Special Libraries and YouCanBook. Me: Easy Consultation Scheduling through an Online Booking System

Column description. Special Libraries, Special Challenges is a column dedicated to exploring the unique public services challenges that arise in libraries that specialize in a particular subject, such as law, medicine, business, and so forth. In each column, the author will discuss public service dilemmas and solutions that arise specifically patentin special libraries or subject-matter librarians interested in authoring a piece for this column are invited to contact the Column Editor, Ilana Stonebraker

Five Finger Advocacy: An Alternative to the Elevator Pitch

How do we find ways to take the stories we tell and give them more impact? In this lightning talk, I present the five finger lobbying model as an alternative to elevator pitch. The five finger model includes: 1) Introduce yourself 2) What is my issue 3) Why do I care (personal story) 4) Why should they care? 5) Make the ask. This is great alternative to the elevator pitch because it centers the audience and the intent into the communication. Five finger advocacy librarians who want to communicate value, but also identify shared goals. It can also be helpful to students on the job search who might be looking for better ways to connect with their audience

Toward informed leadership: Teaching students to make better decisions using information

Studies have shown that introducing additional information without context leads to worse decision making. Informed leadership is the purposeful integration of information into decision management. This article reframes information literacy as decision management using elements of evidence-based management. It highlights strategies such as decision awareness, process creation, and decision practice and approaches for purposeful application in the information literacy classroom

Good Library Data Made Better With Technology! Using OpenRefine and Google Fusion Tables in Academic Business Libraries Instruction

Big data just seems to get bigger all the time, but that doesn’t mean it gets any less messy. Even large, carefully cultivated government datasets suffer from irregularities like acronyms, open response items, and misused categories. Steadfast librarians have the patience for such inaccuracies, but undergraduate students are often unprepared for the realities of the big data they crave. Teaching data cleaning and collaboration can help students better understand and use large datasets but also illustrate the importance of library-cultivated data, as it often has fewer of these problems than datasets found on the open web. At a high level, library data and open datasets may be seem comparable, but when we give students the tools to slog through the data on their own, the small things start to add up

Specialized Tutorials for Specialized Resources: Using Interactive Guide on the Side Tutorials for Special Libraries Reference and Instruction

Special Libraries, Special Challenges Column Special Libraries, Special Challenges is a column dedicated to exploring the unique public services challenges that arise in libraries that specialize in a particular subject, such as law, medicine, business, and so forth. In each column, the author will discuss public service dilemmas and solutions that arise specifically in given subject libraries while drawing links to how such issues affect librarianship in general. Special or subject-matter librarians interested in authoring a piece for this column are invited to contact Ilana Stonebraker at [email protected]. This column is written by column editor Ilana Stonebraker. Ilana Stonebraker is Assistant Professor at Purdue University Libraries and Business Information Specialist based at Parrish Library of Management and Economics

Library-Sponsored Case Competitions: Best Practices and Assessment of Learning Gains

The Parrish Library Case Competition is an annual library-administered, library-sponsored case competition where teams of undergraduate students compete against one another to make better evidence-based decisions for business problems. This article includes a description the case competition as a resource for other libraries interested in sponsoring similar case competitions as part of their information literacy programs. Students who participated in the case competition saw their learning grow as assessed through questionnaires and focus groups. Students who had not taken an information literacy course perceived their understanding as lower than those who had taken a course

Flipping the Business Information Literacy Classroom: Redesign, Implementation and Assessment of a Case Study

A team of librarians at Purdue University transformed a business information literacy course from a traditional lecture, 40-student class into multiple sections of a flipped, 70-student classroom to meet the request that the successful course be required for all 500 undergraduate students. Scaling up required the adoption of flipped learning techniques for better utilization of library teaching resources. This case study provides key insights for others implementing credit classes or integrating similar content into one-shots or embedded work. It also describes the assessed results determined through student feedback (focus groups) and student performance (pre/post-tests)

A Crowdsourced Library Help System

Help information regarding library resources and tools is a critical part of library services, but existing help channels are often fragmented and under-maintained. Library help needs to have a centralized and engaging platform for users to receive assistance and experts including librarians, faculty, and students to share knowledge and experience. To meet this critical need, we have developed CrowdAsk, an open-source help system for academic libraries based on the concept of crowdsourcing. CrowdAsk supports voting of questions and answers by users as well as scores and badges for user motivation. Our implementation and evaluation with undergraduate classes at Purdue University showed that CrowdAsk is effective in meeting users’ information needs beyond traditional library reference help. Users have asked various types of questions and reached high levels of scores and badges in one semester’s time. We have integrated CrowdAsk with existing reference service and websites in Purdue University Libraries to continue developing the crowdsourcing community after the grant

Undergraduate Learning in Libraries: Space Design for Academic Course Transformation and Re-Thinking Campus Culture

At Purdue University, the Libraries participate in a provost-initiated, campus-wide course redesign program for student success called Instruction Matters: Purdue Academic Course Transformation (IMPACT). As part of the campus strategic plan, this program aims to bring active learning to foundational courses traditionally taught through lectures.https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/rethinkit_proceedings/1003/thumbnail.jp