Information Literacy Beyond the Library: A Study of the Attitudes and Practices of History Faculty at UNC

This study describes a questionnaire sent to History faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The survey was conducted to determine from the faculty's perspective what levels of bibliographic instruction are currently being provided to their students, whether they believe such instruction is necessary, and with which types of the library's History resources they believe students should be familiar. While librarians often lament the small number of classes brought to the library for bibliographic instruction, the survey shows that faculty say that they do provide some research instruction, that the quality of student research could be improved, and that their students should be familiar with a number of library resources. Findings also suggest that librarian-led bibliographic instruction sessions can improve the quality of student research. Recommendations are made to help close the disconnect between faculty and librarians. Next steps are also suggested for further study

Mental health interventions for persons living with HIV in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review.

INTRODUCTION: Addressing the intersection between mental health and HIV is critical for the wellbeing of persons living with HIV (PLWH). This systematic review synthesized the literature on mental health interventions for PLWH in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to determine intervention components and explore their relationship with intervention effectiveness. METHODS: We included only controlled clinical trials of interventions aiming to improve the mental health of PLWH. We conducted a search in the following databases: PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO and EMBASE for eligible studies describing the evaluation of interventions for mental health problems among PLWH in LMICs published through August 2020. Two reviewers independently screened references in two successive stages of title/abstract screening and then full-text screening for references meeting title/abstract criteria. RESULTS: We identified a total of 30 eligible articles representing 6477 PLWH who were assigned to either the intervention arm (n = 3182) or control arm (n = 3346). The mental health interventions evaluated were psychological (n = 17, 56.67%), pharmacological (n = 6, 20.00%), combined psychological and pharmacological (n = 1, 3.33%) and complementary/alternative treatments (n = 6, 20.00%). The mental health problems targeted were depression (n = 22, 73.33 %), multiple psychological symptoms (n = 1, 3.33%), alcohol and substance use problems (n = 4, 13.33%), post-traumatic stress disorder (n = 1, 3.33%) and HIV-related neuro-cognitive impairment (n = 2, 6.67%). Studies of interventions with significant effects had significantly a higher number of active ingredients than those without significant effects [3.41 (2.24) vs. 1.84 (1.46) Mean (SD)] [Mean difference = -1.56, 95% CI = -3.03 to -0.09, p = 0.037]. CONCLUSIONS: There continue to be advances in mental health interventions for PLWH with mental illness in LMICs. However, more research is needed to elucidate how intervention components lead to intervention effectiveness. We recommend scale up of culturally appropriate interventions that have been successfully evaluated in low- and middle-income countries

Does information from ClinicalTrials.gov increase transparency and reduce bias? Results from a five-report case series

Background We investigated whether information in ClinicalTrials.gov would impact the conclusions of five ongoing systematic reviews. Method We considered five reviews that included 495 studies total. Each review team conducted a search of ClinicalTrials.gov up to the date of the review’s last literature search, screened the records using the review’s eligibility criteria, extracted information, and assessed risk of bias and applicability. Each team then evaluated the impact of the evidence found in ClinicalTrials.gov on the conclusions in the review. Results Across the five reviews, the number of studies that had both a registry record and a publication varied widely, from none in one review to 43% of all studies identified in another. Among the studies with both a record and publication, there was also wide variability in the match between published outcomes and those listed in ClinicalTrials.gov. Of the 173 total ClinicalTrials.gov records identified across the five projects, between 11 and 43% did not have an associated publication. In the 14% of records that contained results, the new data provided in the ClinicalTrials.gov records did not change the results or conclusions of the reviews. Finally, a large number of published studies were not registered in ClinicalTrials.gov, but many of these were published before ClinicalTrials.gov’s inception date of 2000. Conclusion Improved prospective registration of trials and consistent reporting of results in ClinicalTrials.gov would help make ClinicalTrials.gov records more useful in finding unpublished information and identifying potential biases. In addition, consistent indexing in databases, such as MEDLINE, would allow for better matching of records and publications, leading to increased utility of these searches for systematic review projects

Undergraduate Students Perceive Reference Encounters to be Teaching and Learning Activities. A Review of: Gremmels, G. S., and K. S. Lehmann. “Assessment of Student Learning from Reference Service.

