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Objective – In this case study, librarians at the William H. Hannon Library at Loyola Marymount University explored user behaviour in the Information Commons, user preferences for furniture style and configuration, and how users engaged with a mix of technology, resources, and activities inside the space.

Methods – The researchers used a mixed-methods case study consisting of 2,443 “direct observations,” 646 environmental scans, 248 patron surveys, and 46 whiteboard poll questions. They created visualizations of results in Tableau, with filters for zone and variable. They then carried out a follow-up furniture preferences survey with 190 respondents.

Results – Independent study dominated the space usage. Users valued spaciousness, quiet, privacy, and a clean environment. Users frequently multi-tasked with additional devices as they simultaneously used the library computers, including cell phones, headphones, and laptops. The majority of students self-reported using a library computer for email and to access the campus online learning platform. They also reported reading/studying and printing as frequent activities, although these were less frequently observed. Unattended belongings were observed along with broken electrical outlets. Temperature and noise levels were highly variable.

Conclusions – This methodology allowed for the exploration of space use and satisfaction and uncovered implications for the redesign of the library space. The library has already taken steps toward making improvements based on this assessment project including: removing some reference stacks in favor of additional seating space, an inventory of all electrical outlets, and the exploration of new furniture and noise control strategies.

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Objective – By collecting and analyzing evidence from three data points, researchers sought to understand how library spaces are used. Researchers have used results for evidence based decision making regarding physical library spaces.

Methods – Undergraduate researchers, sociology faculty, and librarians used mixed-methods to triangulate findings. Seating sweeps were used to map patrons’ activities in the library. Student-led focus groups discussed patterns of library use, impressions of facilities, and library features and services. The final step included a campus survey developed from seating sweeps and focus group findings.

Results – Seating sweeps showed consistent use of the library's main level Learning Commons and upper level quiet spaces; the library’s multipurpose lower level is under-utilized. Students use the main level of the library for collaborative learning, socializing, reading, and computer use. Students use the upper level for quiet study and group work in study rooms. Focus group findings found library use is task-specific. For example, a student may work with classmates on a project using the main level Learning Commons during the day, and then come back at night to use the quiet floor for test preparation. Survey responses highlighted areas in which the library is deficient. For example, respondents cited crowdedness, noise levels, and temperature concerns.

Conclusion – These data offer empirical evidence for library space needs. Some data aligns with previous space studies conducted at this library: access to power outlets, lighting, noise, and an outdated environment. Evidence also supports anecdotal concerns of crowding, graduate students lacking designated study space, and the need for quiet study space away from group study space.

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Objective – This article describes a mixed methods usability study of research guides created using the LibGuides 2.0 platform conducted in 2016 at an urban, public university library. The goal of the study was to translate user design and learning modality preferences into executable design principles, and ultimately to improve the design and usage of LibGuides at the New York City College of Technology Library.

Methods – User-centred design demands that stakeholders participate in each stage of an application’s development and that assumptions about user design preferences are validated through testing. Methods used for this usability study include: a task analysis on paper prototypes with a think aloud protocol (TAP), an advanced scribbling technique modeled on the work of Linek and Tochtermann (2015), and semi-structured interviews. The authors introduce specifics of each protocol in addition to data collection and analysis methods.

Results – The authors present quantitative and qualitative student feedback on navigation layouts, terminology, and design elements and discuss concrete institutional and technical measures they will take to implement best practices. Additionally, the authors discuss students’ impressions of multimedia, text-based, and interactive instructional content in relation to specific research scenarios defined during the usability test.

Conclusion – The authors translate study findings into best practices that can be incorporated into custom user-centric LibGuide templates and assets. The authors also discuss relevant correlations between students’ learning modality preferences and design feedback, and identify several areas that warrant further research. The authors believe this study will spark a larger discussion about relationships between instructional design, learning modalities, and research guide use contexts.

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Objective – Student research habits and expectations continue to change, complicating the design of library spaces and the provision of research support. This study’s intent was to explore undergraduate and graduate student research and study needs at a mid-sized university’s two campuses in the Northeastern United States, and to improve librarians’ understandings of these practices so that more appropriate services and spaces may be developed to support student learning.

Methods – The research project utilized a primarily qualitative design for data collection that spanned from fall 2012 to summer 2013, consisting of an online questionnaire, unobtrusive observations, and in-depth semi-structured interviews. Data collection commenced with a questionnaire consisting of 51 items, distributed through campus email to all students and receiving 1182 responses. Second, 32 hours of unobtrusive observations were carried out by librarians, who took ethnographic “field notes” in a variety of Library locations during different times and days of the week. The final method was in-depth interviews conducted with 30 undergraduate and graduate students. The qualitative data were analyzed through the application of a codebook consisting of 459 codes, developed by a data analysis team of 4 librarians.

