Physical Library Research Articles

Lezen achter de tralies

Abstract In 2014 a digitization plan of the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice was leaked. One of the plans mentioned was the closing of physical prison libraries. The media attention and criticism that this plan received raised questions about a normally invisible institution: the Dutch prison library. In this article we will see that prerequisites for the official foundation of the prison library in 1841 were the upswing of the prison sentence, the growing involvement in the spiritual faith of detainees and the growth of the book market and a literate audience. At first the libraries had an educational function only, but towards the end of the twentieth century they became more all-encompassing. Thanks to the arrival of librarians they also became more professional. Interviews with prison librarians show that the prison library nowadays has several functions: recreational, educational, informative and social. Digitization will be to the detriment of the rich experience that the physical prison library offers.

Understanding the information-seeking behavior of pharmacy college faculty, staff, and students: implications for improving embedded librarian services.

Objective:Research was conducted on the embedded librarian program at The University of Arizona College of Pharmacy and the Health Sciences Library to understand how this service is relevant to users and identify the potential for further improvement. This study examined users’ information-seeking behaviors and considered the implications for the effectiveness of the embedded librarian service.Methods:The authors conducted 18 semi-structured interviews of faculty, researchers, and students at the College of Pharmacy to obtain descriptive accounts of how they seek information, manage information, and use the library and library services. The authors examined the interview transcripts through qualitative descriptive analysis.Results:The interview responses confirm that users seek information outside of the physical library and tend to ask their peers for information or assistance in obtaining information. They mostly feel comfortable in searching, but some of them may lack sufficient search skills and tend to use a few known databases. While those who are familiar with the librarian seek the librarian's assistance more often, others tend not to seek the librarian's assistance. The ways they manage information vary, which requires customized assistance.Conclusions:The close proximity of a physically embedded librarian is beneficial to users and positions the librarian to provide proactive assistance in the existing user information-seeking behavior environment. While some users do not seek assistance, the embedded librarian can provide proactive assistance in such areas as making users aware of other database options and helping them choose relevant databases and effectively manage information.

From Bricks and Mortar to Bits and Bytes: Examining the Changing State of Reference Services at the University of Toronto Libraries During COVID-19

Before the pandemic, the University of Toronto was predominantly an in-person experience. The closure of physical libraries and shift to remote learning required library staff and users to adapt to new modes of supporting teaching, learning, and research. A survey was conducted about reference service delivery, staffing models, resources and tools, which asked the respondents to describe reference services at their libraries before and during the pandemic. The objectives of this survey were to capture the state of reference services at the University of Toronto Libraries (UTL), and to compare data about reference practices during the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods with the goal of identifying challenges and opportunities for the future of reference services at UTL. 70% of libraries surveyed used reference desks for reference services pre-pandemic, and during the pandemic, 75% of libraries used virtual reference appointments by video conferencing. The survey results show that reference service staffing and service hours in most surveyed libraries were reduced during the pandemic. Many respondents reported that while they offered fewer reference service hours during the pandemic, they continued to provide assistance outside of scheduled hours. Online tools and platforms that were already familiar to librarians remained popular during the pandemic, allowing service providers to quickly adapt to the virtual environment and ensure seamless service continuity. While the rapid transition in services at the University of Toronto was not without its challenges, it has also offered many new opportunities for re-envisioning reference services at the University of Toronto Libraries.

Unveiling the veiled: Wikipedia collaborating with academic libraries in Africa in creating visibility for African women through Art+Feminism Wikipedia edit-a-thon

PurposeThis study aims to show that digital literacy can serve as a tool for effecting social change and highlights the achievements of an academic library in digital content creation using the Wikipedia platform.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopted qualitative research method, Interview and document analysis were used for data gathering. Data gathered were analysed using content (conceptual) analysis.FindingsFindings showed that the library has created or edited digital content for various categories of women, such as women in academia, industry and politics. These entries have received more than eight million views over a period of two years, which shows that the entries are being utilised. However, the editing exercise had been confronted with challenges such as accessing reliable citations in terms of the notability and verifiability policy of Wikipedia amongst others.Practical implicationsCurrently, people rely more on online resources for their research, leaving physical library resources unused. Even, more students start their research online using Wikipedia. Thus, libraries could create visibility for their physical material using regularly visited sites like Wikipedia and its sister projects such as Wikidata; otherwise, these physical materials will remain invisible to the people that needed them.Originality/valueContributing to Wikipedia by creating a new entry or editing an existing one can help students to deepen their knowledge about a subject; Wikipedia editing may serve as an avenue for improving information literacy skills. Drawing from the theory of cyberfeminism as used in the study, information and communications technology has the potential to empower women and transform gender relations.

