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Objective - This study examines whether a correlation exists between state-wide voting in federal elections and state average per capita visits to public libraries in the U.S. In so doing, it provides insight into the extent to which library patronage is affiliated with political leaning.

Methods - An analysis of data from the 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016 Public Libraries Survey and election results from the 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016 Presidential and House of Representatives elections (by state) is performed with the assistance of Tableau, a data visualization program. Scatter plots provide a visual representation of the data, while correlation coefficients indicate the strength of relationship between voting and library visits per capita.

Results - The findings reveal no significant relationship between public library use and the vote share of a political party in elections among a state's population.

Conclusions - The political leaning of a state appears to have no correlation with the frequency of library usage among that state’s population.

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Objective – The purpose of this study was to explore in the current academic library environment, the relationship between library collections data (collections’ size, expenditures, and usage) and faculty productivity (scholarly output). The researchers also examined the degree to which new and existing library metrics predict faculty productivity.

Methods – Demographic data (e.g., faculty size, student size, research and development expenditures), library budget data (e.g., collection expenditures), collection use data (e.g., full-text article requests and database searches), and publication output for 81 doctoral granting universities in the United States were collected to explore potential relationships between research productivity, collection use, library budgets, collection size, and research expenditures using partial correlations. A hierarchical multiple regression was also used to ascertain the significance of certain predictors of research productivity (publications).

Results – A correlation existed between the number of publications (research productivity) and library expenditures (total library expenditures, total library material expenditures, and ongoing library resource expenditures), collection size (volumes, titles, and ebooks), use of collection (full-text article requests and total number of references in the articles), and research and development expenditures. Another key finding from the hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that full-text article requests were the best predictor of research productivity, which uniquely explained 10.2% of the variation in publication.

Conclusion – The primary findings were that full-text article requests, followed by library material expenditures and research expenditures, were found to be the best predictor of research productivity as measured by articles published.

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Objective – Increasing life expectancy leads to an increase in the mean age of the workforce. The aging workforce implies new challenges for management and human resources. Existing findings on relations between age and burnout are controversial and scarce. Also, the problem of burnout amongst library workers in Russia has received little attention from researchers.

Methods – The studied sample consisted of 620 public librarians from 166 public libraries of different regions (the Moscow region, Yaroslavl, Chelyabinsk, Novosibirsk, Astrakhan, and Republic of Buryatia) of the Russian Federation, who completed a self-reported online survey. For measuring burnout, a new Burnout Assessment Tool was implemented. To examine the associations of interest, we used structural equation modeling with a group correction approach. In addition, library location, general self-efficacy, and length of employment at the current workplace were utilized as predictors. All statistical analysis was performed in R.  

Results – Findings confirmed the hypotheses partially and revealed negative links between exhaustion, mental distance, and cognitive control and age, while reduced emotional control did not relate to age. Urban librarians tended to demonstrate higher levels of mental distance and had more significant problems with emotional regulation than their rural counterparts. Also, the non-Moscow region librarians did not demonstrate correlations between age and reduced cognitive control. Moreover, they showed a positive link between age and reduced emotional control. 

Conclusion – The current paper confirmed some previous results on the negative relations between burnout symptoms and chronological age. The results suggest the existence of higher risks of burnout for younger library workers. Potential mechanisms underlying the resilience of older workers are discussed.

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Objective - The aim of this study was to evaluate Integrated Library System (ILS) use in university libraries in Nigeria in terms of their adoption, performance, achievements, and shortcomings and to propose a rigorous model for ongoing evaluation based on use of candidate variables (CVs) derived from the approach used by Hamilton and Chervany (1981) and from evaluation criteria suggested by Farajpahlou (1999, 2002).

Methods - The study adopted a descriptive survey design. Nigeria is made up of six geo-political zones including: North-East (NE), North-West (NW), North-Central (NC), South-South (SS), South-East (SE), and South-West (SW). The population for this study comprised Systems/IT and E-librarians in the university libraries from all six of the geo-political zones of Nigeria. Because of the large number of universities in each of the zones in Nigeria, a convenience sampling method was used to select six universities representing federal, state, and private institutions from each of the six geo-political zones of Nigeria. A purposive sampling method was used to select the Systems/IT and E-librarians who were directly in charge of ILS in their various libraries. Therefore, the sample for this study was made up of 36 Systems/IT and E-librarians from the 36 selected universities in Nigeria. The instrument used to elicit responses from the respondents was an online questionnaire and was distributed through the respondents’ email boxes and WhatsApp. The questionnaire administration received a 100% response rate.

Results - Findings revealed that university libraries in Nigeria have made remarkable progress in the adoption and use of ILS for library services. The findings also showed that much has been achieved in the use of ILS in library services. Evidence in the study indicated that the performance of the ILS adopted in the selected university libraries in the area of data entry and currency, accuracy, reliability, completeness, flexibility, ease of use, and timeliness was encouraging.

Conclusions - Adoption and use of ILS in libraries is changing the way libraries deliver services to their patrons. Traditional methods of service delivery are different from the expectations of the 21st century library patrons. The transformation seen in the university libraries in Nigeria using ILS was tremendous and is changing the narratives of the past. However, several shortcomings still exist in the adoption and use of ILS in university libraries in Nigeria. Overcoming some of the limitations would require a conscious effort and decisiveness to ensure that librarians and library patrons enjoy the best services that ILS can offer. ILS developers should consider the dynamic needs of libraries and their patrons and incorporate specific candidate variables (CVs) in their ILS designs to enhance the quality of the services being offered to the library patrons.

