Shifting to a high impact practice-centered student worker staffed research desk: a Hispanic serving institution perspective

Purpose: The authors seek to demonstrate, from a Hispanic-serving institution (HSI) perspective, the importance of utilizing High Impact Practices (HIPs) for not only more meaningful student employment initiatives, but to benefit the campus community and prepare Hispanic students for success post-graduation. Design/methodology/approach: Evaluation of current practices in academic libraries aided the design of the new staffing model, location and name. A survey of research desk student assistants was designed and implemented approximately one academic year after changes were executed. Survey data combined with follow-up interviews summarized the qualitative-focused assessment of the research desk's evolution and verified the validity of maintaining HIPs in libraries for Hispanic student success. Findings: The transition of the reference desk to a student-staffed research desk was successful in that librarians were able to dedicate more time to other endeavors, such as campus outreach and collection development. The High Impact Practice (HIP)-focused desk model, along with new, customized onboarding and training materials, fulfilled their goals of giving student assistants meaningful employment on campus while also bridging the gap between the library and the mostly Hispanic, first-generation student population. An assessment from the student assistants' point of view helped them further analyze the new research desk model. They found that student assistants noticed the ease with which their peers approached the desk and how their skills learned on the research desk transferred to their classes and future careers. Research limitations/implications: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the restructuring of library personnel the authors were unable to implement library patron surveys to evaluate the new desk model. Originality/value: Many academic libraries and partners have made the transition to student-staffed help desks or offer peer-to-peer tutoring or mentoring services. HIPs positively impact marginalized student populations scholastically, but no current studies discuss the effect on the Hispanic student population from an HSI perspective. This study illuminates the wholistic influence HIPs have on Hispanic student assistants, not only their work and peers, but the affect on their academic and personal lives. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Future Proofing Streaming Video Acquisitions: A Medium Sized Academic Library Adapts

The pedagogical appeal of using film in higher education, while not new, has undeniably grown since the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated remote teaching for health and safety reasons. This dramatic rise in streaming video requests is challenging for academic libraries of all sizes. Yet, smaller- and medium-sized institutions have personnel who already juggle multiple roles and responsibilities, resulting in chaos and the need for new workflows. This article will reflect on the past 24 months of managing streaming video at the University of San Diego's Copley Library, comparing the remote instruction period to the hybrid teaching that followed.

Operation management of academic libraries in Hong Kong under COVID-19

PurposeThis research studies the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the operation management of Hong Kong academic libraries for understanding the difficulties and challenges for librarians to adapt to the special arrangements during the pandemic.Design/methodology/approachQualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with librarians in major universities and higher education institutions of Hong Kong. Participants were interviewed either in the face-to-face format or text-based format.FindingsParticipants provided a broad scope about the actual library management and operation changes during the COVID-19. According to the respondents, the most challenging problem for librarians during COVID-19 was to strike a balance between concerns of library staff and users. While they described how these arrangements and changes affected the service quality of academic libraries from different perspectives, the pandemic situation also brought some opportunities, such as pushing the digitalization of all collections and using online resources for future development. A hybrid model for library service would be more common in the future with more demands toward online resources and digital collection, in which academic libraries should be prepared after the pandemic.Originality/valueThis paper provided broad insights into library management and the future development of academic libraries for the post-COVID-19 period. There are scant studies of this topic, especially in an Asian metropolis context with dense population, small campus and limited library physical spaces.

A perspective on academic library middle management in the COVID era.

Middle managers in academic libraries are often the first point of contact for employees within their departments. Middle managers work as colleagues, advocates, and project managers. While the responsibilities may vary between institutions, it is essential that middle managers develop leadership skills to function effectively in their positions. In the era of COVID-19, middle managers must reconcile their own expectations of their role with the changing needs and responsibilities of those they manage. COVID-19 is a complex phenomenon that has brought many issues such as health and social inequity to the forefront. These issues should be considered in leadership techniques that are utilized by middle managers in academic libraries. When leading a department, the manager must consider the whole person. This column will discuss several leadership styles that consider the whole person and can be effective for academic library middle managers as they navigate the complexities of their positions in the COVID-19 Era.

