this chapter presents a discussion on the practical application of Critical Theory in academic libraries. The Web 2.0 technologies have triggered a shift in information seeking and use by empowering the academic library users to seek and use information from nontraditional sources. This shift in information seeking behavior and the resultant power dynamics has an impact on strengthening of the academic library as a public sphere; a public virtual space where people can meet and exchange ideas with the eventual outcome of democratization of knowledge. This chapter analyses the practical implications of power dynamics in academic libraries and the need for realignment of academic library functions to key Critical Success Factors (CSFs) including the role of library management, a focus on librarian power, a focus on user empowerment, creating awareness of the Web 2.0 services, and maximizing the use of Web 2.0 technologies. A proper realignment of the shifting power is necessary and must be pursued as a deliberate strategy by academic libraries to facilitate generation and sharing of information. It concludes by presenting the practical implications of power dynamics in academic libraries and recommendations on dealing with the emerging paradigm shifts.

The purpose of this study is to document and compare the extent of book collections on the topic of the Taliban in selected academic libraries in New York and New Jersey, the New York Public Library and the military academy at West Point.

Books on the Taliban were chosen as an index of the Afghanistan war since the Taliban are its major defining element. WorldCat was searched (www.worldcat.org) using the following criteria: “kw: taliban” > “English” > “Non‐Fiction” > “Non‐Juvenile”. In total 1,668 titles were found. Duplicates were eliminated, as were theses, government publications, ephemera and other items. Closely related titles were amalgamated. Only works that had “Taliban” in the title or subtitle were chosen from the cumulative groups above, resulting in a total of 83 titles.

Only two libraries crossed 50 percent of the “core” collection of 83 titles. A total of 27 percent of the 83 titles (n=22) were not held by any library, and only seven books were in all libraries. New York Public Library topped the modest rankings and scored above the academic libraries and West Point. West Point ranked last by a big margin (29 points). New York Public Library scored better than all the academic libraries with 49 percent of the 83 titles, followed closely by Columbia University with 46 percent. There was an eight‐point drop to 38 percent for New York University, which modestly outpointed the 35 percent for Princeton.

A possible research limitation is that the degree of library holdings may not reflect the low level of engagement by the public, academia and military in the ongoing wars.

The research may indicate a low priority by collection development librarians in public libraries and in the libraries of academic and military colleges to develop a comprehensive collection of material on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. The paper argues that more extensive collections should be built despite the media and the general population's antipathy to the war. A comprehensive collection for students, scholars, the public and the next generation of officers about a contemporary war which has profound financial, political and military sequelae should be a priority for collection‐building librarians.

The low holdings of books on the Taliban, and hence the war in Afghanistan, in public and academic libraries and the library of West Point may reflect the low level of interest of the US population in the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq (and Libya).