<b>Objective</b> – The study explores the instructional nature of reference encounters from the perspective of students and librarians. Specifically, the study asks: 1) whether students perceive reference interactions to be instructional, 2) whether what they learn is the same as what the librarians intended to teach, and 3) whether they connect reference-based instruction with any formal information literacy classes in which they may have participated.<br><b>Design </b>– Survey questionnaire with two parts: one for students and the second for reference librarians, administered twice (revisions to the study and to the questionnaire were made in between).<br><b>Setting </b>– Wartburg College in Iowa, United States. Wartburg is a 1,800-student private, residential, co-educational college with a strong course-integrated information literacy program.<br><b>Subjects </b>– An unknown number of undergraduate students who were perceived by reference librarians to have asked instructional questions at the reference desk (264 surveys were collected from students, but some students may have completed more than one survey as the first implementation of the study allowed repeated participation for students with more than one instructional reference encounter) and four librarians. <br><b>Methods</b> – The study was conducted two times during the years 2003 and 2004 (referred to here as study A and study B) and findings are reported for each study separately. The data collection instrument in both implementations was a paper survey that was divided into two sections and perforated to collect information from two perspectives: the student and the librarian. The surveys were numbered to facilitate matching between the two sections after the survey was completed and returned by the student/librarian pair. Potential student participants in the study were identified at the reference desk: each time a librarian deemed a reference question to be instructional, he or she invited the student to complete a short survey. If the student agreed, the librarian tore off and kept the librarian portion of the survey and gave the second section to the student to complete. Students and librarians deposited their sections into a box and sections were re-matched and moved to a secure location every few days. On their section of the survey, students were asked whether the librarian who assisted them taught them anything while answering their question, and if so, to describe what the librarian taught them in their own words. Additionally they were asked if what the librarian taught them built upon skills learned in a library session held for the present assignment or from a previous class,if applicable. On the librarians’ section of the survey, there were two questions: what the librarian intended to teach the student (to be chosen from a checklist) and whether the librarian thought the student understood that intention during the reference encounter. Comments were allowed. Some revisions were made to the survey instrument between study A and study B, including two of note: a check list matching that on the librarians’ survey was added to the student survey question about what the librarian taught the student, and the student participant selection criteria were changed to limit only one response per student. At the end of both studies, data analysis was done, including entering data into a spreadsheet and transcribing both student and librarian descriptions of learning into a narrative document (for study A) or Qualrus, a software program for qualitative research (for study B). The study authors independently compared the librarians’ and students’ descriptions of what was taught and labelled the match as either “related”,“inconclusive” or “not related” (for study A)or “strong match,” “acceptable match,” or “no match” (for study B). Disagreements were discussed and authors came to an agreement for each.<br><b>Main Results </b>– Response rates for study A (85%) and study B (78%) were high. Most students indicated that they believed the librarian taught them something (94% for study A and 98% for study B). Findings on whether the students learned what the librarian intended to teach are mixed. For study A, 60% of the student responses were deemed matches, 20% were not related and an additional 20% were inconclusive. For study B, the authors report their findings in a different manner since the student survey included a checklist that matched the librarian survey in addition to a narrative description of what the librarian taught them. The findings therefore include whether the librarian and student surveys matched in the open-ended descriptions, in the category checklist, in both, or in neither. In this second study, 21% matched in the description only, 36% matched in the category only, 21% matched in both the description and the category, and 22% showed no match at all. This puts the overall match rate for study B at 78%. Surveys were analyzed to determine which categories were most likely to be matched. For study A, 62% of the matches were in the “tool” category, 4% in “terms,” 16% in ”strategy,” 10% in ”database,” and 8% in ”other.” For study B, 42% of the matches were in the ”tool” category, 22% in “terms,” 16% in “strategy,” 16% in “database” and 4% in “other.” Additional findings relate to the connections between the reference encounters and previous information literacy sessions. Approximately one third of students had participated in an information literacy session (33% for study A and 34% for study B) for their class. Of these students, most connected what the reference librarian taught them and what they had learned in their in-class instruction (89% for study A and 95% for study B). The rate for how many students connected reference-based instruction with a prior information literacy class was lower, but still quite high (77% for study A and 74% for study B).<br><b>Conclusion</b> – The vast majority of student participants perceived that the reference encounters were instructional and most also connected what they learned from the librarian in the reference encounter to librarian-led information literacy sessions in their current or previous classes. This suggests that post-session reference assistance could help reinforce information literacy principles in a one-on-one situation, perhaps closer to the time of need. For this follow-up instruction to be effective, reference librarians may want to refer directly to what was taught in the information literacy sessions, which could help place new skills in the context of those with which the students are already familiar. The authors also suggest that short reference encounters at the desk may not be appropriate for this kind of instruction and propose that scheduled consultations of up to 30 minutes may better meet students’ needs. Rates for matching what the student thought the librarian taught them and what the librarian intended to teach them were lower, if still relatively high at 60% (study A) and 78% (study B). The authors attribute this lower rate in study A to conservative coding, the inability of researchers to follow up on what the students meant by their answers, and the difficulty students might have in describing what they refer to as “tacit knowledge.” Undoubtedly, the open-ended nature of the students’ responses led to difficulties in matching how they might describe a skill or tool to how a librarian would describe it. Adding a checklist of categories for students to select from for study B certainly made it easier to overcome the problem of students not using (or perhaps even knowing) the same terminology to describe skills as librarians and helped to achieve a higher match rate. “Tools” was the category that was most likely to be matched in both study A and study B. The authors did not speculate on the reasons for this finding

