scholarly journals Corporate Libraries: Bellwether of Change for the Library World at Large

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
James M. Matarazzo ◽  
Toby Pearlstein

In this article, the authors argue that the lessons learned from the increasing closures of corporate li- braries that began in the 1980s can be applied to the wider library community. These closures have accelerated since the 1990s due to corporate cost cutting measures and the ever increasing availability of internet services that bypass the information professional. Above all, the authors argue that corporate librarians have often failed to align their services to the priorities of the companies they serve. This has resulted in their institutional marginalization and the eventual closure of the library. The authors make the case that, among other types of libraries, the sacrosanct place of the academic library at the center of the university is not guaranteed. The information era with its vast digital resources has and will under- mine the physical assets of traditional libraries as well as the customary role of librarians who staff them. Academic librarians will increasingly be expected to show administrators that their services are aligned to their institution’s strategic priorities and that their libraries are providing added value to its customers, namely, the students, faculty and staff of their college or university. If they do not do so, they very well may face, in the not so distant future, what may now seem unimaginable –the reduction or closure of the academic library in favor of customer-accessed digital information services. 

2015 ◽  
Vol 38 (119) ◽  
pp. 13-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin Hoffmann ◽  
Selinda Adelle Berg ◽  
Denise Koufogiannakis

While some academic librarians have embraced the role of researcher and have successfully become active researchers and authors, others have struggled to be productive in this aspect of their responsibilities. A content analysis of literature on research productivity for librarians and non-librarians was conducted in order to identify factors that have been found to affect research success. This content analysis is part of a larger study designed to develop an instrument to measure the impact of key factors on librarians' success in research. This analysis reinforces the need to identify and study those factors that are truly antecedents for librarians’ research productivity, so that the academic library community can put our efforts and resources towards providing the supports that will be most helpful.


2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 76-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Somaly Kim Wu ◽  
Heather McCullough

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to presents the very recent development of e-journal publishing services at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Charlotte. In 2011, the J. Murrey Atkins Library at UNC Charlotte created a new unit in the library, the Digital Scholarship Lab (DSL), which partners with faculty and graduate students in the use of digital and networked research tools to create, disseminate and store new knowledge. E-journal publishing and hosting are among the suite of services offered by the DSL, and we currently publish three journals (https://journals.uncc.edu/). Design/methodology/approach – This report provides an overview of the context of our library’s decision to begin publishing journals, including a discussion of our university’s becoming more research-intensive, our university system mandating increased efficiencies and sharing research with the state citizens, and the library’s own goals of raising awareness of and supporting open access. Also outlined are the technical and procedural choices made, important activities undertaken to develop, define and publicize the new services, campus response to the service and next steps. Findings – This report provides detailed accounting of how a large academic library implemented an electronic publishing service to support open access scholarship. Important activities such as marketing communication, policies development and technical/procedural activities are defined and results described. The report provides observation and lessons learned for academic libraries in development and support of electronic journals. Originality/value – Library as the publisher is a new concept. This report will be of interest to many libraries who are considering offering publishing services and to libraries that currently offer publishing services.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 2347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Brudermann ◽  
Ralf Aschemann ◽  
Manfred Füllsack ◽  
Alfred Posch

Higher education for sustainable development plays a crucial role in the transformation of society towards a more sustainable pathway of development. The new trends in society and technology experienced in the course of the fourth industrial revolution come with challenges, but also provide opportunities. In this paper, we reflect on the conceptual basis of education for sustainable development as approached at the University of Graz, Austria, and contrast this basis with the expectations stated by students. The results showed that students acknowledged the high importance of digital competencies and found it highly important to be confronted with future-oriented topics and contents. Interestingly, students seemed skeptical about online course formats and digitalization of teaching and clearly preferred the interactive classroom experience. Students also rated international topics and transdisciplinary thinking as fairly important. Interestingly, a relatively high share of students only saw mediocre added value in experiencing international classrooms, and in having international teachers, when it comes to meeting their top priority, which is being competitive in the job market. Education for sustainable development in the future will not only need to prepare students for international, interdisciplinary, and digital environments, but also will need to meet the expectations of demanding and ambitious students and provide them with bright career prospects.


