Transforming Reference Education through Improv Comedy

This study sought to explore how the fundamentals of improv comedy could be used to discuss and practice the soft skills necessary for successful reference service interactions. Feedback was collected from a pilot study where students were asked to engage with selected improv comedy activities and then discuss bridges between improv and reference skills. The results presented in this paper support the continued exploration of the efficacy of using the principles of improv comedy to explore effective reference services provision

The Land of Opportunity Zones: Deferring Taxable Capital Gains Through Investments in Low-Income Communities

The market reserve of unrealized capital gains in the United States has grown to an estimated $6 trillion. A new program provides a novel way to incentivize investors into realizing those gains but deferring recognition, while at the same time helping to revitalize areas of America that need it most

INVESTORS REACTIONS TO COMPETITIVE ACTIONS AMONG RIVALS: A STEP TOWARD STRATEGIC ASSET PRICING THEORY

This dissertation describes the development and empirical testing of strategic asset pricing theory (STRAPT). This explains the processes by which investors form ideas and judgments about a given firm‘s competitive strategy, and their ultimate belief about the impact these strategies will have on the firm‘s future stock price. My model explicitly accounts for information investors associate with dimensions of a firm‘s pattern of competitive actions, how investors process and interpret this information, and how they form opinions about the relationship between competitive strategy and future value of the firm‘s equity shares. Thus, by accounting for observed competitive behavior, my model stands in stark contrast to asset pricing theory – which asserts that financial markets are efficient and all investors rational – and instead sides with Hirshleifer (2001) who contends some investors form biases, and that the next stage of asset pricing theory is to look at how investors form opinions about stocks. Drawing from some unique theoretical areas: information perception/salience, information processing, social judgment, and decision making, my dissertation develops a conceptual model of this process by which long-buyers and short-sellers view and react to patterns of competitive actions carried out among rivals. My findings about how long-buyers regard between-firm ―differences‖ in the pattern of competitive actions the firm carries out over time, or strategic heterogeneity, are generally supportive of Miller and Chen (1996), who posited that distinctive processes such as heterogeneous strategies may decrease the ―legitimacy‖ of the firm. They exhibit a negative relationship with stock returns. Due to a different decision-making process, short-sellers come to different conclusions. Strategic heterogeneity exhibits a U-shaped relationship with short interest. My findings pertaining to how long-buyers value the number of strategic moves carried out by a firm generally support Young, Smith, and Grimm (1996) and Ferrier (2001). Specifically, I demonstrate that these investors value exposure to a firm, and this translates into positive stock market returns. Short-sellers, on the other hand, see the value of a large number of strategic actions only to an extent. Through their systematic analysis, they subscribe to the Porter (1980) and Shamsie (1990) viewpoint that more is not always better. This results in a U-shaped relationship with short interest

Research-Based Development of a Health Information Professional Concentration and Certificate

Health information professional (HIP) refers to “information professionals, librarians, or informaticists who have special knowledge in quality health information resources” (MLA, 2017, para. 2). The diversity of emerging HIP roles indicates daunting challenges unique to LIS students pursuing HIP careers and to LIS programs endeavoring to develop and update specialized LIS curricula for HIPs. This poster explicates action research built upon the findings of a sequential two-phase project, which included a scoping literature review of scholarly publications on the topic of HIP roles and skills and a survey of employers on the competencies and attributes expected of entry-level HIPs (Ma et al., 2018; Ma et al., 2020). This action research project seeks to create a HIP Concentration and Certificate with course learning outcomes developed and adapted from core HIP professional competencies and employer expectations identified in the two-phase project. Students planning to pursue the HIP Concentration or the HIP Certificate may customize their trajectory with courses including health sciences librarianship, consumer health information, a seminar in current issues for HIP, health informatics, health information systems and management, and health disparities for diverse health communities. Through adapting and consolidating existing courses, LIS faculty and advisors can effectively counsel students early in their studies, inform them of required professional competencies and desirable qualifications, and facilitate work-integrated or preprofessional learning opportunities within and beyond the curriculum. It is hoped that this project will provide an evidence-based approach to developing future specialized HIP programs in LIS education

The impact of COVID-19 on reference services: a national survey of academic health sciences librarians

