Envisaging young adult librarianship from a teen-centered perspective

Young adult library services were founded on the idea of meeting teens' needs and interests, yet an adult-centered perspective dominates both the research and practice in this area. This chapter presents a small-scale content analysis of recent professional literature as proof of the prevailing adult-centered perspective. It is then suggested that a teen-centered perspective for public library research and practice is a better approach in terms of benefits to the target population. A truly teen-centered perspective means that we must change our thinking to (1) conceptualize adolescents as "teens" instead of"young adults"; (2) focus on teen development; (3) focus on teens as individuals first and foremost, and as members of their age and other demographic groups second; and (4) make teens -- not information resources -- the center of our work.This chapter appears in A. Bernier (Ed.), Transforming young adult services (pp. 33-52). Chicago: Neal-Schuman, all rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or printed without permission in writing from the publisher

Testing the Benefits of Blended Education: Using Social Technology to Foster Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing in Face-To-Face LIS Courses

Blended education, which mixes elements of face-to-face and online educational delivery, can occur at the activity, course, program, or administrative level. This study examined the use of student blogs to test the benefits of course-level blended educational delivery for LIS students enrolled in a face-to-face course. Data collected from students' blogs were also used to assess whether Zach and Agosto's (2009) framework for maximizing student collaboration and knowledge sharing in online courses can be applied to face-to-face courses. The study found that blogs successfully supported collaboration and community building because they were well-suited to sharing course-related knowledge and because students encountered few technical barriers. These findings support Zach and Agosto's proposed criteria for selecting technologies to foster increased collaboration and knowledge sharing, e.g., low learning curves and easily facilitated student interaction. The results suggest that blended education can bring many of the educational benefits of online learning to face-to-face students

Whatever happened to "always cite the source?" a study of source citing and other issues related to telephone reference

Reference & User Services Quarterly, 47(1): pp. 44-54.This article presents a study of source citing in telephone reference service at the twenty-five largest public library systems in the United States and Canada. The results showed that in eighty-six out of the 125 total reference transactions analyzed (68.8 percent of the cases), respondents gave no sources for their answers. The article also discusses a number of additional issues uncovered during the study that are not related to source citing but that have important itnplications for reference services. The authors conclude that best reference practices are not being followed in many instances of public library telephone reference, and they close with a number of simple suggestions for improving telephone, face-to-face, and digital reference services

Information behavior of online small groups engaged in math problem solving

At the Virtual Math teams (VMT) project, we are designing and experimenting online collaborative environments where small groups of students discuss about math together and solve interesting math problems using a chat program along with a shared whiteboard. During the problem solving process, students seek information for various purposes and from various resources. They share information and construct meaning of it through interactions within the group. Understanding their information behavior helps us to design information resources and learning environments to suit their needs. We have examined and analyzed students’ interactions using conversation analysis. We report here our findings on how small groups of students negotiate information needs, seek information, and use information to solve their problem. We then discuss the implications and make suggestions for design of digital libraries that can support collaboration and learning

Qualitative trends in library & information science (LIS) research

Background Over the past two decades, theorists have noted an increase in the use of qualitative research methods within library and information science (LIS). However, no recent study has sought to provide rigorous evidence of this increase. This ongoing study seeks to address two research questions: 1. How widespread is the use of qualitative data collection and analysis methods in the recent LIS research literature? 2. What are some common themes and trends within the body of recent LIS studies that have used qualitative methods? Data Collection The researchers mined the Web of Science database for abstracts from the top four LIS research journals for the period 2001-2006. Next, they designed an automated program to search the resulting pool of abstracts for set of 14 keywords. Manual analysis was then used to remove false drops. Data Analysis The study includes two data analysis stages. For Stage 1, the researchers used statistical methods to generate a quantitative snapshot of the data. The study is currently in Stage 2, which entails the use of qualitative data analysis techniques to search for themes and patterns within the pool of abstracts. Expected Findings The quantitative results will provide concrete evidence of the frequency of qualitative research methods within these top-ranked LIS research journals. The qualitative analysis will point to possible trends within LIS studies that use qualitative methods, such as dominant data collection or data analysis methods. Together, these results will help to provide a better understanding of the current face of LIS research

Examination of the Internet Public Library as dynamic, collaborative teaching laboratory