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Objective - To investigate the overall prevalence of citations to theses and dissertations, as well as their prevalence in feature articles, editorials, and review articles in top research nursing journals. To evaluate differences between journals and to determine whether there was a change in use over time. 

Methods - Journals were selected from the Medical Library Association’s Nursing and Allied Health Resource Section’s 2012 Selected List of Nursing Journals. An evaluation was conducted of citations from 3,711 articles published in 2011 and 2018 in 7 top nursing journals. Thesis and dissertation citations were identified and categorized by type of scholarly communication: feature articles, reviews, and editorials. Analysis was conducted for the prevalence of citations for theses and dissertations based on percentage of overall citations and the percentage of articles with a thesis and dissertation citation.

Results - Thesis and dissertation citations accounted for 0.41% of all citations. However, 9.43% of the articles contained at least one thesis and dissertation citation. Feature articles contained more thesis and dissertation citations than review articles and editorials. The Journal of Advanced Nursing, Journal of Clinical Nursing, and the Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences published a higher percentage of articles with at least one thesis and dissertation citation.

Conclusion - The overall use of theses and dissertations in nursing scholarship is comparatively low compared to other forms of scholarly communication. However, this unique form of scholarship viewed from its impact on the percentage of scholarly articles in nursing demonstrates that theses and dissertations have made more of a contribution than previously reported. Our research provides libraries and the nursing academy with empirical evidence for the value of theses and dissertations. It provides librarians and the nursing academy justification for continuing efforts to preserve, enhance access through digital repositories, and to continue to explore strategies to promote the use of theses and dissertations in research.

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Background - The course syllabus is a roadmap to curriculum development and student learning objectives providing valuable information to assist library instruction. This scoping review examines research that uses syllabus mining to track Information Literacy concepts and skills in academic settings.

Objectives - The present study uses a scoping methodology to examine syllabus mining of Information Literacy with the focus of analysis on the methodologies employed in syllabus review and the recommendations from the studies.

Design - Searches of databases of literature from librarianship and education, as well as a multidisciplinary database, yielded 325 journal articles. Inclusion criteria specified peer-reviewed articles from any year, and excluded grey literature. After removing duplicates, 2 reviewers screened titles and abstracts and reviewed full text, yielding 17 studies to analyze.

Results - Characteristics of the included studies, methodology, and recommendations were charted by two reviewers. All studies reported retrieving information that increased opportunities for collaboration with instructors and targeted engagement with students, and seven themes were identified.

Conclusions - Instructional librarians should be encouraged to conduct syllabus studies to increase collaboration with faculty to develop coursework, to meet student information needs in a strategic manner, and to identify discipline-specific Information Literacy concepts.

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Objective – This article reviews current literature on incentive grant programs for textbook alternatives at universities and their libraries. Of particular interest in this review are common patterns and factors in the design, development, and implementation of these initiatives at the programmatic level, trends in the results of assessment of programs, and unique elements of certain institutions’ programs.

Methods – The review was limited in scope to studies in scholarly and professional publications of textbook alternative incentive programs at universities within the United States of America, published within ten years prior to the investigation. A comprehensive literature search was conducted and then subjected to analysis for trends and patterns.

Results – Studies of these types of programs have reported substantial total cost savings to affected students compared to the relatively small financial investments that are required to establish them. The majority of incentive programs were led by university libraries, although the most successful efforts appear to have been broadly collaborative in nature. Programs are well-regarded by students and faculty, with benefits to pedagogy and access to materials beyond the cost savings to students. The field of replacing textbooks with alternatives is still evolving, however, and the required investment of faculty time and effort is still a barrier, while inconsistent approaches to impact measurement make it difficult to compare programs or establish best practices.

Conclusion – Overall, the literature shows evidence of significant benefits from incentive programs at a relatively low cost. Furthermore, these programs are opportunities to establish cross-campus partnerships and collaborations, and collaboration seems to be effective at helping to reduce barriers and increase impact. Further research is needed on similar programs at community colleges and at higher education institutions internationally.

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Objective – This study analyzes and synthesizes the business information literacy (BIL) literature, with a focus on trends in publication type, study design, research topic, and recommendations for practice.

Methods – The scoping review method was used to build a dataset of 135 journal articles and conference papers. The following databases were searched for relevant literature published between 2000 and 2019: Library and Information Science Source, Science Direct, ProQuest Central, Project Muse, and the Ticker journal site. Included items were published in peer reviewed journals or conference proceedings and focused on academic libraries. Items about public or school libraries were excluded, as were items published in trade publications. A cited reference search was conducted for each publication in the review dataset. 

Results – Surveys were, by far, the most common research method in the BIL literature. Themes related to collaboration were prevalent, and a large number of publications had multiple authors or were about collaborative efforts to teach BIL. Many of the recommendations for practice from the literature were related to collaboration as well; recommendations related to teaching methods and strategies were also common. Adoption of the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education in BIL appears slow, and the citations have decreased steadily since 2016. The majority of the most impactful BIL articles, as measured by citation counts, presented original research. 

Conclusions – This study synthesizes two decades of literature and contributes to the evidence based library and information science literature. The findings of this scoping review illustrate the importance of collaboration, interest in teaching methods and strategies, appreciation for practical application literature, and hesitation about the Framework.