A Pedagogical Zine Collection

Half of Vermont Academic and Public Libraries Lack Written Confidentiality Policies Despite Directors’ Support for Principles of Patron Confidentiality

L'auteur s'interroge sur le chemin a suivre dans la recherche et le developpement des bibliotheques electroniques aujourd'hui aux Etats-Unis, ce qui revient a poser la question du but reellement poursuivi dans cette entreprise. Il examine la facon dont cette question d'objectif se pose, dans une perspective historique, d'abord dans les bibliotheques publiques, puis dans les bibliotheques d'enseignement superieur et de recherche, avant de se pencher sur le cas des bibliotheques (ou collections) electroniques proprement dites.

Proposition 13—America's Second Great Tax Revolt: A Forty Year Struggle for Library Survival

A review of: 
 
 McNicol, Sarah. “Is Research an Untapped Resource in the Library and Information Profession?” Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 36.3 (September 2004):119-26. 
 
 Objective – To scope the range, nature and challenges of present, planned and future research by practitioners within libraries in the British Isles.
 
 Design – A series of survey questionnaires sent by mail. 
 
 Setting – Public, academic, health, special and school libraries of the British Isles.
 
 Subjects – A total of 2384 questionnaires were sent out and 334 responses were received. 62 academic libraries, 83 health libraries, 78 public libraries, 63 school libraries and 48 special libraries participated in the study. 
 
 Methods – This study was undertaken in 2003 by a research team at the University of Central England. Survey questionnaires were sent by mail to library directors in all public library authorities, academic libraries, health libraries and special libraries in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. In addition, questionnaires were sent to the librarians in all state and independent schools within a sample of nine local education authorities.
 
 Each participant was asked to identify past and future research issues of interest and the barriers to research practice within their library. Research was defined to include work on both externally funded and in-house projects and examples of the types of activities that this might include were provided.
 
 Main results – Half the respondents reported that they had been involved in some form of research in the past two years, with the lowest level of involvement from school libraries and the highest in public libraries. Generally, only the library directly involved in conducting the research made use of the findings and a gap in the dissemination of results was identified across sectors. User surveys were the most common form of research undertaken across libraries and slightly fewer respondents intended to carry out research in the coming twelve months than had in the past (the area most commonly mentioned was user surveys). Information and communications technology (ICT) was an area of planned future research in all libraries, as were user needs and user behaviour. The most frequently cited barriers to research activity across all sectors were lack of time and financial resources. Staff skills and the lack of focus on practical problems to solve were indicated as a barrier in health, public and academic libraries.
 
 Libraries reported a range of common uses for the research findings including: informing strategic and service planning; providing benchmarking data and measuring the effectiveness of services; identification of marketing and public relations opportunities; discovery of staff training needs; and use of the results to demonstrate the value of libraries to funding bodies.
 
 Conclusion – This study provides insight into practitioner-focused areas of research interest and possible areas for future investigation. As the author reports in her conclusion, the survey results cannot be considered representative of the wider population. 
 
 Since research interests often overlap, a sector wide or cross-sectoral research approach should be considered to allow library staff to identify and resolve common problems. Wide dissemination of research results within the practitioner community would be of benefit to all. Greater communication between practitioner and information science communities is also encouraged, as these communities’ work is mutually beneficial.

This exploratory study identified and compared the organization, services, challenges of and motivations for makerspaces in public, academic, and school libraries in China. Although there is a significant body of literature on makerspaces in libraries, this study is one of the first ones that provides a comparison of library makerspace organization and operation by library type. Data was collected using paper and online surveys from 158 librarians. Supporting learning was the most frequently identified motivation for establishing a makerspace by all three categories of librarians. While makerspaces in academic libraries were mostly operated by library staff, school libraries more evenly relied on teaching staff, volunteers, library staff members, and paid instructors to operate their makerspaces. Makerspaces in public and academic libraries were funded mostly from the libraries’ budget, while school libraries were funded more by other units on the campus and institutional or individual investments. The most frequently selected technologies were 3D printing and modeling technologies, and makerspaces in academic libraries were better equipped than makerspaces in the other two types of libraries. Group study rooms and learning commons centers were the most frequently occurring physical spaces in academic and public library makerspaces. School library makerspaces differentiated themselves by offering wooden crafts centers more often than other library makerspaces. While participants selecting budget limitation and inadequate equipment as barriers to implementing makerspaces was not surprising, public and academic librarians also often cited the lack of professional instructors. Based on the findings, several suggestions were offered to the practice of planning and operating a makerspace in libraries such as bringing together internal and external funding to support makerspaces, consolidating the required physical space of makerspaces and the existing space arrangement of libraries, and developing additional training programs to address the problem of a lack of professional instructors.