Results – The results address topical areas of student interactions with librarians, contact preferences, and use of library space. Of the interviewees, 60% contacted a librarian at least once, with texting being the most popular method of contact (27%). In being contacted by the library, students preferred a range of methods and generally indicated interest in learning about library news and events through posters and signage. Participants were less interested in receiving library contact via social media, such as Facebook or Twitter. Regarding student use of and preference for library space, prominent themes were students creating their own spaces for individual study by moving furniture, leaving personal items unattended, the presence of unwanted noise, and a general preference for either working nearby other students in groups or in carrels to facilitate individual study.

Conclusions – Being aware of student research processes and preferences can result in the ability to design learning environments and research services that are more responsive to their needs. Ethnographic research methods, as part of an ongoing research process, are recommended as a means to better understand library user practices and expectations.

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Objective – This project identifies the factors that contribute to the success of librarians as active researchers. Research success is generally aligned with productivity and output, and the authors are therefore interested in understanding the factors that encourage research productivity. This fills a gap in the literature on librarians as researchers, which has tended to focus on barriers rather than enablers.

Methods – For this quantitative study, we distributed an online survey to 1,653 potential participants across Canada and received 453 usable responses for a 27% response rate. The survey asked participants to report their research outputs and to answer questions that addressed three categories of factors: Individual Attributes, Peers and Community, and Institutional Structures and Supports. We then statistically analyzed participant responses in order to identify relationships between the research output variables (weighted output score and number of peer-reviewed articles) and the three categories, the factors within those categories, and the constituent components.

Results – Participants’ research output consisted largely of presentations, non-peer-reviewed articles, peer-reviewed articles, and posters. All three categories of factors were significantly related to research output, both for a calculated weighted output score and for number of peer-reviewed articles. All of the factors identified within those categories were also significant when tested against weighted output score, but Intrinsic Motivations was not a significant factor when tested against number of peer-reviewed articles. Several components of factors were also not significant for number of peer-reviewed articles. Age was the only significant component of Demographics. Three components of Education and Experience were significant: whether participants had received research training after completing their MLIS, whether they were working on an advanced degree, and the institution where they had obtained their MLIS.

Conclusions – Research productivity is significantly impacted by all three categories: Individual Attributes, Peers and Community, and Institutional Structures and Supports. Fostering an environment that focuses on all of these areas will be most likely to promote research output for librarians. At the same time, this study’s findings point to particular aspects that warrant further investigation, such as the nature and effect of institutional support and librarians’ motivations for doing research.

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Objective – This research focuses on First-Time-in-College (FTIC) student library usage during the first academic year as number of visits (frequency) and length of stay (duration) and how that might affect first-term grade point average (GPA) and first-year retention using the generalized propensity score (GPS). We also want to demonstrate that GPS is a proper tool that researchers in libraries can use to make causal inferences about the effects of library usage on student academic success outcomes in observation studies.

Methods – The sample for this study includes 6,380 FTIC students who matriculated in the fall 2014 and fall 2015 semesters at a large southeastern university. Students’ library usage (frequency and duration), background characteristics, and academic records were collected. The Generalized Propensity Score method was used to estimate the effects of frequency and duration of FTIC library visits. This method minimizes self-selection bias and allows researchers to control for demographic, pre-college, and collegiate variables. Four dose-response functions were estimated for each treatment (frequency and duration) and outcome variable (GPA and retention).

Results – The estimated dose-response function plots for first-term GPA and first-year retention rate have similar shapes, which initially decrease to the minimum values then gradually increase as the treatment level increases. Specifically, the estimated average first-term GPA is minimized when the FTIC student only visits the library three times or spends one hour in the library during his/her first semester. The threshold for first-year retention occurs when students visit the library 15 times or spend 21 hours in the library during their first semester. After those thresholds, an increase in students’ library usage is related to an increase in their academic success.

Conclusions – The generalized propensity score method gives the library researcher a scientifically rigorous methodological means to make causal inferences in an observational study (Imai & van Dyk, 2004). Using this methodological approach demonstrates that increasing library usage is likely to increase FTIC students’ first-term GPA and first-year retention rates past a certain threshold of frequency and duration.

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Objective – The purpose of this quantitative study was to measure the impact of providing research struggle videos on first-year students’ research self-efficacy. The three-part video series explicated and briefly addressed common first-year roadblocks related to searching, evaluating, and caring about sources. The null hypothesis tested was that students would have similar research self-efficacy scores, regardless of exposure to the video series.

Methods – The study was a quasi-experimental, nonequivalent control group design. The population included all 22 sections (N = 359) of First-Year Writing affiliated with the FASTrack Learning Community at the University of Mississippi. Of 22 sections, 12 (N = 212) served as the intervention group exposed to the videos, while the other 10 (N = 147) served as the control group. A research self-efficacy pretest – posttest measure was administered to all students. In addition, all 22 sections, regardless of control or intervention status, received a face-to-face one-shot library instruction session.

Results – As a whole, this study failed to reject the null hypothesis. Students exposed to the research struggle videos reported similar research self-efficacy scores as students who were not exposed to the videos. A significant difference, however, did exist between all students’ pretest and posttest scores, suggesting that something else, possibly the in-person library session, did have an impact on students’ research self-efficacy.

