A Seat at the Table: Information Literacy Assessment and Professional Legitimacy

This qualitative study explores academic librarians’ perceptions of and experiences with information literacy assessment, focusing primarily on issues of professional identity, agency, and power. Findings from in-depth interviews reveal that instruction librarians view teaching as integral to their professional identity and use assessment to legitimize that identity, both personally and at the institutional level. While this suggests that assessment has the potential to elevate the status of librarians on campus, the interviews also highlight ongoing professional and organizational tensions that hinder assessment efforts and inhibit librarian agency. The authors recommend more transparent communication, among other strategies, to address these challenges

Real Talk: Librarian Perceptions of the Professional Conversation on Information Literacy Assessment

This qualitative study investigates how academic librarians perceive the professional conversation about information literacy assessment, focusing on their characterization of the discourse and the benefits of and barriers to their participation. Findings from phenomenological interviews indicate that librarians view the conversation as valuable and inspiring, but also divisive and inapplicable to many libraries. While they find value in sharing ideas and engaging in a community of practice, they may face such barriers as feelings of inadequacy and insufficient resources. The authors provide recommendations to help librarians, administrators, and conference planners foster more inclusive and productive engagement in the professional conversation on information literacy assessment

The heathen Chinee: a study of American attitudes toward China, 1890-1905

(print) xiii, 272 p. ; 22 cmIntroduction xi -- 1 Chinese Immigration and the Rationale for Exclusion 3 -- 2 The Chinese in American Life and Letters 31 -- 3 Americans View the Chinese in China 69 -- 4 Useful Aliens : A More Favorable Evaluation of the Chinese 111 -- 5 China as an Ancient Civilization 133 -- 6 China : The American El Dorado 163 -- 7 The Awakening Dragon 207 -- 8 Conclusion 245 -- Selected Bibliography 255 -- Index 26

Raising the library\u27s impact factor : a case study in scholarly publishing literacy for graduate students.

Graduate students across disciplines feel pressure to publish their scholarship, but they are often unsure how to go about it, partly due to a lack of explicit training in this area. This article discusses the collaborative development of a semester-long Publishing Academy, designed to promote knowledge of scholarly publishing and increase the library’s impact within the graduate student community. Demonstrating how librarians can draw on their unique skills to build a niche service addressing unmet needs on campus, the project also puts into practice a broader conception of scholarly publishing literacy, which can be linked to the Association of College and Research Libraries Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education

The DSpace Institutional Digital Repository System: Current Functionality

In this paper we describe DSpaceâ¢, an open source system that acts as a repository for digital research and educational material produced by an organization or institution. DSpace was developed during two years’ collaboration between the Hewlett-Packard Company and MIT Libraries. The development team worked closely with MIT Libraries staff and early adopter faculty members to produce a âbreadth-first’ system, providing all of the basic features required by a digital repository service. As well as functioning as a live service, DSpace is intended as a base for extending repository functionality, particularly to address long-term preservation concerns. We describe the functionality of the current DSpace system, and briefly describe its technical architecture. We conclude with some remarks about the future development and operation of the DSpace system

Nondestructive Evaluation of Standing Trees With a Stress Wave Method

The primary objective of this study was to investigate the usefulness of a stress wave technique for evaluating wood strength and stiffness of young-growth western hemlock and Sitka spruce in standing trees. A secondary objective was to determine if the effects of silvicultural practices on wood quality can be identified using this technique. Stress wave measurements were conducted on 168 young-growth western hemlock and Sitka spruce trees. After in situ measurements, a 0.61-m-long bole section in the test span was taken from 56 felled trees to obtain small, clear wood specimens. Stress wave and static bending tests were then performed on these specimens to determine strength and stiffness. Results of this study indicate that in situ stress wave measurements could provide relatively accurate and reliable information that would enable nondestructive evaluation of wood properties in standing trees. The mean values of stress wave speed and dynamic modulus of elasticity for trees agreed with those determined from small, clear wood specimens. Statistical regression analyses revealed good correlations between stress wave properties of trees and static bending properties of small, clear wood specimens obtained from the trees. Regression models showed statistical significance at the 0.01 confidence level. Results of this study also demonstrate that the effect of silvicultural practices on wood properties can be identified with the stress wave properties of trees. This indicates that this nondestructive stress wave technique can be used to track property changes in trees and help determine how forests could be managed to meet desired wood and fiber qualities