Information Literacy and Research-Intensive Graduate Students: Enhancing the Role of Research Librarians

This article investigates how psychology graduate students find information for coursework and research, who teaches them how to find it, and whether differences emerge over the course of their graduate careers. Findings indicate that these graduate students are comfortable using campus libraries, prefer electronic resources, ask supervisors when they need assistance locating information, and have some interest in furthering their information literacy knowledge. Finally, the master’s students use different information management skills than do the PhD students, as evidenced by the use of bibliographic management software. Suggestions for furthering the role of research librarians focus on being more proactive, rather than expecting students to come to librarians for assistance

Consultants in Academic Libraries: Challenging, Renewing, and Extending the Dialogue

There is a trend in academic libraries to hire consultants for internal crises, change management projects, strategic planning processes, outcomes assessment, evidence-based decision making, information literacy instruction, and more. Although we hear informally about the use of consultants in academic libraries, the practice has gone unexamined. We employ a historical and linguistic analysis of consultants in academic libraries, using a critical framework for this research. A critical perspective provides a structure to discuss issues that librarians may not have been able to previously fit into library practice dialogue. A chronological history of consulting in libraries acts as our literature review. This review, along with a targeted examination of library and information science resources, is used to guide two lines of linguistic analysis. The first provides a critique of the core tenets used to define and characterize library consultants, namely, the claim that consultants are unbiased professionals who bring “expertise” and “fresh” ideas to libraries. The second analysis investigates the rhetorical strategies used in existing texts: polarizing language, straw man reasoning, and figurative and indirect language. The discussion section unpacks these linguistic strategies, reflects on what is missing from the texts, and considers how knowledge and power are exerted through language, making connections to the broader context of neoliberalism

Embedded Information Literacy: An Arts & Humanities Model

With the installation of a new Arts & Humanities Dean and recognizing the need to address the information literacy skills of undergraduates, the faculty and library teamed-up to integrate course design. We piloted an embedded information literacy program for a 3rd year course in the Department of Classical Studies. The implementation was successful due to collaboration with the faculty, department and course instructor as well as the continual assessment, adaptation and evaluation of the course content. Due to the organic nature of this model, it may be adapted to other programs in Arts & Humanities

Mentoring in Academic Libraries: A Canadian Perspective

This study is an exploration of mentoring in Canadian Academic Libraries, from expectations of recent MLIS graduates to experiences of practicing librarians and the support provided by administration

Highs and Lows: An Examination of Academic Librarians’ Collective Agreements.

The following study is a textual analysis of collective agreements from Canadian Universities that include provisions for librarians. There has for many years been a focus on the “crisis in librarianship.” The hope with this research is to celebrate the victories and highlight how collective agreements are foundations upon which librarians can build. The collective agreements act as signposts of the gains that librarians have made over the years in negotiations with administration and as advocates on campuses across the country. This project documents the advances librarians have made and makes recommendations for areas where further activism may be needed. The research focusses on how Academic Librarian positions are described and codified in University collective agreements in Canada. What provisions are there in collective agreements to protect Academic Librarians\u27 from de‐professionalization, protect their academic freedom, control their workload, ensure job security and/or protect against contracting out? Collective agreements will be compared for their similarities and the gaps that may exist

Honouring a love of books and reading in Library and Information Science

This paper presents the findings of a research study into the “love of books” trope in Library and Information Science. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 MLIS students between February and August of 2019. Interview questions were designed to elicit motivations for entering the field and taking the degree. The study findings show that students’ decisions are animated by a love of books and reading, a love of libraries, and by a desire to work with and serve others. We argue that by putting love and desire at the centre of analysis the findings can be understand as positive affective engagement with information, information processes, information institutions, and information practices

Mentoring in English Canadian Academic Libraries

Presented in Halifax at CLA\u27s 2011 conference, this peer-reviewed research presentation presented preliminary data about mentoring in Canadian college and university libraries. This research examines mentoring expectations of recent graduates, perspectives of practicing academic librarians and library directors from across Canada

All in for Privacy: Cultivating a Community of Information Privacy Awareness

The Library Freedom Project supports librarianship’s values of freedom of information and privacy by providing relevant tools and education to LIS professionals. A group from the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at Western aligned with the project to encourage student participation in local and global privacy issues. Our programming encourages hands-on use of open source and anti-surveillance software, such as Tor Browser for anonymous web browsing. In addition, we detail how we configured our Tor relay to route anonymous encrypted global traffic, so that other libraries can join the 280 relays currently running in Canada and 7000 worldwide

Embedded Information Literacy: An Arts and Humanities Model

This material was presented at Spring Perspectives 2010. The presentation highlights the collaboration between the Faculty of Arts & Humanities and The D.B. Weldon Library to embed information literacy skills directly into a Classical Studies course

Making Connections: Using Citation Analysis to Map the Literature of Migration & Ethnic Relations

The research question is: How well are the collections at Western Libraries meeting the needs of researchers in emerging inter-disciplinary programs such as the Collaborative Graduate Program in Migration & Ethnic Relations (MER)