Objectives: The aim of this study was to gain a better understanding of the scope and adaptive nature of reference services provided by academic health sciences librarians over a one-year period (between March 2020 and March 2021) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: In March 2021, academic health sciences librarians in the United States were invited to participate in an anonymous online survey about their experiences providing reference services during the COVID-19 pandemic. The online survey was developed, pretested, and distributed to various listservs. Results: A total of 205 academic health sciences librarians and other information professionals with health sciences liaison responsibilities in the US (N=205) responded to the online survey. The scope of reference services provided during the COVID-19 pandemic included email-based reference services (97%), virtual reference (89%), telephone (80%), text-based (33%), and in-person (31%). The most common types of COVID-related reference questions included COVID-19 treatments (53%), safety precautions (46%), vaccines (41%), and prevalence (38%). Additionally, the identification of challenging reference questions and examples of misinformation were provided by respondents. Conclusions: The results of the survey characterize the evolving nature and scope of academic health sciences reference work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Librarians reported an increase in reference questions during the pandemic and are answering them in creative ways despite barriers (e.g., limited time and reduction in resources). There is an opportunity for librarians to continue to address COVID-related misinformation. Overall, these findings provide useful insight for library practitioners and administrators planning reference services during public health crises

The informational “cosplay journey” of Star Wars cosplayers in the context of a Facebook group

INTRODUCTION. Research on personal information practices has increased in recent decades. Building on this current of thought, the present study explores information practices in the context of serious leisure, looking specifically at the Rey Cosplay Community Facebook group, an online community of Star Wars cosplayers. The work discusses how these fans seek, organize, and share relevant information during the process of making costumes. METHOD. This study used participant observation and semi-structured interviews to investigate information behaviours, including information seeking, organization, use, and sharing, of seventeen members in the Rey Cosplay Community with a purposive sampling strategy. ANALYSIS. The researchers transcribed and jointly coded the collected data with an open coding scheme to identify themes that emerged from the data. RESULTS. The cosplayers used a myriad of tools to seek, organize, and share information about costume making. Participants identified that their information practices had evolved over time, and they shared sophisticated strategies for sharing work-in-progress photos and updates as well as methods for organizing information for later use. CONCLUSION. There are a variety of information practices used when making a costume. Participants often seek and acquire relevant information on online platforms and use a combination of traditional physical tools and modern electronic tools to organize information. They also display a rich culture of sharing information when responding to other fans’ information needs. The overall structure that these information practices take can be neatly articulated as a sort of informational “cosplay journey”

Student-constructed classroom guidelines: How to involve students in the creation of a tailored classroom environment

When students begin a new class, they are often given a list of guidelines outlining how the classroom environment should look and how the students (and sometimes the instructors) should behave. These lists impose the instructor’s preferences for classroom behavior on students and may exacerbate the inherent power dynamics at play in a classroom. In addition, instructor-created guidelines may not be sensitive to the cultural needs of students in our increasingly global classrooms. This paper presents a novel way of creating classroom guidelines by asking the students themselves to construct them on the first day of class. The themes that arose from the student-identified desires included respect for others, a safe environment, clear course structure, hands-on activities, course rigor, open food policy, clear explanations, opportunity for movement, and congenial group work. The suggestions offered in this paper can assist instructors in tailoring learning environments to students and creating a safe and inviting classroom culture from day one. Filling a gap in the literature, this work offers suggestions for student-centered classroom guidelines that reflect the desires of the contemporary graduate student

Health Insurance Literacy: How People Understand and Make Health Insurance Purchase Decisions

The concept of health insurance literacy, which can be defined as “the extent to which consumers can make informed purchase and use decisions” (Kim, Braun, & Williams, 2013, p. 3), has only recently become a focus of health literacy research. Though employees have been making health insurance decisions for many years, the Affordable Care Act has brought the issues of health insurance literacy to the spotlight. For the large number of adults with lower levels of health literacy, their ability to procure appropriate levels of health insurance coverage and interact with the health care system successfully may be limited. While a considerable amount of literature has focused on studying health literacy in general, the information seeking and decision-making process regarding health insurance has not been studied as thoroughly. If this process is studied in a sample group of users, their information needs and use might be better understood. This qualitative study explores how individuals understand health insurance concepts and make health insurance purchase decisions. This study used semi-structured interview questions supplemented with a demographic questionnaire and the Health Insurance Literacy Measurement (HILM) developed by Paez et al. (2014). The study was conducted with newly hired employees at a large university in the southeastern United States. The collected data formed the foundation for the construction of a model of the health insurance decision-making process. This study identified information tactics used by individuals when evaluating health insurance materials, such as comparing plans side-by-side, calculating costs, and eliminating irrelevant information. The findings also shed light on the personal reflection individuals undertake when making their health insurance choices, including past experience with health insurance and forecasting their needs for the next year. The participants in this study characterized their health insurance choice as a shared decision, consulting others during their decision-making. The HILM, coupled with discussions during the semi-structured interviews, identified demographic implications of individuals’ health insurance literacy skills. In addition, the information needs and preferred information sources identified in this study will be of interest to human resources officers and other information professionals providing assistance with health insurance enrollment.Doctor of Philosoph