The impact of leadership development on the organizational culture of a Canadian academic library

Objective – To determine the perceived impact of leadership development on the behaviours and competencies of employees and the organizational culture of the University Library, University of Saskatchewan, Canada. Methods – Using grounded theory methodology, the study was conducted in an academic library serving a mid-sized medical-doctoral university in western Canada. Twenty-one librarians and support staff who had completed the University Library’s Library Leadership Development Program (LLDP) participated in one-on-one interviews of 40-60 minutes duration. Interview transcripts were prepared by the researcher and reviewed by the participants. After editing, those source documents were analyzed to reveal patterns and common threads in the responses. The coding scheme that best fits the data includes the following four headings: skill development, learning opportunities, strategic change management, and shared understanding of organizational vision and values. Results – According to the responses in interviews given by graduates of the Library Leadership Development Program, the library’s investment in learning has created a cohort of employees who are: self-aware and engaged, committed to learning and able to develop new skills, appreciative of change and accepting of challenges, or accountable and committed to achieving the organization’s vision and values. Conclusion – Competencies and behaviours developed through exposure to leadership development learning opportunities are changing the nature of the organization’s culture to be more collaborative, flexible, open and accepting of change and challenge, supportive of learning, able to create and use knowledge, and focussed on achieving the organization’s vision and values. These are the characteristics commonly associated with a learning organization

Bibliometric analysis of the American Journal of Veterinary Research to produce a list of core veterinary medicine journals

Objective: Bibliometric techniques were used to analyze the citation patterns of researchers publishing in the American Journal of Veterinary Research (AJVR). Methods: The more than 25,000 bibliographic references appearing in the AJVR from 2001 to 2003 were examined for material type, date of publication, and frequency of journals cited. Journal titles were ranked in decreasing order of productivity to create a core list of journals most frequently used by veterinary medical researchers. Results: The majority of items cited were journals (88.8%), followed by books (9.8%) and gray literature (2.1%). Current sources of information were favored; 65% of the journals and 77% of the books were published in 1990 or later. Dividing the cited articles into 3 even zones revealed that 24 journals produced 7,361 cited articles in the first zone. One hundred thirty-nine journals were responsible for 7,414 cited articles in zone 2, and 1,409 journals produced 7,422 cited articles in zone 3. Conclusions: A core collection of veterinary medicine journals would include 49 veterinary medicine journals from zones 1 and 2. Libraries supporting a veterinary curriculum or veterinary research should also include veterinary medical journals from Zone 3, as well as provide access to journals in non-veterinary subjects such as biochemistry, virology, orthopedics, and surgery and a selection of general science and medical journals

Veterinary medicine books recommended for academic libraries

This bibliography of in-print veterinary medical books published in English may be used as an acquisitions or evaluation tool for developing the monograph component of new veterinary medicine collections or existing science, technology, and medicine collections where veterinary medicine is in the scope of the collection. The bibliography is divided into 34 categories and consists of bibliographic information for 419 titles. The appendix contains an author/editor index. Prices for all entries are in US dollars, except where another currency is noted. The total cost of all books in the bibliography is $43,602.13 (US)

Collection analysis techniques used to evaluate a graduate-level toxicology collection

Collections librarians from academic libraries are often asked, on short notice, to evaluate whether their collections are able to support changes in their institutions' curricula, such as new programs or courses or revisions to existing programs or courses. With insufficient time to perform an exhaustive critique of the collection and a need to prepare a report for faculty external to the library, a selection of reliable but brief qualitative and quantitative tests is needed. In this study, materials-centered and use-centered methods were chosen to evaluate the toxicology collection of the University of Saskatchewan (U of S) Library. Strengths and weaknesses of the techniques are reviewed, along with examples of their use in evaluating the toxicology collection. The monograph portion of the collection was evaluated using list checking, citation analysis, and classified profile methods. Cost-effectiveness and impact factor data were compiled to rank journals from the collection. Use-centered methods such as circulation and interlibrary loan data identified highly used items that should be added to the collection. Finally, although the data were insufficient to evaluate the toxicology electronic journals at the U of S, a brief discussion of three initiatives that aim to assist librarians as they evaluate the use of networked electronic resources in their collections is presented

Standards for the academic veterinary medical library

The Standards Committee of the Veterinary Medical Libraries Section was appointed in May 2000 and charged to create standards for the ideal academic veterinary medical library, written from the perspective of veterinary medical librarians. The resulting Standards for the Academic Veterinary Medical Library were approved by members of the Veterinary Medical Libraries Section during MLA '03 in San Diego, California. The standards were approved by Section Council in April 2005 and received final approval from the Board of Directors of the Medical Library Association during MLA '04 in Washington, DC