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1 – 10 of 49Starr Hoffman and Samantha Godbey
This paper explores trends over time in library staffing and staffing expenditures among two- and four-year colleges and universities in the United States.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper explores trends over time in library staffing and staffing expenditures among two- and four-year colleges and universities in the United States.
Design/methodology/approach
Researchers merged and analyzed data from 1996 to 2016 from the National Center for Education Statistics for over 3,500 libraries at postsecondary institutions. This study is primarily descriptive in nature and addresses the research questions: How do staffing trends in academic libraries over this period of time relate to Carnegie classification and institution size? How do trends in library staffing expenditures over this period of time correspond to these same variables?
Findings
Across all institutions, on average, total library staff decreased from 1998 to 2012. Numbers of librarians declined at master’s and doctoral institutions between 1998 and 2016. Numbers of students per librarian increased over time in each Carnegie and size category. Average inflation-adjusted staffing expenditures have remained steady for master's, baccalaureate and associate's institutions. Salaries as a percent of library budget decreased only among doctoral institutions and institutions with 20,000 or more students.
Originality/value
This is a valuable study of trends over time, which has been difficult without downloading and merging separate data sets from multiple government sources. As a result, few studies have taken such an approach to this data. Consequently, institutions and libraries are making decisions about resource allocation based on only a fraction of the available data. Academic libraries can use this study and the resulting data set to benchmark key staffing characteristics.
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This paper seeks to determine common and unique activities, promotional methods, time management strategies, and best practices of academic librarians embedded in online courses…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to determine common and unique activities, promotional methods, time management strategies, and best practices of academic librarians embedded in online courses at six institutions.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a mixed methods study using both interviews and quantitative data to study the activities and experiences of embedded librarians at six institutions.
Findings
The librarians and faculty involved in the embedded services reported unexpected benefits to the service. However, experiences with managing the time required for embedding along with regular reference duties varied, and scaling up the service from a few courses to a regular library service caused staffing issues for a few institutions.
Research limitations/implications
This study was exploratory by nature and thus its scope was limited. Because only six institutions were studied, it is difficult to determine the true state of embedded librarianship in the USA. Future research should build on the foundation to determine outcomes for which embedded service is best suited and perform cost‐benefit analyses.
Practical implications
Because embedded services can become popular quickly, individual librarians should work with library administrators to determine whether staffing a full‐scale service will be possible and plan accordingly. If a full‐scale service is not feasible, the service scope may need to be limited (for instance, to core courses or to specific academic departments).
Originality/value
Past research on embedded librarianship has been limited to single institutions or to purposes and outcomes of the service. This paper provides a comparative study of embedded librarians at six institutions, and concentrates on the librarian's experience at each.
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The paper aims to give a synopsis of proceedings at the Internet Librarian International Conference held at the Olympia Conference Centre, London from 15 to 16 October 2013 from a…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to give a synopsis of proceedings at the Internet Librarian International Conference held at the Olympia Conference Centre, London from 15 to 16 October 2013 from a participant's viewpoint.
Design/methodology/approach
The narrative method of describing events as they occurred was used.
Findings
The conference provided participants with a wide array of information that spanned the three tracks the sub-themes of the conference were divided into. Participants had opportunities to network and find out more about the products the sponsors showcased as well.
Originality/value
The report tells what transpired at the conference and exposes new technologies, new resources and innovative ways of using the technologies available to librarians and other information professionals.
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Brittany Paloma Fiedler, Rosan Mitola and James Cheng
The purpose of this paper is to describe how an academic library at one of the most diverse universities in the country responded to the 2016 election through the newly formed…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe how an academic library at one of the most diverse universities in the country responded to the 2016 election through the newly formed Inclusion and Equity Committee and through student outreach.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper details the context of the 2016 election and the role of social justice in librarianship. It offers ideas for how library diversity committees can address professional development, recruitment and retention efforts and cultural humility. It highlights student outreach efforts to support marginalized students, educate communities and promote student activism. Finally, it offers considerations and suggestions for librarians who want to engage in this work.
Findings
This paper shows that incorporating social justice, diversity, equity and inclusion requires individuals taking action. If institutions want to focus on any of these issues, they need to formally include them in their mission, vision and values as well as in department goals and individual job descriptions. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas University Libraries fully supports this work, but most of the labor is done by a small number of people. Unsustainable practices can cause employee burnout and turnover resulting in less internal and external efforts to support diversity.
Originality/value
Most of the previous literature focuses either on internal activities, such as professional development and committees, or on student-focused activities, such as outreach events, displays and instruction. This paper is one comprehensive review of both kinds of activities.
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Our innovation work involves unlocking the potential of individuals, teams, groups and organizations by tapping peoples' creativity and critical thinking powers through a process…
Abstract
Purpose
Our innovation work involves unlocking the potential of individuals, teams, groups and organizations by tapping peoples' creativity and critical thinking powers through a process called Metaphorming. This paper describes how Metaphorming works to continually inspire innovative thinking. Facilitators guide participants in making and exploring symbolic models that show and describe their ideas, plans, and goals, while pointing out possibilities for achieving them.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on our work with businesses as diverse as building supplies, computers, consumer packaging goods, energy, environmental studies, finance, government, healthcare, insurance, lawyers & law enforcement, telecommunications, and technology‐oriented venture capital organizations, we've found that every business can benefit from all‐purpose creativity and communication tools. They help improve human communication by fostering understanding. The tools our company provides include facilitated, hands‐on workshops that incorporate arts‐based and science‐based innovation techniques to help organizations realize their goals as they “learn by doing.”