The Internet Public Library (www.ipl.org) is a collaborative online learning environment that involves LIS faculty and students as well as working librarians around the world. Over the past twelve years, the IPL has become more collaborative with the introduction of new technologies and cultural changes. The IPL team consists of a variety of people from around the world: LIS faculty, IPL staff librarians, masters and doctoral students, working librarians, and technology specialists. Through the IPL, library and information professionals are being prepared to meet the challenges and opportunities of the digital environment: the dynamic nature of information technology, changing social and cultural norms, and an abundance of freely available content are presented in the digital reference environment. Extensive training material has been prepared by the IPL staff and feedback is provided to students by IPL staff, faculty and volunteers. In addition to the learning environment, the IPL also offers a test bed for research related to collaborative online learning environments. For examples, questions such as the role of Web 2.0 resources such as Wikipedia, Facebook, MySpace and other social computing sites will be explored

Remote Reference in U.S. Public Library Practice and LIS Education

This article submitted to IUPUI ScholarWorks as part of the OASIS Project. Article reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Permission granted through posted policies on copyright owner’s website or through direct contact with copyright owner.The state of remote reference services in the United States was assessed by surveying remote reference availability at 100 U.S. public libraries, examining remote reference in the syllabi of American Library Association (ALA)-accredited library and information science (LIS) courses in the U.S., and analyzing national competencies and guidelines. Findings indicated that the telephone was the most common medium in use for remote reference services at public libraries, followed by e-mail and chat. In teaching, however, syllabi at LIS programs addressed digital remote reference media far more often than the telephone. Reference standards and guidelines primarily focused on general practices applicable to both remote and face-to-face reference work, rather than on specifics relevant to differing remote reference media types. Included in this study are recommendations to address this apparent disconnect among reference practices, teaching, and professional guidelines

What Do Youth Service Librarians Need? Reassessing Goals and Curricula in the Context of Changing Information Needs and Behaviors of Youth

The ALISE Youth Services Special Interest Group (SIG) presents a panel that explores what “youth services” means in the context of LIS education today, including novel additions to youth services curricula and how the changing needs of youth impact LIS education. The session begins with five research presentations, followed by an open discussion and Q&A. The five presentations incorporate the following topics: critical youth information needs, methods of incorporating design thinking and interdisciplinary research into MLIS youth services courses, an investigation of dialogue between librarians and youth, and the role of family and community in youth information behavior. The discussion prompted by this scholarship serves as an important contribution to the continued reform and evolution of youth services education

The Collaborative Information Behavior of Middle School Students in Online Learning Environments: An Exploratory Study

The emergence of social computing systems such as blogs and online communities is shaping people???s way of working, learning, and interacting with others. Teenagers and preteenagers are leading the transition ???to a fully wired and mobile nation??? (Lenhart, Madden, & Hitlin, 2005). A growing body of research indicates that today's young people, often referred to as the Millennial Generation or as ???digital natives" (Prensky, 2001), are heavy users of social computing media and that much of their information seeking and socialization takes place via Instant Messaging (IM), text messaging, blogs, wikis, email, and the World Wide Web (DeBell & Chapman, 2006; Harris, 2005; Lenhart, Madden, & Hitlin, 2005; Rideout, Roberts, & Foehr, 2005). Although the study of human information behavior (IB) is a rapidly growing subset of library and information science research, most IB research has focused on studying individual behaviors. We need to understand better how people ???need, seek, give, and use information??? (Fisher et al, 2006) in groups and in the context of online communities that use social computing technologies as well. At the Virtual Math Teams (VMT) project (http://mathforum.org/vmt/), we are studying how middle school students work on math problems together and how they create and maintain online communities. As part of the VMT???s larger research agenda, this study explores how students collaborate on math problem solving in online learning environments and looks into how they identify and address their information needs during this process

The Female-Friendly Public Library: Gender Differences in Adolescents' Uses and Perceptions of U.S. Public Libraries

This article reports the results of a written survey of ninety-seven female and male adolescents, ages fourteen through seventeen, at two U.S. public libraries. In addition to exploring gender-related variance in the reasons for which teenagers use public libraries, the survey investigated how frequently the respondents needed information relating to twelve major topic areas and how useful they considered public libraries in helping them to find information relating to these topics. For the most part, the results indicated no significant gender difference in the respondents??? reasons for using libraries or in their frequency of information needs. The only major gender difference was the girls??? tendency to rate libraries as more useful in helping them to meet their personal information needs, making public libraries ???female-friendly spaces??? for adolescent girls. The authors conclude with suggestions for helping both female and male adolescents realize the full potential of public libraries and public library services.published or submitted for publicatio