What is a Library Website, Anyway? Reconsidering Dominant Conceptual Models

In late 2019, Thompson Rivers University embarked on a multi-phase website usability project beginning with a website user survey, to be followed shortly afterward by usability testing and interviews. While the survey was completed as planned, the COVID-19 pandemic closed the library and interrupted the usability testing phase. This interruption and the frantic website changes that followed led me to consider survey findings within the context of differing conceptual models of the library website as a whole. This study explores a number of conceptual models of the library website in further depth, considering evidence from both the existing literature and the user survey in addition to the researcher’s own experience making post-COVID website updates. Particular models that are examined include Website as Research Portal, Website as Extension or Representation of the physical library, and Website as Library Branch. Each of these conceptual models has different implications on priorities, structure, purpose, and resource allocation. Rather than considering the models of library employees superior or more advanced than those of students, I contend that an awareness of myriad ways to understand the website can best bridge the gap between library employees and other users. The study concludes that while there is no perfect model of the library website, considering and communicating our models may sharpen collegial decision-making structures and create greater unity of purpose within the library.

Transfer and Transformation: Leadership in a Time of Change

Abstract This article addresses three interrelated themes: the emergence of digital libraries and the digital presence in physical libraries, the internationalization of the intellectual as well as organizational aspects of library work, and Elmar Mittler’s contributions toward making both happen.

Diaries of lifelong learners: Information seeking behaviors of older adults in peer-learning study groups at an academic institution

Although not much has been written about older adults' use of academic libraries, they experience challenges navigating these considerable physical and online library spaces. Members of a university lifelong learning community were recruited for a 10-week diary study. They were asked to record their real-time information seeking behaviors related to their study groups, and the challenges they faced looking for or using information. They were also asked to rate their enjoyment to determine whether the joy of engaging in community learning extends to the information seeking process. Findings from sixteen diarists show that they sought information primarily on a specific topic, person, or book. They used a variety of resources but found books and periodicals most useful. They struggled with trust, technology, time management, library anxiety, information overload and dissemination. With increased understanding, librarians can be better equipped to reach older adults that are doing scholarly research and contribute to their success.

Organizing Library Intrapreneurship

Libraries occupy a special space in our society, and our minds. Today, public libraries are struggling hard to attract new users and increase footfalls that seem to be in the downtrend. Besides, Physical Libraries need innovations in their services frontier to survive stiff competition from virtual digital libraries that provide instant access to information at no cost. Librarians and library professionals as knowledge managers could help design and foster entrepreneurship models of service delivery aimed towards bringing novelty in their operations. This is for the reason that libraries must take up the challenges to survive and compete with digital libraries which would maximize user satisfaction, attract new patrons and increase their user base. To make libraries economically independent and socially competent knowledge organizations, libraries need to innovate and adopt entrepreneurship-intrapreneurship business models which would attract investments from the private sectors. To transform libraries into productive, innovative knowledge organizations, librarians must take the initiative to think out of the box. This paper addresses these issues and analyses the intrapreneurship attitude to library operations. It argues that librarians should adopt a model of knowledge entrepreneurship where librarians, besides being knowledge managers, would also act as intrapreneurs within their organization.

Mosaic Ends Tagmentation (METa) Assembly for Highly Efficient Construction of Functional Metagenomic Libraries.

ABSTRACTFunctional metagenomic libraries, physical bacterial libraries which allow the high-throughput capture and expression of microbiome genes, have been instrumental in the sequence-naive and cultivation-independent exploration of metagenomes. However, preparation of these libraries is often limited by their high DNA input requirement and their low cloning efficiency. Here, we describe a new method, mosaic ends tagmentation (METa) assembly, for highly efficient functional metagenomic library preparation. We applied tagmentation to metagenomic DNA from soil and gut microbiomes to prepare DNA inserts for high-throughput cloning into functional metagenomic libraries. The presence of mosaic end sequences in the resulting DNA fragments synergized with homology-based assembly cloning to result in a 300-fold increase in cloning efficiency compared to traditional blunt-cloning-based protocols. We show that compared to published libraries prepared by state-of-the-art protocols, METa assembly is on average ca. 20- to 200-fold more efficient and can prepare gigabase-sized libraries with as little as 200 ng of input DNA. We show the usefulness of METa assembly first by using a normative 5-μg mass of soil metagenomic DNA to prepare a 700-Gb library that allowed us to discover novel nourseothricin resistance genes and a potentially new mode of resistance to this antibiotic and second by using only 300 ng of goose fecal metagenomic DNA to prepare a 27-Gb library that captured numerous tetracycline and colistin resistance genes. METa assembly provides a streamlined, flexible, and efficient method for preparing functional metagenomic libraries, enabling new avenues of genetic and biochemical research into low-biomass or scarce microbiomes.IMPORTANCE Medically and industrially important genes can be recovered from microbial communities by high-throughput sequencing, but precise annotation is often limited to characterized genes and their relatives. Cloning a metagenome en masse into an expression host to produce a functional metagenomic library, directly connecting genes to functions, is a sequence-naive and cultivation-independent method to discover novel genes. The process of preparing these libraries is DNA greedy and inefficient, however. Here, we describe a library preparation method that is an order of magnitude more efficient and less DNA greedy. This method is consistently efficient across libraries prepared from cultures, a soil microbiome, and a goose fecal microbiome and allowed us to discover new antibiotic resistance genes and mechanisms. This library preparation method will potentially allow the functional metagenomic exploration of microbiomes that were previously off limits due to their rarity or low microbial biomass, such as biomedical swabs or exotic samples.