Conclusion – Although students’ research self-efficacy may have increased due to the presence of an in-person library session, this current research was most interested in evaluating the effect of providing supplemental instruction via struggle videos for first-year students. As this was not substantiated, it is recommended that researchers review the findings and limitations of this current study in order to identify more effective approaches in providing instructional support for first-year students’ research struggles.

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Objective – In the context of the ongoing discourse about the role of Institutional Repositories (IRs), the objective of the study is to investigate if there is any evidence of a relation between undergraduate student activity in an IR and the impact of faculty research.

Methods – The data used for the study is representative of six academic departments of the College of Science and Mathematics (CSM) at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly). Digital Commons@Cal Poly (DC) is the IR supported by the library. Regression analysis was used to investigate the interdependence between faculty research impact (dependent variable) and undergraduate student repository activity (independent variable). For each department, faculty research impact was quantified as a measure of the citation counts for all faculty publications indexed in Web of Science (WoS) between January 2008 and May 2017. Student repository activity was quantified for each department in two ways: (1) total number of student projects deposited in DC since 2008 (Sp) and (2) total number of student project downloads from DC (Sd). The dependent variable was regressed against each of the two elements of student repository activity (Sp and Sd), and the resulting statistics (sample correlation coefficients, coefficients of determination, and linear regression coefficients) were calculated and checked for statistical significance.

Results – The statistical analysis showed that both components of student repository activity are positively and significantly correlated with the impact of faculty research quantified by a measure of the citation counts. It was also found that faculty repository activity, although positively correlated with faculty research impact, has no significant effect on the correlation between student repository activity and faculty research impact.

Conclusion – The analysis considers two distinct groups of publications: one group of student publications (senior projects) from six academic departments, which are deposited in an open repository (DC), and one group of publications (not necessarily represented in DC) of faculty affiliated with the same six departments and whose citation impact is believed to be affected by the first group. The statistical correlation between student repository activity and faculty research impact can be seen as an indication that an active, open IR centered on collecting, preserving, and making discoverable student research output has a positive impact on faculty’s research impact. More research that includes additional factors and uses a larger data set is necessary to arrive at a definitive conclusion.

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Objective – Past research suggests that approximately 20-30% of public libraries in the United States offer movement-based programs, that is programs that encourage, enable, or foster physical activity and physical fitness. Little is currently known about the impacts of these programs, in the U.S. or elsewhere. This study addresses the questions: what impacts do movement-based programs in public libraries have and what variations exist between urban and rural libraries.

Methods – The researcher aimed to explore these questions through an exploratory survey of U.S. and Canadian public libraries that have offered movement-based programs. The survey was completed by self-selecting staff from 1,157 public libraries in the U.S. and Canada during spring 2017. Analysis focuses on those portions of the survey that address the impacts of movement-based programs.

Results – Results show that throughout North America, public libraries provide movement-based programs for all age groups. The most consistently reported impact of these programs is new library users. Furthermore, on average respondents report that participation in these programs slightly exceeding their expectations. These facts may account for the finding that 95% of respondents report that they intend to continue offering movement-based programs at their libraries.

Conclusion – More research using a randomized survey design is needed to better assess this emerging programming area in a more comprehensive manner. Nonetheless, this study provides needed evidence on the impacts of movement-based programs in many North American public libraries. Hopefully this evidence will contribute to more conversations and research on the roles of public libraries in public health and wellness.

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Objective – To assess the use of information and communication technology (ICT) for selective dissemination of information (SDI) and current awareness services (CAS) in university libraries in the South-West zone of Nigeria.

Methods – A descriptive research design was adopted. The instrument used for data collection was a structured questionnaire administered to a population consisting of 379 librarians, with 353 usable questionnaires retrieved.

Results – Findings revealed that most university libraries in the South-West zone of Nigeria do not use ICT in delivery of SDI and CAS. It is evident in this study that despite the known positive effects of ICT in library services, traditional methods were predominantly used for SDI and CAS to the library users. The study revealed that erratic Internet services, insufficient training, inadequate ICT skills, and low support for ICT were hindrances towards ICT use for SDI and CAS.

Conclusions – The integration of ICT features in library services for the delivery of CAS and SDI has been a challenge in university libraries in South-West Nigeria. Only a few libraries and a low percentage of librarians had adopted the use of ICT in the delivery of CAS and SDI, while a larger number of libraries resorted to the use of traditional methods. The level of ICT literacy among the librarians in this study is low, as a higher percentage of librarians did not have adequate ICT skill to use available online resources on the Internet and other ICT tools to deliver SDI and CAS in South-West, Nigeria. This is not unconnected to the fact that the training and technical support received by the librarians is inadequate, and the level of support that academic libraries received from their university managements in South-West Nigeria in terms of funding for ICT development is inadequate, which led to low Internet services.