Undergraduate Student Use of the Physical and Virtual Library Varies according to Academic Discipline. A Review of: Bridges, L.M. (2008). Who is not using the library? A comparison of undergraduate academic disciplines and library use. portal: Libraries and the Academy, 8(2), 187‐196.

<b>Objective</b> – To determine differences in undergraduate studentsʹ use of the physical library and virtual library by academic disciplines.<br><b>Design</b> – Online multiple‐choice survey followed by focus groups and secondary online survey with open‐ended questions.<br><b>Setting</b> – Oregon State University (OSU), a land‐grant university with over 19,000 students located in Corvallis, Oregon, United States.<br><b>Subjects</b> – A random sample of 22% (n = 3,227) of the undergraduate population (n = 14,443), drawn by the registrarʹs office. Distance education and students at branch campuses were not included. From this pool, 949 usable survey responses (29% of the sample) were collected. The respondent demographics proved to be reasonably equivalent to those of the total undergraduate population in terms of class standing (freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior) and academic discipline.<br><b>Methods</b> – The study consisted of three phases. In phase one, an email invitation with a link to the four‐item multiple choice online survey was sent to students in the sample population. Results were analyzed using Pearson chi‐square tests to determine goodness of fit between the following variables: class standing and library visits, class standing and virtual library use, academic college and library visits, and academic college and virtual library use.When significant dependence was detected, researchers examined relationships between the specific groups (e.g., freshman and sophomore) and library use, and also compared each group to one another using odds ratios and by constructing 95% confidence intervals.Phase two was intended to gather qualitative information from the 275 infrequent or non‐users of the library in focus groups. However, researchers invited the 95 students in this group who had indicated a willingness to be contacted for further study, and only five students participated. The author therefore does not report on this limited data.In phase three, researchers invited the 95 students who had self‐reported as infrequent or non‐users of the library and who had indicated a willingness to be contacted for further study to complete an online survey consisting of 36 open‐ended questions. 38 students responded. Much of the data for phase three is reported on in a separate research article (Vondracek, 2007).<br><b>Main Results</b> – Results from phase one are reported in detail: in response to the question of how often undergraduates visit the physical library, 24.6% visited several times a year, 29.6% visited several times a month, 34% visited several times a week, 7.7% visited once or more per day, and 4% reported that they did not visit at all. Response to how often undergraduate students use the online library resources or website from outside the library were: 37.7% use them several times a year, 32.8% use them several times a month, 12% used them several times a week, 1.3% used them once or more per day, and 16.2% reported that they did not use them at all.No significant relationships were found between class standing and visits to the physical library or class standing and virtual library use.Researchers determined a significant relationship between academic college and visits to the physical library (p=0.003): College of Agriculture students were significantly less likely to visit the library than students from the Colleges of Health and Human Sciences, Liberal Arts, and Sciences.Researchers also determined a significant relationship between academic college and virtual library use (p=0.008): students in the College of Engineering were significantly less likely to use the virtual library resources than students in the College of Liberal Arts.The survey from phase three of this study asked students further questions about their library use and relevant results are discussed in this article. Five students from the College of Agriculture responded to the survey and all five students noted that they study at home. When asked about where they go for help with research, three reported that they ask a friend or peer, one noted a professor and the fifth did not respond to the question. Four engineering students responded to this survey; when asked about where they carry out online research, two responded that they use Google, one responded that he/she uses the library, and the fourth noted that he/she uses a building on campus.<br><b>Conclusion</b> – This study determined that College of Agriculture students were less likely to use the physical library than their counterparts in the Colleges of Health and Human Sciences, Liberal Arts, and Sciences, and that College of Engineering students were less likely to use the virtual library resources than students in the College of Liberal Arts