Findings
This article relates some of the tangible results our clients gained from using our tools and methods to catalyze innovations, generate new products, and develop new business solutions.
Originality/value
Metaphorming offers the next generation of brainstorming tools for all aspects of business development. It enables everyone to freely create and communicate ideas, utilizing the versatile, dynamic, symbolic models they make; essentially, they “show‐n‐tell‐n‐share” their stories in effective, memorable and productive ways.
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Kathryn Lefroy and Yelena Tsarenko
The goal of this study is to examine the influence of resources provided to nonprofit organisations by corporate partners on the achievement of nonprofits' social and…
Abstract
Purpose
The goal of this study is to examine the influence of resources provided to nonprofit organisations by corporate partners on the achievement of nonprofits' social and organisational objectives, accounting for mediation effects of dependence and relationship. This goal is investigated from the perspective of nonprofit organisations.
Design/methodology/approach
Following 20 preliminary in-depth interviews, an online survey was administered to people working in nonprofit industry who had experience working with their organisation's corporate partnership. With 273 completed questionnaires, the authors tested the model with mediation analyses, using bias-corrected bootstrap confidence intervals method.
Findings
Although reputation, non-financial resources and cash investments have strong and positive effects on achieving social and organisational objectives, these relations are fully mediated by dependence and relationship between partners. Further analysis shows that relationship is a significantly stronger mediator than dependence on the effect of reputation in regards to the achievement of both sets of objectives.
Originality/value
This article builds on marketing knowledge, using resource dependence theory to focus on the effects of corporate-provided resources on nonprofit organisations; a topic largely unexplored in extant literature. It is the first study to operationalise and empirically examine the specific effects of different types of resources on specific nonprofit performance objectives.
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I. Hoffman and J.S. Koga
Provides a bibliography of CD‐ROM for librarians, covering casestudies, costs, product evaluation guidelines, databases, CDI,downloading/copyright and CD vs. online, for use when…
Abstract
Provides a bibliography of CD‐ROM for librarians, covering case studies, costs, product evaluation guidelines, databases, CDI, downloading/copyright and CD vs. online, for use when making decisions about the adoption of CD‐ROM.
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Jean-Louis Bertrand and Miia Parnaudeau
Retailers have long been aware that weather affects the sales of a myriad of products, but until now, most were not in a position to manage the risks weather presents. Rising…
Abstract
Purpose
Retailers have long been aware that weather affects the sales of a myriad of products, but until now, most were not in a position to manage the risks weather presents. Rising weather variability combined with advances in weather-index financial instruments have prompted new interest in investigating the relationship between sales and weather. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of changes in weather on UK retail sales, to estimate the contribution of weather to sales, and evaluate the maximum potential loss caused by adverse weather, for each season and retail sector.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors present a methodology to identify and quantify the extent to which a company is exposed to weather risks, in order to incorporate them into its risk management policy and take actions to mitigate these risks. For each season and each retail category, the authors provide a measure of the impact of weather on sales that can be used as a benchmark to analyse sales performance.
Findings
The authors propose a new risk assessment indicator to evaluate the potential losses caused by adverse weather (WeatherRisk). The authors show that intra-annual changes in weather significantly affect retail sales. The exposure of retail categories to weather are not the same depending on the season, and the response of individual retail categories to the same change in weather varies considerably. Although temperature is a predominant explanatory variable, the authors show that weather-sensitivity analysis should include precipitation, humidity rate and wind.
Research limitations/implications
One limitation of this study is that the authors individually compute WeatherRisk for each significant weather variable. Further research could explore new approaches to evaluate Total WeatherRisk, which take into account potential multicollinearity issues between weather variables.
Practical implications
The methodology allows retailers to measure the effects of weather on sales performance, evaluate the risks at stake, and protect sales and margins from weather risks, with newly available index-based financial instruments. Managers may now actively use weather as a differential advantage, and at the same time focus their efforts on improving resiliency to increasing climate variability.
Originality/value
In this paper, the authors produce a detailed analysis of the exposure of each retail sectors to unseasonal weather. This is the first time all retail sectors are analysed and ranked per season at a national level. The authors provide managers with actionable information to improve their understanding of how weather impact sales over each season, and to allow them to structure weather-index-based instruments with financial partners.
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Alison Verbeck and MaryEllen Sievert
A comparison of the indexing on Eric and Lisa of the three journals devoted to online searching, Online, Online Review and Database, revealed some differences, but a greater…
Abstract
A comparison of the indexing on Eric and Lisa of the three journals devoted to online searching, Online, Online Review and Database, revealed some differences, but a greater number of similarities. On average, Lisa assigned more terms/document but Eric indexed more concepts/document. A critical subset of the vocabulary which distinguished online searching (a small number of terms used frequently) did emerge for each, but there were no exact matches in the terminology of the two systems. Several words within the multi‐ word phrases, however, were the same. For both systems, at least one term from the critical subset had been assigned to more than half the articles in the sample. Further, in each system, a single term had been assigned to more than eighty percent of the sample.
Abstract
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