Comparing Apples to Apples Oranges: An Exploration of the Use of LibGuides in ARL Libraries

The University of Louisville (UofL) Libraries, like thousands of libraries all over the world, use LibGuides content management software from Springshare to create and maintain several hundred subject guide webpages. Although the librarians spend countless hours every year on their guides, a study of guide usage has never been undertaken. As the authors began to look at the usage statistics for their institution, they wondered if examining only statistics from UofL Libraries would be looking at them in a vacuum. The UofL Libraries is a mid-size to large library system with six separate libraries and is a member of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). The authors decided to use UofL’s statistics as a reference point in asking the following questions: How did UofL’s usage compare to other, similar libraries? What types of guides have libraries created? What guide types are the most heavily used? How does guide placement affect use? The question of how to increase usage was also important given the amount of funding and time spent on the guides. A number of challenges were present as the authors attempted to embark on the research. Since UofL Libraries is a member of ARL, the study was limited to other ARL member Libraries. Although LibGuides are ubiquitous at ARL Libraries, collecting usage data was dependent on the goodwill of those libraries as it was not publicly available. The implementation of the guides at institutions can be radically different and those implementations are affected by internal policies that were not readily available. In addition, LibGuides are more ephemeral in nature than it would first appear. They appear, change, and disappear with a rapidity that makes it difficult to do in-depth, meaningful analysis. Nevertheless, this article will provide a snapshot in time of the use of the software across 27 libraries, demonstrate the wide variation in use of the guides, and provide some practical suggestions for increasing usage based on the authors’ findings

Small Brown Faces in Large White Spaces

In this chapter we will explore how multiculturalism in the field of academic librarianship is mobilized and what the shape of that mobilization can tell us about issues of identity and the body. As former resident librarians of color, we the authors felt unmoored by the expectations put upon us as diversity resident librarians for a multitude of reasons. We had to learn quickly, but not ask too many questions or else we would seem unprofessional; we had to be ambitious, but not be intimidating to our coworkers. Above all, we had to be successful, which allowed little room for error or discord. This is our attempt to pull back that narrative and use our voices to represent our full identity

The Stories We Tell: Engaging with Authority in Critical Health Pedagogy

This Innovative Practices piece details the design of a scaffolded project in a public health course that paired a narrative inquiry assignment with an empirical health literature review assignment to highlight both the positivist and constructivist epistemologies of critical health research in public health. The authors discuss and reflect on the five parts that constitute the project, student learning outcomes, and the benefits of engaging with critical information literacy in an undergraduate public health course. The goal of this article is to provide practical applications of critical information literacy to librarians in the health sciences who work with undergraduate students

Library instruction and information literacy 2015

Purpose: This paper aims to highlight recent resources on information literacy (IL) and library instruction, providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering all library types. Design/methodology/approach: This paper introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations and other materials on library instruction and IL published in 2015. Findings: This paper provides information about each source, describes the characteristics of current scholarship and highlights sources that contain either unique or significant scholarly contributions. Originality/value: The information may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and IL