Experimenting with 360° and virtual reality representations as new access strategies to vulnerable physical collections: Two case studies at the KB, National Library of the Netherlands

In the late 1990s, the explosion of electronic resources resulted in large-scale digitisation projects amid the need for the preservation of digital information. The KB, National Library of the Netherlands, has been actively involved in these activities. Now, it is proposing better ways to both preserve physical library materials and improve their accessibility for educational purposes. This article describes two ongoing projects that involve preservation and public engagement. One, in its early stages, is to test the applicability of 360° imaging to support virtual access to the special collections’ storage. The second is the virtual reality production, for educational purposes, of children’s pop-up books. Both projects could inspire other libraries to introduce three-dimensional or virtual reality technologies and their applications to new audiences. This article describes each project, shows the methods used, and discusses the expected outcomes.

Folkebibliotekets digitale tilbud under koronakrisen

The Covid-19 pandemic caused a lockdown of public libraries’ buildings in Norway in March 2020 as was the case in almost every other European country. This article investigates the situation for the public library in Tromsø in the period from 12 March 2020 and towards a gradual reopening of the library building to the public in April the same year. The lockdown of the physical library building led to an increased use of digital resources, and the library continued its presence on social media platforms informing their users about those. The article focuses first on digital resources offered by the library before it investigates the libraries posting on Facebook during the first month of lockdown in Norway.

Video Chat at the Front Desk: Providing In-Person Help from a Distance

This column describes an approach to helping patrons in the physical library through a telepresence service, while maintaining a safe environment during the COVID-19 pandemic. This video chat service was achieved using the WebEx meeting platform and an iPad, which was later upgraded to a Cisco WebEx DX80 display.

Canadian university research libraries during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic

This paper documents the services and changes that library staff at a group of 15 Canadian university research libraries highlighted on their main pandemic pages and social media accounts during the early days of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Findings suggest that libraries in the samples adopted the following services and changes: closing the physical libraries; suspending all physical collection services and in-person events; continuing to provide virtual reference services; promoting access and usage of electronic collections; suspending late fees and renewing checked-out items with a new due date; and advising users to wait before returning borrowed items. Notably, all libraries in this study are operating as full full-scale as digital libraries. This study will provide lessons learned to other libraries around the world to help in reviewing their own operational policies for coping with the current COVID-19 pandemic and for future global public health crises.

EFFECTIVENESS OF CUSTODY HEARING: AN ANALYSIS OF THE BRAZILIAN CASE

In Brazilian law, the hearing can be an instrument of protection and promotion of human rights, makes it possible to eliminate the idea of impunity, with which it is seen mainly by lay people, and demonstrating that this institute is not synonymous with freedom or injustice, but a way of ensuring the fundamental laws guaranteed in the Federal Constitution of Brazil of 1988. It seeks to establish here a relationship between the researched theme and Human Rights, seeking to promote analyses on facts that occurred before the legalization of the Custody Hearing in Brazil and the changes that came with the establishment of this institute. It is a study based on forensic literature, international norms and treaties such as the American Convention on Human Rights and Specific Laws dealing with the theme. In this sense, the research also develops by analyzing the different positions and identifies which are the constitutional principles that were commonly violated in view of the non-existence of the Custody Hearing. This research also develops the possibility of the Applicability of Article 37 §6 of the Federal Constitution of Brazil of 1988, as well as developed an investigation of the concept of general repercussion and its consequences, in view of the Supreme Court having presented such an understanding for the question. It is a bibliographic reference based on doctrines, treaties, articles, arranged in physical and digital libraries.

Social science librarianship: an examination of current trends and collaborations

The trends in social science librarianship tend to mirror trends in academic librarianship at large, but with a distinct disciplinary flavor. This column reviews current writings about social science librarianship within academic libraries. One article details a close examination of faculty and librarian preferences around the organization of university library systems. The results provide insight into social science faculty views on the physical library buildings as well as library resources and services. Other publications explore how librarians can best support new emphases in the social sciences, such as systematic reviews and data literacy. Other articles examine close collaborations between social science faculty and librarians which resulted in improved instruction centered around important information literacy skills.

