Exploring Stakeholder Priorities for Recent MLIS Graduates and Early Career Librarians

A multi-phase research project was conducted to understand the future skills and competencies expected of new MLIS-degreed librarians. Phase one found the two largest categories of challenges include understanding the mission of the library and funding issues, with other categories including staff skills, hiring and retaining staff, technology, operations and policies, and outreach. Phase two explored stakeholder priorities for competences expected of new MLIS graduates and librarians finishing their first five years of employment. The highest priorities for new MLIS graduates are related to skills and basic knowledge, while areas such as management and leadership, lifelong learning, and information resources were highly prioritized for early career librarians

Exploring LIS research education as preparation for practitioner research

This paper reports on continuing research into outcomes of teaching research methods to master’s students in library and information science programs, expanding upon a project presented at ALISE 2018. Alumni of an ALA-accredited MLIS program were surveyed to explore their views of and engagement with research. Respondents reported comfort with important research methods concepts and activities after completing the research methods course, a generally positive attitude toward research, and the use of some research activities as practitioners

Infusing diversity, cultural competence, and social justice into an LIS curriculum

This poster reports on research being conducted by faculty in the Valdosta State University (VSU) Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) program on identification and implementation of best practices for infusing concepts of diversity, cultural competence, and social justice into the VSU MLIS curriculum. It is essential that as emerging professionals, students in our MLIS program see themselves reflected in the curriculum and master theoretical and practical knowledge to be able to develop inclusive library collections, services, and programs that reflect diverse patrons’ lived experiences and provide opportunities for all patrons to understand the experiences of people whose identities differ from theirs. This infusion of diversity, cultural competence, and social justice concepts plays a key role in the VSU MLIS curriculum and we strive to ensure it occurs in both core courses (required for all students) and elective courses. Research in progress for three courses is highlighted: an elective course on multicultural children’s literature, a core course that fulfills the program’s collection development requirement, and an elective course on services to diverse populations that is being developed. These represent three approaches to infusing concepts of diversity, cultural competence, and social justice into the curriculum: continual improvement of electives that focus on the concepts; revision of core courses to explicitly address the concepts; and development of new courses that expand our focus on the concepts. Research methods include reviews of the literature, expert interviews, content analyses of syllabi, and surveys of LIS programs

Meeting the Needs of IT Stakeholders in a Northwest Florida State College

Many studies support the important role that two and four-year college programs can play in certification training and as a gateway to the four-year IT degree. In an effort to determine if one Florida Panhandle community college was delivering its intended IT education goals and meeting the needs of local employers, the researchers performed five comparative analyses that stemmed from the overarching research question, “How do IT program learning outcomes compare to the requirements of IT job postings as well as to IT student and faculty perceptions of what is learned and what is taught?” The results of this study, when contextualized with extant literature, suggest that schools are challenged in aligning curricula with IT employers needs especially in clarifying the value of certifications and obtaining meaningful experiential learning opportunities for students as they manage their education and career pathways.ye

More data, more problems: Strategically addressing data ethics and policy issues in LIS curricula and courses

Library and information science (LIS) schools are revising undergraduate and graduate curricula and individual courses to prepare students for data-centric careers, as well as to participate in a data-driven society. To meet these new challenges, programs are developing courses on, among other things, data curation, analytics, visualization, algorithm design, and artificial intelligence. While such changes reflect new workforce and society needs, it remains to be seen whether or not such efforts adequately address the very real and serious ethics and policy issues associated with related data practices (e.g., privacy, bias, fairness, and justice). The Information Ethics SIG and the Information Policy SIG have merged to present a panel on data ethics and policy issues in LIS education. In this session, two recent books on information ethics and information policy will be discussed to bring context to the panel, three papers will be presented, and the audience will have an opportunity to participate in a structured discussion. The papers will address three topics that explore the implications and concerns of living in a data-driven society: collaborative strategies for contributing to the data ethics education landscape, young adult information privacy concerns when using mobile devices, and artificial intelligence and social responsibility. The structured discussion will invite participation on issues raised by the papers, as well as implications for practice in LIS education

Creating Context for User-Generated Tags: An Exploratory Study

This exploratory study investigates methods for enhancing Flickr tags as image metadata through the creation of context. Community generated tags from a sample of images in the Library of Congress???s (LOC) Flickr photostream were harvested and compared to metadata from related Wikipedia articles. In addition, a content analysis of comments in the LOC photostream was conducted. This informs an exploration of methods of combining user-generated tags with other resources to create richer, contextual metadata for images. In addition, the LOC and Wikipedia subject terms were compared to subject headings from the Thesaurus for Graphic Materials (TGM) to determine whether socially created metadata can be used to enhance a current knowledge organization tool by suggesting new concepts, terms, and relationships

Developing Research Practitioners: Exploring Pedagogical Options for Teaching Research Methods in LIS

This paper reports on an investigation into the effectiveness of teaching research methods in library and information science (LIS). A review of the literature revealed that the LIS community is engaged in a continuing debate about the most effective means for teaching research methods courses in master’s-level LIS programs. Many LIS master’s students enter their programs lacking backgrounds in social science research, and many exhibit skepticism about the need for LIS practitioners to understand and engage in research. The small research project described in this paper was designed to contribute to this discussion by exploring how several different iterations of the final project implemented in a research methods course at the University of Rhode Island’s (URI) LIS program contributed both to student retention of learning outcomes after completing the course and to the graduates’ views of research and their engagement with research as practitioners. The authors developed a survey consisting of 20 closed-ended questions in single and matrix formats, covering three categories: respondents’ experience with the course, their current use of research, and their opinion of research. The findings show promise for further research in the pedagogy of LIS research methods courses. Respondents demonstrated achievement and retention of course learning objectives and a generally positive attitude toward research

Broadband Deployment as Technological Innovation: Assessing the Needs of Anchor Institutions

High-speed broadband facilitates a vast number of beneficial applications such as voice over internet protocol (VoIP), streaming media, gaming, online government and business services, and other interactive services that require high data transmission rates. While high speed broadband is purported to lead ultimately to social and economic development, a coherent proactive national policy regarding the development and use of broadband infrastructure in rural and underserved areas has been slow to appear in the U.S. The FCC???s recent mandate to develop a National Broadband Plan and the $7.2 billion in funds specified in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) for broadband deployment and build-out indicates a significant shift in federal government policy to supporting broadband deployment. As the federal funding increases, local community anchor institutions such as public libraries, schools, and medical facilities will be looked to as drivers of successful deployment and adoption of broadband to local communities. The purpose of this paper is to identify and discuss issues associated with large-scale technological innovations with emphasis on the widespread adoption of high-speed broadband by community anchor institutions. This will include the evaluation of and planning for broadband expansion and implementation. A case study of public libraries in Florida serves to highlight the means used to assess broadband adoption and implementation issues in community anchor institutions. By examining the factors that assist anchor institutions in deploying large-scale broadband projects, this paper also seeks to identify issues and opportunities for iSchools to play a role in assisting anchor institutions with successful deployment of broadband projects