They Sought Our Help: A Survey of One-on-One Research Assistance at The University of Tennessee Lupton Library

Providing research assistance on an individual basis to patrons has long been a standard service in the panoply of services at many academic libraries. The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) Lupton Library describes its one-on-one research service as follows: if you are new to using the library resources, can’t find the right source for your paper or need a demonstration of a database, need help in tracking an obscure article, or have any other questions that require a little extra help, Lupton Library offers one-on-one research help to students and faculty. You many request a research appointment online or if you want to work with a specific librarian, you can contact him or her directly (spring Newsletter, 2011). About five years ago the reference librarians at UTC started keeping statistics of how many students and faculty use the one-on one service and how much time was being devoted to that service

Motivation to Manage and Status of Women in Library and Information Science: A Comparative Study Among the United States, India, Singapore and Thailand

In most non-western societies, the self-system (personal standards of judging and guiding one’s actions) is much more inter-dependent on family and society, whereas in western societies, especially in the U.S., it is dependent on the individual self. Cross-cultural studies suggest that a person’s behavior should be understood in the context of their social experience and social roles. In all the cultures and countries studied, however, the status of women is universally lower than men; consequently there is a need to explore the causes. Professional women have made some strides in penetrating managerial ranks in the library and information science profession, but they still experience inequality in compensation, promotion, and in appointment to powerful middle or high-level positions. It seems that social needs and cultural influences play a very important role in the acceptance of women as managers or leaders. This study compares the managerial motivations of Library and Information Science (LIS) students from the United States, India, Singapore, and Thailand. The students responded to a questionnaire containing 41 statements dealing with motivation to manage, and 16 demographic questions. The respondents consisted of 665 students from the United States, 808 from India, 73 from Singapore, and 284 from Thailand. (The data from Japan was not analyzed because the sample was too small-not a valid sample). The major gender differences show up by gender and country in ‘Social Acceptance,’ ‘Rigidity’ and ‘Women as Managers.’ Even when a majority of both genders agree to accept women as managers at the conceptual level, acceptance of women as managers lags behind men in societies according to the results of this study. In some of the countries studied, a substantial number of women do not have the confidence that they can handle managerial jobs as objectively and aggressively as men

Reference Use Statistics: Statistical Sampling Method Works (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga)

Most reference librarians would like reference statistics to reflect all aspects of reference work. They would also like the task of keeping statistics to be simple. However, there is nothing simple about reference service. While spending more and more time helping individual students at their workstations, away from the reference desk, reference librarians still have to remember to mark statistics when they return to the reference desk. They realize that detailed information as to the type of questions asked at the desk would be helpful in guiding librarians while providing user instruction. Such details would also provide information on the impact of resource changes and technology in the library. However, the librarians do not have time to collect such detailed statistics while serving the patrons. They feel that helping the patron is more important than marking statistics on the sheet. As a result many questions go as unmarked. Traditional counting methods do not reflect what resources are most helpful or which formats require increased time with users

From Women-Staffed to Women-Led: Gender and Leadership in Academic Libraries, 1974-2018.

This article reviews post-1974 scholarly literature on women’s leadership in academic libraries, with the emphasis on the United States. The purpose of this synthesis is to highlight research areas and themes that have significantly expanded the profession’s knowledge about gender and its impact at the top administrative level. The article starts with a brief overview of theories of gender and leadership before tracing scholarship on the gendered career patterns singled out in Schiller’s work (1974). The article then focuses on additional issues related to gender and library administration, including leadership styles, perceptions of differences between male and female leaders, and the lack of diversity among academic library women directors

Leveraging ligand affinity and properties: discovery of novel benzamide-type cereblon binders for the design of PROTACs

Immunomodulatory imide drugs (IMiDs) such as thalidomide, pomalidomide, and lenalidomide are the most common cereblon (CRBN) recruiters in proteolysis-targeting chimera (PROTAC) design. However, these CRBN ligands induce the degradation of IMiD neosubstrates and are inherently unstable, degrading hydrolytically under moderate conditions. In this work, we simultaneously optimized physiochemical properties, stability, on-target affinity, and off-target neosubstrate modulation features to develop novel nonphthalimide CRBN binders. These efforts led to the discovery of conformationally locked benzamide-type derivatives that replicate the interactions of the natural CRBN degron, exhibit enhanced chemical stability, and display a favorable selectivity profile in terms of neosubstrate recruitment. The utility of the most potent ligands was demonstrated by their transformation into potent degraders of BRD4 and HDAC6 that outperform previously described reference PROTACs. Together with their significantly decreased neomorphic ligase activity on IKZF1/3 and SALL4, these ligands provide opportunities for the design of highly selective and potent chemically inert proximity-inducing compounds