C&RL Spotlight

Wendi Kaspar

Wendi Kaspar is C&RL editor and policy sciences librarian at the Texas A&M University Policy Sciences and Economics Library, email: warant@librayr.tamu.edu

At the risk of a clichéd report on what I did this summer, I wanted to share a realization that I had at the while in San Diego (at ESRI GIS User Conference, a very practical, innovative, and diverse venue). This was the first time I have attended this conference. It is enormous with hundreds of sessions on almost any topic one could think of and has something for academic, industry, government (from local cities to federal agencies), nonprofits, and more. And, of course, there are a lot of glitzy technology and visuals.

Sitting in a session on mapping conflict and famine, I found it quite compelling and moving. It was very impressive how GIS can be used to illustrate relationships that flat data are not able to do as effectively. The visualization of the technology can help identify issues and tell a persuasive story. In the Q&A portion of that session, an audience member lamented the lack of reliable data for such locales and repositories available for this kind of study—that it would be so much more effective if people worked together to collect and share data on famine during events.

I was struck, at that moment, by the juxtaposition of countries in conflict and famine with the need for “better” digital data. It brought home, in a very real world fashion, the premise that one of the articles addresses in the next issue of C&RL—that of information privilege.

When this article first came to my attention, it was not like any other submission I had seen, after reviewing and editing hundreds of articles over the course of three different journals, this does not occur frequently. In an era when diversity and inclusion are visible priorities in the profession and in higher education, it was significant that this article challenged assumptions that were at the foundation of libraries. In their article, “Information Privilege Outreach for Undergraduate Students,” Sarah Hare and Cara Evanson address the premise that college students have access to sources and expertise that are not commonplace. The authors frame this issue very effectively:

We recognize that information privilege is a term that carries assumptions about who has power, who does not, and what types of information are valuable. We use the term information privilege because it provides a relevant framework for talking to students about their temporarily increased level of information access. We also believe that framing students’ information access as a privilege underscores responsibility.

The article by Hare and Evanson also has the distinction of being C&RL first foray into an open peer review model—specifically, investigating developmental peer review. This was a priority of the ACRL Publication Coordinating Committee under Emily Ford’s leadership as a way of making the review process more transparent and inclusive. The inception for this pilot project and how it evolved is also addressed in the editorial for this month, which is also coauthored by the articles authors and the article reviewers in an effort to provide transparency to the process and diverse perspectives on the various developments and directions. Overall, the outcomes of this pilot have been positive, resulting in an impactful article and providing preliminary guidelines for implementing developmental review as an option.

The September issue of C&RL offers a number of insights on a variety of topics from information literacy and plagiarism to journal costs to leadership values in libraries and attitudes about academic librarian research.

“What Do Academic Librarians Value in a Leader? Reflections on Past Positive Leaders and a Consideration of Future Library Leaders” by Jason Martin. A joke among managers is that managing and leading people is akin to herding cats. People can be fickle and idiosyncratic and do what they want, when they want, in seeming defiance of all tenets of logic. For good or bad, people are led by the emotions in their hearts far more than the critical thoughts in their brains. But this does not mean people are irrational actors floundering to and fro. Even cats have a method to their madness. Members of organizations like libraries want certain things from their leaders beyond mere competence. Followers want particular actions and certainties from their leaders in crises as well as banal times. While some people will never respond to leadership for myriad reasons, the vast majority will when they are presented with a leader that possesses the kinds of characteristics meaningful to them and not just to a leadership theorist.

“The Academic Library’s Contribution to Student Success: Library Instruction and GPA” by Ula Gaha, Suzanne Hinnefeld, and Catherine Pellegrino. This study examines the relationship between library instruction and graduating students’ four-year cumulative grade-point averages for the classes of 2012–15. After normalizing the GPAs by departments to account for differences in departmental grading, a two-tailed t-test indicated a statistically significant increase in GPA among graduating students who were enrolled in classes in which at least one library instruction session was held (n=1,265) over students who were enrolled in no classes with library instruction (n=115). Librarians are using the results to demonstrate the relationship between the library and student success, and to promote library instruction on campus.

“Faculty Perceptions of Plagiarism: Insight for Librarians’ Information Literacy Programs” by Russell Michalak, Monica Rysavy, Kevin Hunt, Bernice Smith, and Joel Worden. Using a survey modified from The Plagiarism Handbook (Harris, 2001, p. 39), the research team surveyed all undergraduate and graduate faculty (n=79) teaching during the fall 2016 semester at a small private college in the United States. With a final survey response rate of 59.5% (n=47), the researchers learned that while the faculty’s definitions of plagiarism fluctuated, overall faculty definitions paralleled the official definition of plagiarism at this institution. Furthermore, the researchers learned that the vast majority of faculty, 74% (n=35), do not currently invite library staff into their classrooms to teach students how to avoid plagiarism. Given this finding, this study indicates that there was an opportunity for librarians to collaborate with faculty to develop new information literacy and plagiarism deterrent resources. These were intended to support faculty teaching and to additionally market the existing online information literacy training modules, previously developed as part of the authors’ Information Literacy Assessment (ILA) program.

“Credit-Bearing Information Literacy Courses in Academic Libraries: Comparing Peers” by Spencer Jardine, Sandra Shropshire, and Regina Koury. This article identifies variations that are within the credit-bearing information literacy (IL) programs of a group of similar libraries: Idaho State University’s peer institutions that have been formally designated by the Idaho State Board of Education. This group of institutions shares two common characteristics, i.e., they are public and are doctoral-granting schools, and vary in many others, according to Carnegie classification system data. Motivated by a desire to evaluate the current status of their own instruction program within the context of the university’s official peer institutions, the authors gathered reported data from their peers and coupled this data with information from personal interviews with the coordinators of instruction at peer institutions. This method of collecting the data provided context for the interview questions that would follow and revealed nuanced qualitative ideas and issues, such as best practices within this cohort. The process of scoping the study, identifying comparisons with peers, and analysis of results will be useful to other libraries making decisions about the impact and directions of their instruction programs.

“Is It Such a Big Deal? On the Cost of Journal Use in the Digital Era” by Fei Shu, Philippe Mongeon, Stefanie Haustein, Kyle Siler, Juan Pablo Alperin, and Vincent Larivière. Commercial scholarly publishers promote and sell bundles of journals—known as big deals—that provide access to entire collections rather than individual journals. Following this new model, size of serial collections in academic libraries increased almost fivefold from 1986 to 2011. Using data on library subscriptions and references made for a sample of North American universities, this study provides evidence that, while big deal bundles do decrease the mean price per subscribed journal, academic libraries receive less value for their investment. We find that university researchers cite only a fraction of journals purchased by their libraries, that this fraction is decreasing, and that the cost per cited journal has increased. These findings reveal how academic publishers use product differentiation and price strategies to increase sales and profits in the digital era, often at the expense of university and scientific stakeholders.

“Academic Librarian Research: An Update to a Survey of Attitudes, Involvement, and Perceived Capabilities” by Marie R. Kennedy and Kristine R. Brancolini. This article reports the results of a 2015 survey that updates and extends the authors’ 2010 survey of academic librarians, to learn of the current state of their attitudes, involvement, and perceived capabilities in the research process. A key change in the 2015 survey is the use of an expanded research confidence scale, designed by the authors. They also added questions on research training and institutional support for research. The results of this survey add to the growing body of research examining the success factors for librarian-researchers. Research self-efficacy continues to be a predictor of research success. Institutional support for research, including both formal and informal mentorship, is increasing and associated with research success.