Scholarly Works, University Libraries

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Research articles, presentations, and other scholarship

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Boiling Down Qualitative Data to Build Personas that Inform Spaces, Services, and Technologies
Hall, Monena; Strub, Maurini (ACRL, 2017)
Personas are archetypes of user needs, wants, goals, and desires that allow for empathetic design of virtual and physical spaces and services. Commonly created using assumption-based methods, this recipe focuses on in-person interview analysis
Content Selection, Preparation, and Management
McMillan, Gail; