Mid-sized Academic Library Research Articles

Library Usage Study, the How and What: A Survey of Space Usage at a Mid-Sized Research Library

Objective – The research was conducted to understand better how and what spaces are used in a mid-size academic library. Also, the authors were interested in their users' spatial likes and dislikes and why they gravitated to or avoided specific spaces or floors. The authors also found an opportunity to examine recent renovations that added a connector bridge to a first-year student dorm and the subsequent increase in foot traffic to evaluate its success in meeting users' needs for varied and productive study spaces across the building. Methods – The study used a survey to gauge user satisfaction with the library's space and environment for research, study, and collaborative work. The authors hand-distributed a survey with five multiple-choice and three open-response questions to users over three days (Monday-Wednesday) between 10 am - 4 pm, the busiest days and times in a typical week. The collected surveys were sorted and coded in an Excel spreadsheet and uploaded and analyzed in JMP Pro. Results – The 298 completed responses came from undergraduate students (n=281) who visited the first floor, identified as a collaborative study space (n=144). Respondents showed that they visit the library daily (58%, n=173) and weekly (34%, n=104). Most of the survey participants (98%, n=293) indicated that they pursued academic work in quiet spaces they occupied (75%, n=224). Interestingly enough, the noisiest and quietest floors are the areas most avoided, the first floor-collaborative, noisiest space (54%, n=161) and the third floor-designated as quiet space (18%, n=55). The final survey question invited the respondents to "sound off," with 135 responding; 107 (79%) of them opined on improvements to existing study spaces within the library. Conclusion – This research demonstrated that students value the library as a place to study but are critical of excessive noise and overcrowding in the designated collaborative study areas. Academic libraries should consider balance when designing library study spaces. Librarians and space designers should strive to strike an appropriate balance between seating quality and quantity, acceptable noise levels in designated collaborative and quiet study spaces, and the impacts of environmental factors such as printers, food services, exhibits, art displays, restrooms, and walkways through library study spaces within the library.

Onboarding in the age of COVID-19

Due to the transition to a remote/virtual working environment, the process of onboarding new hires has to make a shift to the remote/virtual as well. In this article, a review of past and present practices at a mid-sized academic library is conducted, as well as an autoethnographic reflection of a new hire’s experience with onboarding. Best practices and suggestions are presented to help inform other libraries that are also going through a remote/virtual onboarding experience.

Contemplating library instruction: Integrating contemplative practices in a mid-sized academic library

In recent years there has been growing interest in the integration of contemplative practices into higher education, but little has been published regarding contemplative practices or contemplative pedagogies in academic libraries. Nor have explicit links been made to critical librarianship (critlib), particularly regarding the stress associated with the profession and the “resilience narrative” of “doing more with less”. In this paper, we review the literature and describe our experiences introducing a variety of contemplative elements into our library instruction program, most recently in the virtual environment. Building on the three levels of “intervention” modeled by Barbezat and Bush (2014) to include librarians, and incorporating critlib theory, we describe the contemplative practices we have used with a view to alleviating librarian, student, and faculty stress and burnout, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Anecdotal reports suggest a broad interest in such practices and their potential effectiveness in reducing distraction and stress. However, future study is needed to systematically evaluate the outcomes of CP during library instruction.

Navigating the COVID-19 slipstream: A case study on living and managing access services during a global pandemic

Access Service Departments are dynamic units that often thrive in an ever changing environment. This became more apparent as libraries across the world faced the outbreak of COVID-19. The Access Services Department of one mid-sized academic library was one of a handful of libraries in the state that remained open to serve patrons on campus. This case study will address the challenges Access Services faced during COVID-19 including concerns about patron and staff safety along with the sanitation of physical materials and spaces was balanced with the need to provide access to equipment, physical collection, and library support.

Assess and engage: How Poll Everywhere can make learning meaningful again for millennial library users

Millennial learning is heavily dependent on the use of mobile technologies for information gathering, processing, and sharing. This project examines how student response systems, such as Poll Everywhere, impact the effectiveness of information literacy instruction in a mid-size academic library. Data collected from Millennial student participants in 26 instructional sessions indicate that such systems are effective in measuring students’ familiarity with library resources and preferences in information use. The results also demonstrate how the integration of Poll Everywhere encourages classroom discussion, reduces redundancy in instruction, and helps make learning more meaningful for Millennial students.

A Case Study and Analysis of a Successful and Collaborative Student-Centered Textbook Reserve Program in a Mid-Size Academic Library

This article presents an innovative textbook reserve program at a mid-sized academic library. Research conducted subsequent to the program’s launch showed a positive correlation between students’ use of the program and their perceived academic success. In addition, the program has proved effective at helping students with college affordability. The outlines of the program and the results of the survey are presented and contextualized in the framework of the local institution.

A mid-size academic library’s experience in introducing virtual reality (VR) headsets into instruction and circulation

This article covers the implementation of virtual reality headsets in both instruction and circulation at a mid-size academic library. The article details the experience from both the Instruction and Circulation department, including necessary correlations in the service. It covers the successes and failures of the adoption of the lending program, what was learned, and thoughts moving forward.

