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This chapter discusses hurdles posed to a medium-sized public university library in the Midwest when they were asked by their Dean to create a faculty workload worksheet, rationale, and ultimately a set of guidelines. Faculty in other departments compute their loads using formulas based on course loads. How many hours they spend in the classroom, and how many hours they spend preparing for that time in the classroom are factored into the course loads expected for a full teaching load, with release granted in course load equivalents for research and/or service. Because librarian work does not typically involve teaching credit-bearing courses, a major challenge to constructing guidelines is equating library work with course loads. Calculating faculty workload for librarians commensurate with other faculty on campus is often complicated. To all of these challenges add the unique issues that are faced by the technical services (TS) librarian. TS work supports instruction and research but may involve little classroom contact with students, so it has even less resemblance to classroom instruction than other librarian work has. TS librarians spend their time in a wide variety of tasks. Exactly how to formulate this time in accordance with the rules for other departmental faculty is a challenge. The specific situation at this university added more complications as there was also a campus-wide mandate to ensure all workload policies are consistent and equitable.

Faculty unionization is growing, and library faculty members are included in many collective bargaining units. Yet there is a dearth of information on how well collective bargaining contracts address the sometimes unique nature of library faculty work. This article explores contracts in a number of Ohio universities and from selective institutions around the country to see how well they accommodate the professional and work-related needs of librarians. Major contractual issues addressed include governance, academic freedom, workload, salary, and the retention, tenure, and promotion (RTP) of faculty, among others.

Correctional library staff are essential to fulfilling the rehabilitative mission of prisons, but their work is too often misunderstood and neglected. The Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) Libraries have a 272% turnover rate and struggle with many long-term vacancies. Despite being the lowest-paid staff in CDOC, library staff are asked to fulfill two distinct sets of responsibilities: that of running a library, and facility safety and security tasks.

Based upon original research, the Colorado State Library (CSL) has created a standard for minimum staffing levels for CDOC Libraries and a formula that can be applied no matter what service model a correctional library uses. CSL has found that to improve recruitment and retention of its library staff, CDOC needs to (1) improve pay and the librarian promotional path by changing staff to a class series which more appropriately reflects the job duties and level of decision-making and (2) create more library staff positions statewide in order to meet the minimum staffing levels.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the literature on pathfinders, from the 1970s to the present.

The paper reviews a range of publications which describe the methodology of pathfinders, provide practical advice and information, present research results, to aid librarians and library administrators in how to best manage the production and marketing of pathfinders.

It was found that not much has been written on pathfinders. A few articles on traditional pathfinders were published between 1972 and 1995. In 1996, the electronic format took over. Most of the articles are of a practical nature although some describe empirical research. One void in the literature that has been found is librarians' lack of knowledge of users' needs and preferences. This results in much time and effort being dedicated to the production of pathfinders but without any consideration of users, thus discouraging them from using the available resources.

This paper will be a useful source of information for librarians. It provides an overview of guidelines and best practices currently reported in the literature as well as the latest technical and educational trends.

Such an extensive review of the literature on pathfinders has not been done before. It provides practical information for librarians wanting to embark on the production of pathfinders. It also identifies possible areas of future study.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive assessment of promotion and tenure for librarians in light of increased scrutiny and expectations by the administration of Idaho State University (ISU). This increased rigour was prompted by a move up in the Carnegie Classification System.

A literature review was performed using library databases, as well as assessing peer institution promotion and tenure documents. Additionally ongoing feedback from University administrators was solicited. The process took for the creation of a new promotion and tenure document for ISU library took two years from the beginning of the project to the final approved document.

The study found a dearth of performance benchmarks in both literature and peer institution policies and required the authors, along with other library faculty, to create evidence based benchmarks for ISU aligned with traditional standards of teaching, research and service.

This paper is an inclusive assessment of the literature on faculty promotion and tenure, the policies of ISU’s peer institutions, and the change of Carnegie Classification’s impact on the ISU policies.

The study sought to explore and compare the current levels of job stress among academic library staff at the University of Botswana (UB) and the University of Zambia (UNZA). The accessible populations consisted of library staff (n=19) at the University of Botswana and (n=25) at the University of Zambia.The purpose of this paper is present the identified perceived sources of and levels of job stress among the librarians at two universities.