Scholars in International Relations Cite Books More Frequently than Journals: More Research is Needed to Better Understand Research Behaviour and Use. A Review of: Zhang, Li. ʺCitation Analysis for Collection Development: A Study of International Relations Journal Literature.ʺ Library Collections, Acquisitions, and Technical Services 31.3‐4 (2007): 195‐207.

<b>Objective</b> – To determine primary type, format, language and subject category of research materials used by U.S. scholars of international relations. Also, to investigate whether research method, qualitative or quantitative, can be correlated with the type and age of sources that scholars use.<br><b>Design</b> – Citation analysis.<br><b>Setting</b> – Research articles published in three journals on international relations with high impact factors: International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, and World Politics.<br><b>Subjects</b> – A random sample of cited references taken from the 410 full‐length research articles published in these journals from 2000 to 2005. Cited references of articles written by authors of foreign institutions (i.e., non‐American institutions), as well as cited references of editorial and research notes, comments, responses, and review essays were excluded.<br><b>Methods</b> – Cited references were exported from ISI’s Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) to MS Excel spreadsheets for analysis. Data was verified against original reference lists. Citations were numbered and identified by source format, place of publication (foreign or domestic), age, and language used, if other than English. The author used a random number generator to select a random sample of 651 from a total of 29,862 citations. Citations were randomly drawn from each journal according to the proportion of the journals’ citations to the total. These citations were analyzed by material type and language. The author also used the Library of Congress Classification Outline to identify the subject category of each book and journal citation in the sample. A separate sampling method was used to investigate if there is a relationship between research methodology and citation behaviour. Each of the original 410 articles was categorized according to research method: quantitative, qualitative or a combination of the two. Two articles representing qualitative research and two representing quantitative research were randomly selected from each of the three journals for each of the six years. Subsequently, five citations from each of the resulting pool of 72 articles were randomly selected to create a sample of 360 citations. These citations were analyzed by material type and age of source.<br><b>Main Results</b> – Analysis of the citation data showed that books (including monographs, edited books, book chapters and dictionaries) made up 48.2% of the total citations; journals (including scholarly and non‐scholarly titles) made up 38.4% of the citations; and government publications made up 4.5% of the citations. Electronic resources, which primarily refer to Web sites and digital collections in this study, represented 1.7% of the citations. Other sources of citations included magazines (1.1%), newspapers (1.1%), working papers (1.1%), theses (0.9%), conference papers not yet published as articles (0.6%), and a miscellaneous category, which included items such as committee minutes, radio broadcasts, unpublished materials and personal communications (2.5%). The average age of book citations was 14.3 years and the median age was 8 years. Foreign language citations represented 3.7% of the 651 total citations. The top ranked foreign languages were German (7), French (5), Russian (4), Spanish (3), Korean (2) and Swedish (number not given). Subject analysis of the citations revealed that 38% of all citations were from international relations and two related disciplines, political science, political theory, and public administration. Subject areas outside international relations included social sciences (23.4% ‐ including economics, commerce, industries and finance), history (16.3%), sociology (6.2%), and law (5.9%). Citations from philosophy, psychology, military science and general works together made up 7.3% of the total citations. Citations from science, linguistics, literature, geography and medicine made up less than 2% of the total.Authors of qualitative research articles were more likely to cite books (56.7%) than journals (29.4%) while authors of quantitative research articles were more likely to cite journals (58.3%) than books (28.9%). Authors of qualitative research articles were also more likely to cite government publications and electronic resources than those of quantitative articles. However, authors of quantitative research articles were more likely to cite other materials, such as dissertations, conference papers, working papers and unpublished materials.The age of cited materials for both qualitative and quantitative research articles is similar. Citations to recent materials up to 5 years old were most frequent, followed by materials 6 to 10 years old, materials 11 to 15 years old, and those 26 or more years old. The least frequently cited materials were 16 to 20 and 21 to 25 years old.<br><b>Conclusion</b> – Scholars in international relations primarily cite books, followed by journals and government publications. Citations to electronic resources such as Web sites and digital collections, and to other materials are far less common. Scholars primarily cite English‐language materials on international relations and related subjects. Authors of qualitative research articles are more likely to cite books than journals, while authors of quantitative research articles are more likely to cite journals than books. Recent materials are more frequently cited than older materials, though materials that are more than 26 years old are still being cited regularly