Constructing a sentiment analysis model for LibQUAL+ comments

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to establish a data mining model for performing sentiment analysis on open-ended qualitative LibQUAL+ comments, providing a further method for year-to-year comparison of user satisfaction, both of the library as a whole and individual topics.Design/methodology/approachA training set of 514 comments, selected at random from five LibQUAL+ survey responses, was manually reviewed and labeled as having a positive or negative sentiment. Using the open-source RapidMiner data mining platform, those comments provided the framework for creating library-specific positive and negative word vectors to power the sentiment analysis model. A further process was created to help isolate individual topics within the larger comments, allowing for more nuanced sentiment analysis.FindingsApplied to LibQUAL+ comments for a Canadian mid-sized academic research library, the model suggested a fairly even distribution of positive and negative sentiment in overall comments. When filtering comments into affect of service, information control and library as place, the three dimensions’ relative polarity mirrored the results of the quantitative LibQUAL+ questions, with highest scores for affect of service and lowest for library as place.Practical implicationsThe sentiment analysis model provides a complementary tool to the LibQUAL+ quantitative results, allowing for simple, time-efficient, year-to-year analysis of open-ended comments. Furthermore, the process provides the means to isolate specific topics based on specified keywords, allowing individual institutions to tailor results for more in-depth analysis.Originality/valueTo best account for library-specific terminology and phrasing, the sentiment model was created using LibQUAL+ open-ended comments as the foundation for the sentiment model’s classification process. The process also allows individual topics, chosen to meet individual library needs, to be isolated and independently analyzed, providing more precise examination.

Kicking the Tires: A Usability Study of the Primo Discovery Tool

Discovery tools offer users a powerful way of searching library holdings as well as external databases and indexes. They are becoming an increasingly common part of the library user experience, and research on the usability of such tools is expanding. In 2012, a mid-sized academic research library implemented Primo Discovery and Delivery by Ex Libris and conducted a diagnostic usability test to investigate how the tool is used without instruction, to discover patterns in searching behavior, and to uncover how compatible Primo is with user search behavior. This article will describe the design and implementation of the usability study. Despite some design flaws, users adapt to the tool over time and can perform effective searches. This article also provides recommendations for future usability studies in specific targeted areas where problems were detected.

Are Print Books Dead? An Investigation of Book Circulation at a Mid-Sized Academic Library

In this article the author analyzes circulation of print books at Seton Hall University Libraries using the WorldCat Analysis tool and Voyager data. Only 21.5% of the collection circulated between 2005 and 2009, but circulation varied by subject area. Circulation was higher for subjects with more current collections. Over one-third of recent science books circulated, while older science books had low circulation. Print book circulation declined by 23% between 2005 and 2009. Results of this study informed collection development and prompted a comprehensive weeding project, participation in an international scholarly reading study, and an e-book, patron-driven acquisition program.

Collaborative Project Development in the Creation of an Interdepartmental Digitization Workflow

Creating workflows that involve the work of multiple departments within a large organization can be challenging, especially when the procedure itself is complex and involves a number of stakeholders. This paper describes and evaluates a collaborative project to develop an interdepartmental workflow for the digitization of unique library materials in a mid-sized academic library. The project includes an automated project management and materials tracking system. Project development involved three separate departments with different reporting channels. In order to navigate this difficulty and manage the large size of the project, a visual planning technique that included graphical representations of current and proposed workflows, as well as implementation timelines, was used. This visual planning technique allowed the project team to clearly organize their thoughts and plans and proved helpful in soliciting buy-in from stakeholders. The paper will outline the collaborative planning process, addressing the rewards and challenges of tackling such a project within a large organization, and present lessons learned for others attempting similar endeavors.

Mass Management of E-Book Catalog Records

Electronic book collections in libraries have grown dramatically over the last decade. A great diversity of providers, service models, and content types exist today, presenting a variety of challenges for cataloging and catalog maintenance. Many libraries rely on external data providers to supply bibliographic records for electronic books, but cataloging guidance has focused primarily on rules and standards for individual records rather than data management at the collection level. This paper discusses the challenges, decisions, and priorities that have evolved around cataloging electronic books at a mid-size academic library, the University of Houston Libraries. The authors illustrate the various issues raised by vendor-supplied records and the impact of new guidelines for provider-neutral records for electronic monographs. They also describe workflow for batch cataloging using the MarcEdit utility, address ongoing maintenance of records and record sets, and suggest future directions for large-scale management of electronic books.

Delivered! A Mid-Sized Academic Library's Experience with Distance Education

Murray State University (Kentucky) has been experimenting with various means of document delivery and research instruction for its online only and satellite campuses. These include ILLiad-based document delivery, Camtasia-to-UTube tutorials, a discipline-based service called Library on Blackboard, Eluminate and other virtual instructional methods.

Is This the Right Tool for Our Library? A Look at E-Mail Virtual Reference Use Patterns

ABSTRACT The desire to cater to users' needs with new and faster technologies drives development in virtual reference at many libraries. While many articles illustrate the benefits and quality of synchronous chat and IM reference, there remain numerous libraries that use e-mail reference as their only virtual service. Using data collected over a four-year period, the authors assess the value of a commercial reference tool at a mid-sized academic library to evaluate whether the current virtual reference service meets user demand. Time, use, cost, staffing, and community needs are addressed in an effort to improve e-mail reference in the current environment.

Library Materials Budget Allocation Strategy for a Mid-Size Academic Library

SUMMARY Historically libraries have been allocating their budget using a formula based on usage statistics and cost of the materials. Today, allocations need to be adjusted from year to year, because of the constantly changing educational priorities of the institutions and the budgetary constrains faced by academic libraries. In this paper, the author has tried to arrive at an allocation formula that takes into account the constant and variable factors that would determine the strength of the library collections. This formula is flexible enough to be applicable to a budget of any amount in a small to medium size library. The formula was successfully applied by the Seton Hall University Library to distribute new grant money from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), as well as to the whole Library materials budget, with some modifications.