This study used a survey method with the questionnaire as the main data collection instrument. Two groups randomly constituted from both universities in the main campuses were purposively selected using non-probability sampling. Gender and status of the sample selected were also carefully considered in the choice of the sample so as to have the perceptions from every gender and category of staff. The main hypothesis of this study is that there is no significant difference in job stress experienced by library staff in the two African universities.

From the findings, it was concluded that library staff at the University of Botswana and University of Zambia were not in an overall state of stress compared with norm data. However, salary-related issues were found to be the highest source of stress among both library staff samples followed by workload related issues. Low stress items among library staff fell into two broad categories namely conflict-related and management-related items.

Similar to other empirical studies, this study is not without its limitations. The sample consisted of two public universities in Botswana and Zambia. This may limit the generalization of the results. The study also employed non-probability sampling in the selection of participants. The study can be strengthened by increasing the sample size as the data analysis results and findings may vary substantially when the sample size is increased or decreased.

Most studies in library and information science focus on collection development, information retrieval and information seeking behavior of users. Few studies have been undertaken in this area particularly in Southern Africa. It is therefore, hoped that the findings of this study may provide both a starting point for further research in the topic of stress among librarians in Southern Africa. The study may also bring management attention to various issues related to stress among library staff.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the efforts of library faculty at Long Island University's Brooklyn Campus Library to design and implement a continuum of curriculum‐integrated, outcomes‐assessed library instruction in undergraduate writing‐intensive courses.

The literature review investigates various course‐integrated curriculum designs, how contemporary students learn, the challenges they face in academic research, and the significance of collaboration between library and teaching faculty in facilitating curriculum‐integrated library instruction (LI). Various components of LI design are examined, along with LI development in collaboration with other academic departments. The integration of new LI into a lower‐level undergraduate composition course as well as a pre‐existing LI component to an upper‐level undergraduate writing‐intensive course is explored.

The initial curriculum‐spanning continuum approach envisioned by the library and English department was necessarily scaled back and down due to personnel and budgetary restrictions. Integrating two library instruction sessions into 47 undergraduate composition courses produced challenges of scheduling, communication and content. Designing LI components with outcomes assessment (OA) measurement built‐in proved superior to retrofitting OA to previously designed, and implemented LI.

The paper contributes to the discussion of library pedagogy, curriculum‐integrated library instruction design and collaboration between library and teaching faculty.

This paper provides a step‐by‐step recounting of a mid‐sized, urban academic library's efforts to implement the first steps towards designing a “continuum” of library instruction for an undergraduate core curriculum. It offers valuable insights and information in designing, implementing and sustaining multiple library instruction components to aid students in seeking and locating authoritative sources for their research projects.

The study aims to determine the extent of COVID-19’s impact on the libraries and information centers within Benguet. It identified the key differences in the effect of the pandemic on each type of library: public, special, school and academic. It recalled and documented the challenges faced by libraries and librarians. It determined which aspects of their library were affected and how they were modified in terms of their policies, personnel, physical space, services, collection, infodemic response and marketing.

The study used the qualitative descriptive method approach, specifically narrative research design and conducted online focus group discussions in which 14 librarians with managerial or supervisory functions participated. This method was used to explore the topic holistically by using qualitative inquiry. It best suited the purpose of fully understanding the experiences of libraries during the pandemic. The recorded online focus group discussions conducted through Zoom were reviewed and analyzed to identify key themes and responses from the participants. The themes identified from the thematic analysis were further validated with the participants through correspondence, chats or e-mails.

The findings showed that libraries were faced with challenges brought on by the lack of a written policy for the pandemic response, a lack of information communication and technology skills and resources, strict requirements on physical setup for pandemic compliance, budget cuts or realignments and delayed procurement, misinformation and users’ lack of awareness of the new services offered by the library.

The study focused on the pandemic experiences of libraries and information centers in Baguio-Benguet, which was hailed as a model for local pandemic response, through the lenses of librarians with supervisory roles or functions.

Libraries could reflect on their experiences in this pandemic to plan for future strategies that would be best implemented in situations where face-to-face services are not allowed.

This study presented various best practices from different library institutions that could be emulated in the future. Many of these are still relevant regardless library services are going back to normal.