Prepandemic Antivaccination Websites' COVID-19 Vaccine Behavior: Content Analysis of Archived Websites

BackgroundThe onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the concurrent development of vaccines offered a rare and somewhat unprecedented opportunity to study antivaccination behavior as it formed over time via the use of archived versions of websites. ObjectiveThis study aims to assess how existing antivaccination websites modified their content to address COVID-19 vaccines and pandemic restrictions. MethodsUsing a preexisting collection of 25 antivaccination websites curated by the IvyPlus Web Collection Program prior to the pandemic and crawled every 6 months via Archive-It, we conducted a content analysis to see how these websites acknowledged or ignored COVID-19 vaccines and pandemic restrictions. Websites were assessed for financial behaviors such as having storefronts, mention of COVID-19 vaccines in general or by manufacturer name, references to personal freedom such as masking, safety concerns like side effects, and skepticism of science. ResultsThe majority of websites addressed COVID-19 vaccines in a negative fashion, with more websites making appeals to personal freedom or expressing skepticism of science than questioning safety. This can potentially be attributed to the lack of available safety data about the vaccines at the time of data collection. Many of the antivaccination websites we evaluated actively sought donations and had a membership option, evidencing these websites have financial motivations and actively build a community around these issues. The content analysis also offered the opportunity to test the viability of archived websites for use in scholarly research. The archived versions of the websites had significant shortcomings, particularly in search functionality, and required supplementation with the live websites. For web archiving to be a viable source of stand-alone content for research, the technology needs to make significant improvements in its capture abilities. ConclusionsIn summary, we found antivaccination websites existing prior to the COVID-19 pandemic largely adapted their messaging to address COVID-19 vaccines with very few sites ignoring the pandemic altogether. This study also demonstrated the timely and significant need for more robust web archiving capabilities as web-based environments become more ephemeral and unstable

Writing Together to Get AHEAD: an interprofessional boot camp to support scholarly writing in the health professions

Background: Writing for publication is an integral skill for both sharing research findings and career advancement, yet many faculty lack expertise, support, and time to author scholarly publications. Health professions educators identified writing as an area in which a new educators’ academy could offer support. Case Presentation: To address this need, a writing task force was formed consisting of a librarian, a School of Medicine faculty member, and a School of Nursing faculty member. The task force launched two initiatives to motivate and support faculty writing and publication over two academic years. In the first year, a structured interprofessional “boot camp” consisting of a sequenced, modularized approach to manuscript completion was offered. In the second year, community building, in-person writing sessions, and incentives were added to the structured tasks. In year one, twenty participants enlisted in the boot camp, nine of whom completed a manuscript for submission by the end of the program. Qualitative feedback indicated potential improvements, which were put in place in the second program. In year two, twenty-eight participants enrolled, and eleven submitted thirteen manuscripts for publication by the end of the program. Conclusions: Structured tasks, frequent deadlines, and professional editorial assistance were highly valued by participants. Time remains a barrier for faculty seeking to complete manuscripts. As experts in many facets of the publication process, librarians are well positioned to partner with others to facilitate faculty and staff development in writing