The Impact of COVID-19 on the Legal Information Profession within Law Firms

The purpose of this research is to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the legal information profession within law firm libraries in Britain and Ireland. As the pandemic only began the year before commencing this research, few studies had been conducted on the topic, thereby a clear opening for this study emerged. This study uses a survey research strategy comprised of a mixed methods research approach. Desk research in the form of a literature review opens the study. A questionnaire and 5 semi-structured interviews were subsequently conducted. To understand the impact of the pandemic on the legal information profession within law firm libraries, the research objectives break the topic down into 4 areas that give insight into the consequences of the pandemic. The research found that A) working from home was the major impact faced due to the lockdown in spring 2020;B) use and spending on print resources declined;C) the role of legal information professionals has not significantly changed;and D) future legal information professionals will need to upskill due to technological developments and improve the image of the profession. Owing to the recent outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to compare the findings of this research to similar future studies to determine the validity of the results.

On Authenticity, Exhaustion, and Finding a Spark

With the COVID-19 pandemic as a backdrop, this personal essay examines the author’s relationship with authentic leadership and professional optimism. The author accounts their experience with burnout brought on by the ongoing pandemic and discusses activities and colleagues that have contributed to cultivating a renewed sense of purpose and hope. The author reflects on the implications of burnout and exhaustion for academic library managers leading teams through times of chaos and instability, and reflects on potential solutions for how those challenges can be mitigated. © 2022 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Digital Badges in a Post-COVID World

Digital badges are rapidly becoming a form of micro-credential used to evaluate competencies. This research contains two case studies, one on student perceptions and the other on employer interest in digital badges used in undergraduate business education. Both case studies presented students with a survey. The perceptions case study asked about student interest in badges used for employment, on social media, and with technology support, to find the relationship of these variables to motivation. The second case study examined perceptions of employer interest in digital badges, and students reported interest in collaboration, ethics and self-awareness, and innovation as it relates to critical thinking. Through hierarchical regression analyses, case #1 results indicate that student perceptions of earning digital badges were significantly and positively related to their interest in badges used for employment, with technology support, and motivation. Case #2 results showed that students interest in collaboration, and ethics and self-awareness, was significantly and positively related to critical thinking. Practical uses of digital badges in a postCOVID age are offered. Recommendations for future studies involving motivation, critical thinking, and improved academic performance are offered.

Contactless Services: A Survey of the Practices of Large Public Libraries in China

Contactless services have become a common way for public libraries to provide services. As a result, the strategy used by public libraries in China will effectively stop the spread of epidemics caused by human touch and will serve as a model for other libraries throughout the world. The primary goal of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of the contactless service measures provided by large Chinese public libraries for users in the pandemic era, as well as the challenges and countermeasures for providing such services. The data for this study was obtained using a combination of website investigation, content analysis, and telephone interviews for an analytical survey study of 128 large public libraries in China. The study finds that touch-free information dissemination, remote resources use, no-touch interaction self-services, network services, online reference, and smart services without personal interactions are among the contactless services available in Chinese public libraries. Exploring the current state of contactless services in large public libraries in China will help to fill a need for empirical attention to contactless services in libraries and the public sector. Up-to-date information to assist libraries all over the world in improving their contactless services implementation and practices is provided.

Leadership, Communication, and Worker Wellbeing during the Early Pandemic Response

This study seeks to understand the impact of initial library responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States through December of 2020. Survey responses reflect the impact that decisions and communication styles had on workers within library organizations. This article discusses respondents’ overall satisfaction with communication from their libraries, their sense of equity in application of work-related measures, and impacts to their wellbeing at work. Those respondents who were more satisfied with their organization’s communication and equity reported lower levels of impact to several measures of their wellbeing at work. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Library Administration is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Face-to-face with the new normal: libraries' readiness and perspectives toward the changing service environment

Purpose>This paper seeks to explore how library management in academic and school institutions has been adapting to the changes brought about by the global COVID-19 pandemic. It discusses how their priorities have shifted in reinventing their strategic plans and innovative library responses;and their readiness to meet new expectations to support their communities, as necessitated by the changes.Design/methodology/approach>Employing the change readiness concept as a framework, it encompasses inquiry into the library management's response to the changes in the service and work environments at the onset of change, while in the process of adapting to the current changes, and readiness to the perceived changes in the next normal future service environment. Quantitative design was employed for this study, and self-selection strategy as a non-probability sampling technique was used in collecting data from respondents. Target respondents were head librarians. An online questionnaire was used as instrument for data gathering, which was tested valid and reliable.Findings>Findings reveal that respondents have achieved quite a lot in preparing to adapt to change and generally agree that they are ready to deal with the perceived, future-wise changes in all aspects.Research limitations/implications>The study was open to all types of libraries as subjects;however, one-person libraries were excluded. Being self-selected, the respondent group for this study is not a true representative of the target population. Data analysis was strictly based on the gathered results.Practical implications>The study offers insights on the value of integrating measures pertinent to the emergence of new roles and needs in the changing service environment.Originality/value>The results of the study are seen to have a potential contribution to the library organization's growth as they oversee their operations, prospectively.

