Current Issue: May 2020
Scholarly Communication
Willa Tavernier
COVID-19 demonstrates the value of open access
What happens next?
In the wake of COVID-19, many publishers have tacitly agreed that open access is beneficial to scientific advancement and necessary to move science forward to combat disease. Publishers have committed to open access publication of scientific articles relating to the disease. Some are facilitating rapid and open peer review and fast-tracking the publishing of related research. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Hiltzig refers to this convincing demonstration of the value of open access to scientific research as one of the most important positive disruptions caused by COVID-19. ...
Feature
Adams, Alexander, and Wood
Evoking truthiness
Using satirical news comedies to teach information literacy
Instruction librarians looking for new ways to spice up their library instruction can use video clips from “The Most Important News Show . . . Ever” (The Daily Show) and other satirical news comedies to capture the attention of students during their next instructional session. These videos can serve as an entertaining mechanism to help students understand information literacy (IL) concepts.
At California State University-East Bay, we engage students by integrating satirical news videos in our teaching. In this article, we will share our insights, including some of the pitfalls we have experienced along the way. We have organized satirical ...
Feature
Tureen et al.
Virtual cohorts
Peer support and problem-solving at a distance
A common challenge for administrative leaders in academic libraries is that we often have few peers within our organizations, and those that we do have may not be able to provide the dispassionate, unbiased feedback we need. The authors of this article, library leaders from across the United States and Canada, formed a virtual cohort for peer leader support and have found it to be transformative in approaching leadership challenges at our home institutions.
Our group met at the Harvard Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians (LIAL) in summer 2018. The LIAL program uses small group activities to help participants ...
Feature
Diaz and Hall
Fighting fake news
Inspiring critical thinking with memorable learning experiences
Despite fake news having a long and notorious history in the United States, it seemed like a brand-new phenomenon to many people during the 2016 presidential campaign. Four years later, we continue to grapple with the ...
Feature
Ashley T. Hoffman
Revitalizing your library faculty governance
Five tips to increase involvement
If you’re an academic librarian with faculty status, you know that this status comes with an equal portion of benefit and burden. Some of the benefits are academic freedom, support for scholarship, and elevated status on campus (though not necessarily higher pay). Some library faculty are even eligible for tenure (though at my institution, Kennesaw State University, we are not). On the flipside of these benefits are a few things I would consider burdens, such as tedious annual reviews and extensive service requirements. Library faculty governance, I would argue, falls somewhere in between a benefit and a burden. ...
Feature
Gwendolyn J. Reece
Absentee Ballot Day in the library
Empowering students to vote
On September 25, 2018, American University Library held its inaugural Absentee Ballot Day, helping 1,005 students request absentee ballots. The library partnered with student government, the alumni association ...