Current Issues in Libraries, Information Science and Related Fields: Volume 39

With a focus on Canada, but framed by similar and shared concerns emerging in the United States, this chapter examines the current status of what constitutes and defines academic freedom for academic librarians and the rights and the protections individual, professional academic librarians have with respect to the freedom of speech and expression of their views in speech and writing within and outside of their institutions. It reviews the historical background of academic freedom and librarianship in Canada, academic freedom language in collective agreements, rights legislation in Canada versus the United States as it pertains to academic librarianship, and rights statements supported by Canadian associations in the library field and associations representing members in postsecondary institutions. The implications of academic librarians using the new communication technologies and social media platforms, such as blogs and networking sites, with respect to academic freedom are examined, as well as, an overview of recent attacks on the academic freedom of academic librarians in the United States and Canada. Included in this analysis are the results of a survey of Canadian academic librarians, which examined attitudes about academic freedom, the external and internal factors which have an impact on academic freedom, and the professional use of new communication technologies and social media platforms.

The boundaries between the for-profit sector and traditional nonprofit library focused information professions are blurring. As these information professions grow, more of their future leaders will be graduates from business management programs as opposed to library and information programs. There is a general perception that for-profit employers demand leaders who are analytical and achievement oriented. As a result, business schools have been criticized for focusing their curricula on transaction-based economics with less focus on preparing leaders to do what is right. So, how do we better prepare business graduates to face ethical dilemmas as they move forward to build and support information organizations of the future? This chapter reports the results of a study which explored the viewpoints of American thought leaders about ethics in the context of business programs. A total of 32 subjects from the corporate and higher education settings were interviewed. Results of the study revealed five major themes related to how educators can better prepare our next generation of leaders. Those themes were: (1) insights related to the student; (2) insights pertaining to the goal of business ethics education and curricula; (3) specific cases and experiences to include in ethics course(s); (4) explicit student learning outcomes; and (5) the specific role, skill, and ability of professors teaching ethics courses. While this chapter deals primarily with the academic scope of ethics, the study also explored personal views about ethics by the interviewees. Understanding how foundational ethical beliefs and awareness develop then informs the broader discussion of ethics.

The transformation from an industrial to a knowledge economy and society are underway. In the knowledge economy, the knowledge of people and organizations—their intellectual capital assets—are the primary factors of production and the source of wealth. This is in contrast to other kinds of capital that fueled the industrial and the agricultural economies. Librarians have understood the knowledge society as one characterized by an increased focus on digital resources and an expanded use of virtual channels to deliver those resources. However, the nature of the knowledge society and economy is far more expansive than a digital environment. A knowledge society is one in which all members of a society engage in knowledge transactions—in the business environment, in the social sphere, in civic activities, and in everyday environmental actions. This view of the knowledge society presents new opportunities for librarians to leverage their intellectual capital. This chapter profiles the intellectual capital assets of librarians, considers how they align with professional competencies, and presents use cases that illustrate the value of these assets. Future scenarios illustrate how traditional functional competencies might shift in the knowledge economy. These also suggest contexts which highlight undervalued or new competencies. Seven observations describe how librarians might prepare for expanded roles in the knowledge society.

Peer review has been with humans for a long time. Its effective inception dates back to World War II resulting information overload, which imposed a quantitative and qualitative screening of publications. Peer review was beset by a number of accusations and critics largely from the biases and subjective aspects of the process including the secrecy in which the processes became standard. Advent of the Internet in the early 1990s provided a manner to open peer review up to make it more transparent, less iniquitous, and more objective. This chapter investigates whether this openness led to a more objective manner of judging scientific publications. Three sites are examined: Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence (ETAI), Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP), and Faculty of 1000 (F1000). These sites practice open peer review wherein reviewers and authors and their reviews and rebuttals are available for all to see. The chapter examines the different steps taken to allow reviewers and authors to interact and how this allows for the entire community to participate. This new prepublication reviewing of papers has to some extent, alleviated the biases that were previously preponderant and, furthermore, seems to give positive results and feedback. Although recent, experiences seem to have elicited scientists’ acceptance because openness allows for a more objective and fair judgment of research and scholarship. Yet, it will undoubtedly lead to new questions which are examined in this chapter.

