Providing Access to Government Information: A Survey of the Federal Depository Library Community

The mission of the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) is to provide free, permanent public access to federal government information now and for future generations. In the 20th century, depository libraries received tangible materials, in mostly print format, creating what is now often called the “legacy collection.” Currently the majority of government information is distributed in a born-digital format, sometimes with multiple avenues to online information through government agencies themselves and repositories collecting and digitizing materials. How are Federal Depository Libraries curating their government information collections, both tangible and digital? This study investigated what depository libraries are doing regarding collection development and how they are dealing with permanent access issues, weeding, and preservation. The goal of this article is to uncover issues that need to be addressed by the government information community as a whole, since libraries in the FDLP collaborate in order to provide citizens access to government information. Findings from this survey include a community focused on preserving born-digital information and a commitment to the FDLP mission of free, permanent public access to government information

Assessment Beyond the Classroom: Providing Job Specific Life-long Learning Skills for Students

2019 ALA PosterTo improve instruction for upper level forensic science students, two librarians and a forensic science professor developed an information literacy-embedded seminar to improve student success in that major. Development of this class was influenced by anecdotes from former students on information needs post-graduation. To confirm the comments of these former students, this team received a grant to investigate information seeking behaviors of forensic science professionals. This grant work is intended to be of service to the forensic science professions, but has been incredibly useful for informing and assessing classroom practice, especially when teaching the value of information and developing search strategies. Data on information seeking and information resource access gathered from a survey of forensic science professionals and interviews at crime labs conducted as part of the grant will be highlighted. Despite the forensic science's discipline including a myriad of specialties, several universal themes emerged from the data. While this data is useful for the grant project, it is also informing the librarians as they reassess their information literacy seminar. Lectures and discussions on where to find quality materials and how to find open access materials for those who might not have access to subscription materials post-graduation have been especially shaped by these data. As impact is often discussed in terms of student success, this project has led the librarians to broaden their definition of student success to include success in the students' future professional life.National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Program

Collaborative Data Literacy Education for Research Labs: A Case Study at a Large Research University

Data literacy education for graduate students can take place in many contexts. One-shot instruction sessions and credit-bearing courses are a common mode of instruction for the graduate student audience, but both share limitations regarding best practices for adult learning theory. This case study explores the benefits of data literacy education in a research lab setting and highlights the collaborations among data librarians, a liaison librarian, and research faculty that enable effective learning experiences in labs or other applied settings. The authors share the design of the curriculum, facilitation of the instruction, and the assessment of student learning, as well as their approach to collaboration as an essential component of the project

Developing an Information Literacy-Intensive Forensic Science Course

American Academy of Forensic Sciences 2018 Poster PresentationThe goal of this presentation is to demonstrate a model where forensic science educators can utilize resources at university libraries to promote scientific information literacy and lifelong learning strategies for their forensic science students that they can continue to use in their professional forensic careers. This presentation will impact the forensic science community by highlighting the benefits of forensic science faculty collaborating with subject specialist academic librarians to produce a course filling a gap in the education of future forensic science practitioners. This course facilitates the development of productive search strategies and how different types of scientific research and legal materials are relevant to various forensic science disciplines. This collaboration has demonstrated a need for promoting information literacy, specifically for open-access materials, on forensic science information to these students so that once they graduate they still can acquire the valuable information necessary for their job. As a result of this research, the researchers saw a need to expand this information literacy beyond the classroom and acquired National Institute of Justice (NIJ) funding to allow for the development of these materials as modules to be used by practitioners in crime laboratories to enhance available resources for their use. Forensic science is a multi-faceted field including expertise from a variety of disciplines. A challenge for creating a college course to address skills to develop information literacy competencies and encourage lifelong learning for future practitioners is covering those diverse disciplines. This presentation will detail how librarians at Texas A&M University developed a junior-level forensic science seminar in collaboration with a forensic science faculty member to meet the research needs of students in the forensic sciences program. The learning outcomes of this class include teaching students to describe problem-solving principles, organize typical operational protocols, recognize the scientific basis and application of tools and techniques in forensic science, compare capabilities and limitations, and to summarize and illustrate current scientific, ethical, and legal issues. The presenters will detail the steps taken to create six separate information literacy-intensive classes, including the development of the assignments, and how feedback was provided to the students. These classes included sessions on dissecting scholarly articles and case law, as well as classroom discussions to teach students how to use the structure of research articles and case law to easily evaluate information. By creating this information literacy course, instructors were able to better prepare students for their program’s research intensive courses with the amount of detail required that cannot be covered in a traditional one hour library instruction session. Such skills will be of value when working in forensic science fields and the need arrives for locating similar resources in relation to casework. Additionally, the presentation will address issues raised in class, such as open access, database access, and evaluation of science and legal materials, which helps the students translate current school work to their future careers. To further this concept of information literacy, as previously mentioned, the researchers received NIJ funding to determine how forensic scientist locate and evaluate information and to create educational materials aimed at enhancing these skills and increase awareness of other valuable informational resources. Locating and evaluating high-quality forensic science literature will help forensic scientists engage in quality science practices. Results from this class, which is now in its third year of evaluation, show that students who take this preparatory course are better prepared for conducting meaningful research for their writing-intensive senior-level classes both in their abilities to find relevant materials and how to utilize and cite these materials. Graduating students who go on to graduate or law school have also reported back that taking this course gave them a foundation for which to build on in their advanced studies.Grant funding provided by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, the United States Department of Justice through 2016-R2-CX-0054. Points of view in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the United States Department of Justice

Journal-Ranking Lists, Ideology, and the Academic Librarian: A Critical Analysis

Poster submissio

Depositing Data: A Usability Study of the Texas Data Repository

Objective: The purpose of this study is to examine the usability of the Texas Data Repository (TDR) for the data depositors who are unfamiliar with its interface and use the results to improve user experience. Methods: This mixed-method research study collected qualitative and quantitative data through a pre-survey, a task-oriented usability test with a think-aloud protocol, and an exit questionnaire. Analysis of the quantitative (i.e., descriptive statistics) and qualitative data (e.g., content analysis of the thinking-aloud protocols) were employed to examine the TDR’s usability for first-time data depositors at Texas A&M University. Results: While the study revealed that the users were generally satisfied with their experience, the data suggest that a majority of the participants had difficulty understanding the difference between a dataverse collection and dataset, and often found adding or editing metadata overwhelming. The platform’s tiered model for metadata description is core to its function, but many participants did not have an accurate mental model of the platform, which left them scrolling up and down the page or jumping back and forth between different tabs and pages to perform a single task. Based on the results, the authors made some recommendations. Conclusions: While this paper relies heavily on the context of the Harvard Dataverse repository platform, the authors posit that any self-deposit model, regardless of platform, could benefit from these recommendations. We noticed that completing various metadata fields in the TDR required participants to pivot their mindset from a data creator to that of a data curator. Moreover, the methods used to investigate the usability of the repository can be used to develop additional studies in a variety of repository and service model contexts

Targeting Grad Students: Creating a Web Guide for Thesis Writers in the Construction Industry Fields

Poster submitted and presented at the 2014 American Library Association.Many graduate students from Texas A&M University’s departments of Architecture, Civil Engineering, and Construction Sciences have a need for construction industry data. In these departments there is a sizeable body of international students who are unfamiliar with how to access construction industry information and data, especially U.S. data. This poster will highlight the creation of a Libguide that aids graduate students focusing on the construction industry in accessing the data needed to write their theses. The guide focuses on providing government, trade association, and organization data and most importantly organizes it in a manner that facilitates discovery. It was promoted to teaching faculty in these areas so they could provide their graduate students with a starting point for research, as well as introduce them to subject librarians who can assist the students in further research. The guide went live in the Spring semester of 2014 and was promoted by the Texas A&M University Libraries marketing team and multiple subject librarians. At the end of the semester the guide will be assessed by reviewing usage statistics and patron feedback. This poster will visually demonstrate the decision and methodology used to create a specific web guide for a graduate student major focus as well as use graphs and charts to show usage results and patron feedback. Providing this information will encourage other libraries to provide similar guides to support graduate students at their institutions

Cracking the Case: A Model for Librarian-Faculty Collaboration in Developing an Information Literacy-Intensive Forensic Science Course

2017 ALA PosterForensic science is a multi-faceted field that includes expertise from a variety of disciplines. A challenge for creating a course to address skills to develop information literacy competencies and encourage lifelong learning for future practitioners is covering those diverse disciplines. This poster details how librarians at Texas A&M University developed a junior-level forensic science seminar in collaboration with an entomology professor to meet the research needs of students in the forensic sciences program. The authors outline the steps taken to create six separate information literacy-intensive classes, including the development of the assignments, and how feedback was provided to the students. By creating this information literacy course, instructors are able to better prepare students for their program’s research intensive courses with the amount of detail required that cannot be covered in a one-shot instruction session. Additionally, the poster addresses issues raised in class, such as open access, the cost of information, and evaluation of science and legal materials which helps the students translate current school work to their future careers

Assessment Beyond the Classroom: Providing Job Specific Life-long Learning Skills for Students

2019 ALA PosterTo improve instruction for upper level forensic science students, two librarians and a forensic science professor developed an information literacy-embedded seminar to improve student success in that major. Development of this class was influenced by anecdotes from former students on information needs post-graduation. To confirm the comments of these former students, this team received a grant to investigate information seeking behaviors of forensic science professionals. This grant work is intended to be of service to the forensic science professions, but has been incredibly useful for informing and assessing classroom practice, especially when teaching the value of information and developing search strategies. Data on information seeking and information resource access gathered from a survey of forensic science professionals and interviews at crime labs conducted as part of the grant will be highlighted. Despite the forensic science's discipline including a myriad of specialties, several universal themes emerged from the data. While this data is useful for the grant project, it is also informing the librarians as they reassess their information literacy seminar. Lectures and discussions on where to find quality materials and how to find open access materials for those who might not have access to subscription materials post-graduation have been especially shaped by these data. As impact is often discussed in terms of student success, this project has led the librarians to broaden their definition of student success to include success in the students' future professional life.National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Program