Current Issue: March 2020
Feature
Arnold et al.
He’s ready for his closeup
Peter the Anteater’s guide to the library
The scene opens with a laptop kiosk. In the foreground, a furry head comes into focus with the text: “With an essay to write, a laptop would come in handy!” Meet Peter, the anteater puppet who discovers a laptop kiosk in the library and learns ...
Feature
Lopez and Oswald
Taking root
Librarians help new Forestry students create a learning community
Librarians have studied and discussed library anxiety ever since Constance Mellon coined the term in 1986. While it may be challenging for librarians to imagine any anxiety about coming into a library and using the available resources ...
Feature
Prichard and Brazer
Finding the Finals Fairy
Outreach and stress release during finals
Salisbury University (SU) Libraries has a visitor who comes at the end of every semester, staying for approximately one week. Her name is familiar to the students, and her arrival is heralded on social media and via posters around campus. ...
Scholarly Communications
Roh and Gabler
Systemic barriers and allyship in library publishing
A case study reminder that no one is safe from racism
As librarians and library publishers, we frequently engage in scholarly communication efforts that serve a social justice agenda. For example, at the University of San Francisco, we are proud to publish the International Journal of Human Rights Education, of which the latest issue is devoted to indigenous women in research. There are moments, however, when we are reminded that, despite our best efforts, we still operate in an educational and academic system that is rooted in white supremacy and colonialism. The following are examples of bias encountered by the University Library System, University of Pittsburgh’s (ULS) publishing program ...
International Insights
Charney and Hauke
Global action on the urgency of climate change
Academic and research libraries’ contributions
At the time of this writing, Australia’s bushfires are raging, Jakarta is experiencing massive flooding, and waves of earthquakes are devastating islands in the Caribbean. Hundreds of thousands of people and living creatures are being torn from their homes. The mind reels at the intensity and scale of these climate change-induced disasters. At the same time, the world’s leading decision makers seem to finally be waking up to the emergency. For instance, the European Union (EU) just announced 1 trillion euro plan to support the European Green Deal, including a mechanism designed to help regions (e.g., coal-dependent Poland) ...
Feature
Mercer et al.
Critical appraisal
The key to unlocking information literacy in the STEM disciplines
Science is an essential social institution and a building block in advancing human societies. At the core of scientific discovery and problem solving is innovation to improve the human condition, within and beyond the institutions of higher education that shape scientific minds. Research in any field, beginning in undergraduate education, is fundamentally about information—finding, understanding, generating, discussing, influencing, contradicting, contextualizing, disproving, and communicating it; the ability to do so generally referred to as information literacy. Parallel to this, everyday life increasingly requires navigating an overwhelming amount ...