Prior studies have shown that terminology support can improve health information retrieval but have not taken into account the characteristics of the user performing the search. In this chapter, the impact of translating queries’ terms between lay and medico-scientific terminology, in users with different levels of health literacy and topic familiarity, is evaluated. Findings demonstrate that medico-scientific queries demand more from the users and are mostly aimed at health professionals. In addition, these queries retrieve documents that are less readable and less well understood by users. Despite this, medico-scientific queries are associated with higher precision in the top-10 retrieved documents results and tend slightly to generate knowledge with less incorrect contents, the researchers concluded that search engines should provide query suggestions with medico-scientific terminology, whenever the user is able to digest it, that is, in users above the lowest levels of health literacy and topic familiarity. On the other hand, retrieval systems should provide lay alternative queries in users with inadequate health literacy or in those unfamiliar with a topic. In fact, the quantity of incorrect contents in the knowledge that emerges from a medico-scientific session tends to decrease with topic familiarity and health literacy. In terms of topic familiarity, the opposite happens with Graded Average Precision. Moreover, users most familiar with a topic tend to have higher motivational relevance with medico-scientific queries than with lay queries. This work is the first to consider user context features while studying the impact of a query processing technique in several aspects of the retrieval process, including the medical accuracy of the acquired knowledge.

Academic social networking (ASN) sites are becoming a popular communication medium among scholars. This case study was designed to explore communication behaviors of physicists, linguists, and sociologists on an ASN site called Academia.edu, their motivations for using it, and the perceived impact of their use of the site on their professional activities. Results from this study are valuable for designing computer-mediated and web-based communication media for scholars and also for adding richness to the literature related to scholarly communication. For the purpose of this study, data was collected using three different instruments: Server log, survey, and interview. Data used for analyses included a total of 20,309 server log data, 267 survey responses, and 28 interviews from scholars of Physics, Sociology, and Linguistics who use Academia.edu. Results from the study showed that the use of Academia.edu is dependent on the discipline scholars are affiliated with, their professional status, and the time of the year. Unlike physicists, linguists and sociologists are more inclined to using Academia.edu and other ASN sites. Although linguists and sociologists actively use Academia.edu, their motivations to use the site are different. These differences in user-motivations and user-activities across the disciplines are influenced by variations in the social and cultural practices of the disciplines. This study used Whitley’s (2000) theory of degrees of mutual dependence and task uncertainty to explain the differences in the adoption and use of Academia.edu across the three disciplines.

Undergraduate information commons have become pervasive in the academic library landscape. In recent years, librarians and administrators have come to identify the need for comparable commons’ spaces and services for graduate students. This chapter serves as a review of recently developed models of graduate commons—in this discussion referred to as Scholars’ Commons—as defined by an integration of physical learning spaces, personnel, and a dynamic availability of research support services that support assist graduate students throughout their academic life cycle. These provisions serve as the foundation for the development of enhanced library-supported graduate student success.

Still a rare commodity, existing models from selected institutional web sites were examined using a framework for analysis consisting of several criteria: new use of space; segmented services; partnerships; and new organizational structures. Through a synthesis of the commonalities prevalent in these systems, this chapter aims to provide recommendations for prospective Scholars’ Commons models and proposals for their development. Library organizations contemplating the development of a Scholars’ Commons need to consider the needs of their target population, potential new or reallocated spaces, feasibility of providing support and research technologies, and possible staffing models. As well, the authors consider the importance of library-based graduate student support that bolsters cross-divisional collaborative partnerships across the academy.

As adults and young adults have become increasingly active on social media, public libraries have incorporated social media alongside their more traditional services. However, libraries are faced with the challenging task of determining how to successfully engage with their users through social media. This chapter examines research literature from both social media and information studies to explore evidence-based results on providing popular information services and resources for adult and young adult users in social spaces. Key elements of social media use by libraries identified in this review include promotion of information resources and services, participation and engagement, social care, pastoral care, outreach, cocreation and motivation of users, advocacy and crowdsourcing, and measurement and assessment. Based on results from current research, best practices and assessment methods for social media are discussed which offer practical considerations for selecting social media platforms appropriate to a library’s mission, goals, and objectives, with examples relevant to a variety of social media platforms. The chapter also offers a review of social media platforms, practices, and assessment designed to inform librarians and library managers in decision-making about library social media efforts.