A Review of: Caragher, K., & Bryant, T. (2023). Black and non-Black library workers’ perceptions of hiring, retention, and promotion racial equity practices. Journal of Library Administration, 63(2), 137-178. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2022.2159239 Objective – To measure Black and non-Black library employees’ perceptions of their library’s efforts to hire, retain, and promote Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) library employees. Design – Literature review and subsequent questionnaire. Setting – Academic and public libraries in the United States and Canada. Subjects – 717 survey participants who met the criteria of working in the United States or Canada, and either being currently employed, retired, or unemployed library workers whose experiences are placed in an academic or public library. 68 subjects who selected Black as their ethnicity were coded separately from other ethnic designations. Methods – A joint effort of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Diversity, Literacy and Outreach Services (ODLOS) and the Public Library Association (PLA) launched the Building Cultural Proficiencies for Racial Equity Framework Task Force in 2019. A subset of this task force broke out to create a survey titled Racial Equity in Libraries. A three-part survey was devised, covering demographics, personal experiences with racial equity, and workplace experiences with racial equity. The task force used non-probability convenience sampling and distributed the survey to several library listservs across the United States and Canada. Quantitative results underwent descriptive statistics; qualitative results underwent iterative thematic analysis. Main Results – Black participants made up 68 (9.5%) of all responses. Five qualitative themes emerged: unsuccessful hiring searches; acknowledgement that hiring of BIPOC is an ongoing issue; no BIPOC employees; organization-based issues impacting hiring; and hostile work environments for BIPOC. Conclusion – Black participants were more likely to report that their library hires, promotes, and retains BIPOC library workers compared to non-Black participants. However, Black participants were also more likely to refute that their employers were making efforts to hire, retain, and promote BIPOC library workers than their non-Black counterparts. This may be due to Black participants' greater sense of awareness of oppressive systems surrounding them.

Job satisfaction and work values: Investigating sources of job satisfaction with respect to information professionals

Researching graphic novels and their teenage readers

Responding to the Lifelong Learning Targets: collaborative Efforts of Public and School Libraries

Zine collections are becoming an increasingly popular addition to public and academic library holdings. Although academics have made strong arguments for the value of zines’ inclusion as part of our cultural heritage, current research does not focus on zine authors’ perspectives. How do the zine writers themselves feel about having their work—which is often highly personal—collected, shared, and sometimes circulated in the public and academic library sphere? This study will report the findings of a survey designed to uncover zine authors’ attitudes about having their works collected, shared, and circulated—in academic libraries, public libraries, and institutionally affiliated archival collections across the United States.

The least developed and developing countries are combating against digital divide in order to keep the wheel of development rolling and escape from the vicious circle of poverty as digital divide is one of the key factors that can lead the poverty situation of these nations to an extreme level. In Bangladesh, the digital divide condition is severe. Therefore it is imperative for Bangladesh to take fruitful steps to bridge the digital divide and to ensure ICT facilities at the national level. Recently as government pledged to convert Bangladesh into Digital Bangladesh by 2021 which is the golden jubilee year of Bangladesh independence, several initiatives have been taken to overcome the digital divide and to produce future qualified generations. However, it has been observed that no worth mentioning project has been taken by any government that ensures proper development of public, school and college libraries. Government should realize the fact that complete development of the country is never possible unless we concentrate library based education. It is not possible for any government to ensure computer with internet connection to each and every family in Bangladesh, however, it is possible to ensure ICTs at school, college and public libraries. The author of this paper firmly believe that ensuring ICTs to public, school and college libraries will greatly reduce digital divide at the national level and will produce qualified, efficient, ICT competent future generations. In this paper an attempt has been made by the authors to show the existing digital divide in the country, current ICT scenario and core projects that have taken by government, non-government, donor agencies and other development organization. The main object of this paper is to show how public, school and college libraries can reduce digital divide at the national level. It is believed that coordinated, long-term, effective projects/programme to reduce digital divide will ensure peaceful, educated, qualified, ICT competent future generations. Key words: Digital Divide; ICT Scenario Bangladesh; Government Initiatives; Non-government initiatives; Public libraries; School libraries; College libraries.DOI: 10.3329/jbayr.v1i1.6839Journal of Bangladesh Association of Young Researchers Vol.1(1) 2011 pp.49-77

Reviews the latest set of statistics on UK public, national, academic, special and school libraries. Deplores the general decline in financial support over the ten‐year period and the loss of facility represented by these reductions. Notes the consequent affect on usage figures. Suggests that dramatic efforts need to be made by public libraries with respect to Internet services and the provision of PCs generally. Proposes other useful additional data and analyses that might be produced and that, in particular, LISU should encourage the compilation and analysis of much more data on electronic services in academic libraries. Regrets the continuing poor coverage of school and workplace libraries.

A study was undertaken in 2007 among library and information service (LIS) workers in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) to investigate LIASA membership trends. The objectives of the study were to investigate: 1) the extent to which workers in library and information services in KwaZulu-Natal are members of LIASA; and 2) the reasons for non-membership, if there are substantial numbers of LIS workers who are not members. The purpose of this paper is to report on the main findings of this study. The study surveyed three types of library services in KwaZulu-Natal, namely, academic, public and special libraries with 330 LIS workers participating in the study. A census was done of LIS workers in special libraries and in academic libraries of public higher education institutions in KZN. Simple random sampling was used to select public libraries in KZN for participation in the study. All staff in the selected sample of public libraries were surveyed. A self-administered questionnaire was used to gather the required data from the target population. It was established that a significant number of LIS workers in all three types of libraries surveyed in KZN are not members of LIASA for various reasons. LIASA has been unable to draw significant membership from the support staff category in LIS services despite its constitution claiming to embrace all LIS workers. The study recommends that LIASA market itself more aggressively to increase membership levels particularly in the public library sector and among support staff in all LIS services. It also recommends that LIASA should consider involving itself in the industrial concerns of the LIS sector.

Public Librarians with the Highest Retention Rate are More Likely to Choose their Entire Career Path in Public Libraries

Email Reference Transactions Reveal Unique Patterns about End-User Information Seeking Behaviour and Librarians’ Responses in Academic and Public Libraries Outside the U.S. and Canada