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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.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of Greece’s economic crisis on public librarians’ obligations.

In total, 43 public library managers completed a questionnaire regarding 116 librarian responsibilities. Managers evaluated these responsibilities considering their importance, difficulty, and frequency. Regarding difficulty, a two-way analysis of variance was applied to examine whether there exists a significant difference among duties’ categories and libraries’ classifications, considering their number of users and materials, and whether the perceived difficulties were connected with the economic crisis.

The results reveal that public librarians face many difficulties due to workload and increased responsibilities resulting from the lack of qualified personnel both in library and computer science. Difficulties also arise from the inability to meet some operational needs because of reduced funding.

Contrary to these unfavorable conditions, many new opportunities and challenges have emerged, including the implementation of new practices and actions (volunteerism, donations, cooperation with local actors) to effectively cope with the new threats.

This is the first time that job description has been recorded and used to outline the duties of Greece’s public librarians. This is particularly useful to develop libraries’ strategic planning and to assist all human resource practices to increase efficiency, especially during the period of financial crisis. Further specific duties were also proposed to enhance the librarians’ effectiveness under the new working environment, focusing on the required processes for their successful completion.

Describes the various technological and social requirements for planning the electronic library. These requirements include the LAN and the client‐server architecture, facilities for storage and access, facilities for archiving digital information, establishing priorities in building the network information resources, introducing the necessary changes in library organization and services, and providing a comprehensive user training program. A literature review outlines the advantages of the electronic library over the traditional library, and highlights the contributions of the US Federal agencies and private foundations in advancing the electronic library through funding digital research projects. Suggests guidelines for building the electronic library in the Arabian Gulf region and concludes with recommendations for the Arabian Gulf libraries to take advantage of the availability of the information networking technology in creating their electronic libraries.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relative merits of thesis consultation with a librarian prior to graduate submission and to explore whether thesis consultation has a significant impact on the quality of the theses submitted by postgraduate students.

This study uses a quantitative case study approach. The total number of thesis scrutiny reports written by librarians between 2009 and 2014 has been reviewed for errors found in theses. Errors have been classified as referencing errors and formatting errors. These have been compiled in a spreadsheet and analyzed using the SPSS statistical package.

This paper highlights that thesis consultation has had a positive impact on the quality of the theses students submitted for examination at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. Thesis consultation with a strong focus on referencing clearly assisted students learning and applying different citation styles. There was a decrease in the number of referencing errors over time. Not much difference was seen in terms of formatting errors. Further tests showed that there was a statistically significant positive relationship between thesis consultation and the number of referencing errors made by graduate students.

This study may have implications for the engagement of academic libraries with their graduate communities. With thesis consultation, a librarian may scrutinize the same thesis more than once. Although this may increase the workload of librarians, thesis consultation/scrutiny will have a positive impact on the quality of research produced by graduate students.

This study shows that students benefited from thesis consultation and there was a significant reduction in citation errors. In reviewing the literature, it has been noted that research done in the area of thesis consultation was very limited; hence, this study significantly contributes to the body of knowledge that presently exists.

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.

Library assistants were originally considered to be professional librarians in the making, and were trained accordingly. With the expansion of libraries and librarianship, Britain's “apprenticeship” system of qualification gave way to formal library school education, and a new category of “non‐professional staff” was created, of people who were unwilling or unable to proceed to graduate‐level qualification. The development of non‐professional certificates of competence in the UK is described against parallel developments in the US, Canada and Australia; the COMLA training modules are also examined. The theoretical and practical issues surrounding training are discussed, training schemes and qualifications in the four countries analysed, and the relative merits of in‐house training and external certificate programmes argued.