2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (6/7) ◽  
pp. 294-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennine A. Knight

Purpose As is the case of all organizations, the academic library is a body reflecting the contribution of its core employees. As such, the roles performed by academic librarians are crucial to its development and existence. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of academic librarians as change champions in an information age that has been, still is, and is expected to be continuously pervaded by varying and widespread changes in librarianship and scholarship coupled with the ever changing and expanding user needs and expectations. The paper also identifies a framework to perform this role. Design/methodology/approach This paper is informed by opinion and draws on relevant literature to highlight the current climate and what is being perceived as valuable to the future direction of academic libraries in order to bring credence to its trajectory. Findings Academic librarians must readily accept, be responsive to, and anticipate change to maintain and justify their relevance to stakeholders. Yet, anecdotal evidence suggests that not all librarians are prepared to embrace change. Practical implications Academic librarians must understand how their roles influence the decision-making processes of the stakeholders and vice versa. Originality/value The paper advances five principles or 5As to guide the change process in academic libraries: alignment, accountability, agility, accessibility, and assessment. Very briefly, it discusses the relevance of a concept referred to as the competition-collaboration continuum to further academic librarianship. These notions serve to assist academic librarians in determining the appropriate actions to be taken now.


Mousaion ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahlaga Johannes Molepo ◽  
Archie Leonard Dick

This article presents a proposed model for framing the policies of Tshwane University of Technology’s (TUT) libraries. The authors draw on a focused literature review across various disciplines as well as empirical evidence collected from a purposive sample of 40 participants in a case study. The qualitative evaluation method is used to evaluate a set of models. A self-developed set of criteria is used as a tool to test the models towards a selection of elements and features that are then used to table the proposed model for TUT’s libraries. The evaluated models were categorised to produce models for academic library activities, models for higher education as well as models that depict changes in society’s knowledge system. The adapted model proposes a multiple reality constructionist approach to improve a shared understanding of what constitutes knowledge in democratic South Africa. It was found that there are inconsistencies and a lack of clarity on the role of TUT’s libraries in transformation initiatives of the university. The main argument is that the future role of TUT’s libraries should include taking part in other processes of the knowledge system such as knowledge production, application and use. The main value of the article is to provide a comprehensive strategic outlook that guides the transformation of TUT’s libraries. This will assist to frame TUT’s libraries policies in light of changes taking place in higher education.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Theophilus Kwamena Ocran ◽  
Paulina Afful-Arthur

PurposeThe purpose of the study is to assess the role of academic libraries in digital scholarship at the University of Cape Coast. The study adopted the descriptive survey design and used teaching staff (lecturers) as the population of the study.Design/methodology/approachA sample size of 278 was used for the study. The study used questionnaires to obtain data from participants. The study revealed that faculty members appreciate digital scholarship through the services offered by Sam Jonah Library are relevant to the current higher education context, reliable information, preservation of information resources and facilitating the integration of library services into the learning process are closely integrated into the library service, transform scholarly communication, teaching and learning style and research paradigm.FindingsThe study revealed that digital scholarship contributes to faculty members' delivery at the University of Cape Coast through the provision of information literacy training for new students, provision of reference lists of materials available in the library and provision of lists of new materials. The study revealed that faculty members face inadequate facilities to enhance digital scholarship, inadequate open access to reading materials (articles, books, etc.), inadequate platforms or suite of tools for librarians to take faculty.Practical implicationsThe application of digital scholarship provides an expansion to the core competitiveness of librarians new services which enables innovativeness and transformation of libraries. Students will be equipped with digital literacy skills; it affords instructors to approach teaching with innovation and scholars are also engaged to perform novel practices in scholarship acquisition. Digital scholarship is the umbrella under which all academic technologies comes under to foster collaboration and better learning experience.Originality/valueThis paper offers an insight of the role digital scholarship in promoting and advancing scholarship in the academic environment. It highlights a number of digital scholarship platform available in the library. It is observed that digital scholarship practices must be encouraged in the library because it facilitates the role of academic library which is to support teaching, learning and research.