Measuring residual stress in Ti-6Al-4V with HR-EBSD, using reference patterns from annealed material

Elastic strain and residual stress values in an engineering material were determined by high-resolution EBSD (HR-EBSD) using reference patterns from annealed, recrystallized material. Specifically, rolled Ti-6Al-4V sheet was analyzed using HR EBSD in both an as-annealed and a strained state, the latter established via a static two-point bend fixture. The commercial software CrossCourt4 (CC4) was used to evaluate the relative intragranular strain tensor components of the alpha grains mapped by HR-EBSD. The intragranular reference patterns identified in each grain by the software were then replaced with similarly-oriented patterns from scans of the as-annealed, recrystallized material. The CC4 analysis was then repeated to provide calibrated strain and residual stress values. Elastic strains on the order of 10−3 were detected, with corresponding residual stress values on the order of 1 GPa. Subsequent analyses using high energy synchrotron x-ray diffraction showed good correlation with the elastic strains measured by HR-EBSD using the annealed reference patterns. Additionally, the maximum macroscopic stress analytically predicted for two-point bending was in agreement with the residual stress observed. Good repeatability of the methodology and insight into the state of individual grains were also observed. The findings provide encouraging evidence that accurate intragranular and long-range residual stress measurements of engineering significance can be made with HR-EBSD using a physical reference pattern library.

Transforming library collections in a pandemic: the perspective from Edge Hill University

The 2020 Covid-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on Higher Education (HE) libraries, requiring them to rapidly overhaul their services and accelerating the shift to digital in a short space of time. One of the most significant challenges has been how to provide students and other library users with continued access to resources previously only available in print, when libraries have been closed or are operating with restrictions in place that limit access to the physical library space. This has led many libraries to increase investment in digital content to better support students in the current climate. This article shares the perspective from Edge Hill University in the UK and focuses on work undertaken by the library to implement university-wide e-textbook access for the first time. The article explores some of the barriers the library has faced sourcing textbooks and concludes by reflecting on how 2020 may shape the library’s purchasing strategies in a post-pandemic information landscape.

The Upbeat School Library

Melbourne High School (MHS) Library is bursting with students from opening to closing time. In this paper Pam Saunders, Head of Library at MHS will share the numerous ways she and her teams have blended the library, both virtual and physical, into a dual community space – a place for learning and collaboration and a place for relaxation and creativity. The MHS library is about connections and belonging; being informed, critical and mindful users of information, the exchange of ideas, collaboration and the unexpected.MHS has 1400 students, all boys aged 15-18 years. This demographic has traditionally been difficult for the library to effectively engage, but the door counter statistics confirm that one third of the students visit the library each day. The library has been transforming, with Pam and her team creating an environment which is safe yet stimulating, and one where students can interact and be involved. It is an environment which encourages reading, but also sharing, talking, laughing and doing. The teacher librarians create and manage a mix of resources, but they are also event managers, collaboration artists and risk takers. They are active in both the physical library space and the virtual space. There are daily events, special activities and themes which help create a lively space, but the main change has been the outward focus that the team now brings to the library which allows for a positive environment. It is now a place where the answer to any request is always ‘yes’. This paper will examine the impact which this approach and the attitude of the library team has had on students and teachers and how it has created a community. The paper will provide a practical framework that others can use to enhance their learning space with dynamic ideas and a positive role model.

Polish university libraries social networking services during the COVID-19 pandemic spring term lockdown

During the spring 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, University libraries made available digital content of varying types. This article assesses the scope and breadth of content published by 18 Polish university libraries, how libraries compared in their approach to using social media, and the level of engagement and collaboration with patrons during a time when the physical library was closed. Data collection consisted of gathering social networking site information as used by Polish university libraries with the Fanpage Karma tool. The Fanpage Karma tool allowed the researcher to analyse and compare the fan pages of individual university library social networking sites. The tool simplifies the process to calculate key variables such as the number of user reactions to the library content; the number of posts, comments, likes, and dislikes; the average daily number of posts made; the most popular text, images, videos, links; and the kind of hashtags used by librarians. Findings indicate Polish university libraries most frequently used Facebook during the lockdown followed by Instagram and Twitter. To a much smaller extent, libraries also used YouTube. Not all Polish university libraries made equal use of social media during the lockdown despite the availability of content and ease of use.

Why library science in India needs a revamp

Already under pressure from online knowledge curation, physical libraries have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Already under pressure from online knowledge curation, physical libraries have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.