Too Many Cards on the Table? Practical Ways of Improving Your Current Awareness

This article by Clare Brown is based on a presentation given at the BIALL Online Annual Conference in June 2021. It takes the form of a case study that illustrates how library and information professionals can control the flow of information so as to avoid users being overwhelmed by news.

Mentoring Library School Interns at a Distance: Insights Gained from a Remote Community of Practice

 ľautomne 2020, tout en travalllant å distance en raison de la pandemie de la COVID19, nous avons initié un modéle de communauté de pratique pour les stagiaires en bibliothéconomíe travaillant sur un projet ďaccessibilité des tutoriels video pour les bibliotheques de ľUniversité Dalhousie. Cet article fournit un aperçu du projet, notre approche pour former les stagiaires ä distance sur ľutilisation du logiciel Camtasia, la mise sur pied de la communauté de pratique et les éléments clés â reteñir en tant que superviseurs. Quoique la communauté de pratique avait été mise en place initialement pour permettre aux stagiaires de se soutenir, ľexpérience a finalement été extrémement avantageuse pour nous, car elle a permis notre développement comme superviseur en apprenant å faire du mentorat å distance. Nous réfléchissons sur la façon dont nos styles de mentorát ont évolué tout au long du projet et nous explorons les orientations futures pour poursuivre le projet avec une nouvelle cohorte de stagiaires.Alternate :In fall 2020. while working remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we initiated a Community of Practice (CoP) model for library school interns working on a video tutorials accessibility project for Dalhousie University Libraries. This feature outlines the background of the project, our approach to training interns remotely on Camtasia software, the development of the CoP, and our key takeaways as supervisors. While the CoP was originally intended as a source of support for the group of interns, the experience ended up being Incredibly beneficial to us in our development as supervisors as we learned to mentor at a distance. We reflect on how our mentorship styles changed throughout the project and explore future directions for continuing the project with a new cohort of library interns.

A bibliometric analysis of Serials Review from 1991 to 2020

The study's objectives were to identify the document type, publishing trends, authorship patterns of research, most prolific authors, countries and keywords, top citied articles, and country collaboration of published articles in Serials Review (SR) through bibliometric measures from 1991-2020. The data was retrieved from the Scopus database and analyzed through VOSviewer, Microsoft excel, and Biblioshiny. The result found that most of the studies were published in the form of empirical (1785) with total citation (4998) during 1991-2020. Publications were increased from 2002 to 2004, but after 2014 the publications ratio decreased. A single authorship pattern was shown by most of the publications. Blythe, K published 70 publications from 19912020, while Collins had 194 citations against only 30 publications. The article titled "The access/impact problem and the green and gold roads to open access" having 223 citations. The countries' collaboration was shown that the USA and Canada were having 20 research collaborations during 1991-20. Academic libraries, open access, and electronic resources were the most used keywords by the authors. It can be beneficial for readers to understand highly cited journals, the most prolific authors and the bibliographic coupling of institutions. It is also helpful for and editorial team of SR for further developments.

Opinion mining towards blockchain technology adoption for accessing digital library resources

PurposeBlockchain technology is a distributed and decentralized public digital ledger, which is employed to save dynamic transaction data and static records across several computers so that each record could not be modified retroactively without the collusion of the network and alteration of all subsequent blocks. Recently, it has become immensely popular in digital resource sharing in different research areas such as healthcare, smart cities, cryptocurrency and libraries. Since the current eLibrary systems are vulnerable to issues such as unauthorized access, plagiarism, etc., there is a lack of access control system that can efficiently address these issues.Design/methodology/approachThe authors designed a conceptual model for evaluating the users' intention in the use of blockchain-based digital libraries, which can facilitate the resource organization and provide additional security to interactive processes between users. To conduct our survey, the authors devised and shared two versions, English and Chinese, among 298 participants. Moreover, 7 PhD students participated in the pre-testing of the questioner design. The authors analyzed the demographic data using the Jamovi software and SmartPLS in order to generate the path modeling.FindingsThis study revealed that blockchain technology adaption in eLibraries is essential for enhancing the quality of services, infrastructure and resources for libraries. The study’s results show that optimism, informativeness, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude and intention to use blockchain technology for accessing digital resources in libraries.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the adoption of blockchain technology in the digital library. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is the first empirical attempt to provide a new perspective of developing digital libraries based on security policies. This model shows the underpinning knowledge to manage digital resources, which can facilitate the design phases and enhance the management costs in eLibraries.