2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-72 ◽  

AbstractJohn Eaton from the University of Manitoba at Winnipeg, describes an important Canadian knowledge initiative within the academic library community relating to acquisition of digital resources.


Author(s):  
Marián Morón Martín

An overview of the current professional translation industry shows that translation, in general, seems to be accommodating changes in the labor market and in society with relative ease. However, the scope, limits and boundaries of translation are a matter of academic and professional concern (Mayoral 2001; Tymoczko 2005/2007; Koskinen/Dam 2016; Dam et al. 2018), with some viewing the identity of translation somehow jeopardized by the great variety of professional translation-related services and practices encountered within the field (Gambier 2016; Koskinen/Dam 2016; Dam et al. 2018). It is true that services now associated with translation, such as technical communication (Risku 2004), transcreation, postediting or multilingual copyrighting (Mangell et al. 2019) are closely interrelated, sometimes even being identified as translation per se (Gambier 2016; Dam et al. 2018), despite the fact that no linguistic transfer even occurs. This paper will address the experience of trainee participants in a transcreation project developed at the University Pablo de Olavide in Seville (Spain). The project was an attempt to introduce transcreation, defined by the LSP industry as a service of added value, and initiate students in inventiveness and creative translation, while creatively enhancing translation graduates’ employability (Rojo/Meseguer 2018: 79). Despite the assumed role of universities as providers of employability skills, this initiative also aims to add value to translator training, adopting an open, creative and boundaryless approach when dealing with employability issues in translators’ training (Calvo 2010; Morón 2010; Kuznik 2016; Calvo 2018). The boundaries within and around the translation profession (Koskinen/Dam 2016) are tackled, through students completing simulated professional practice and self-reflection (Kiraly 2013/2016; Leggot/Stapleford 2004a/b). A qualitative and analytical approach will be adopted, presenting the final assessment results from trainee participants during Stage 1 of project implementation, as well as real testimonies of graduates and professionals reflecting on the impact the initiative has on trainees’ employability.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
Abdul Salam ◽  
Abdurrahman Abdurrahman

The purpose of this study was to identify the outcomes of higher education, in this case the University Technology of Sumbawa, because of its strategic location and positive response from the people of Sumbawa Regency, its ability to create added value and strategies for increasing public awareness of its financial future.The object of this research is the community in Sumbawa Regency with a sample size of 250 respondents. This study measures the role of Lecturers on, Financial Literacy and Inclusion.This study found that financial literacy partially affects the role of lecturers in being rejected. The financial inclusion variable has a significant effect on the role of the lecturer. Meanwhile, the variables of financial literacy and financial inclusion have a simultaneous effect on the role of lecturers.The conclusion of this research is in determining the right strategy to improve Financial Literacy and Financial Inclusion by increasing the role of Lecturers through Tri Dharma in order to create a well-lierate financial society


Author(s):  
Katherine Farmer ◽  
Jeff Henry ◽  
Dana Statton Thompson ◽  
Candace K. Vance ◽  
Megan Wilson

As more courses are offered online, many academic librarians need to determine how to teach information literacy in a virtual environment. Starting in the Summer of 2019, a team of five librarians embarked on transforming their instruction offerings through the use of Canvas Commons. The librarians wanted to deliver online information literacy content by creating downloadable library instructional modules based on curriculum mapping at the programmatic level. The need to reconsider these practices was further exacerbated by the impact of COVID-19 on higher education. When the university moved all courses online in the Spring of 2020 due to COVID-19, the team was able to quickly pivot and offer library instruction through Canvas Commons modules, replacing face-to-face instruction. In this chapter, the authors describe the implementation of information literacy modules on campus, lessons learned, and future plans for the project in light of the pandemic.


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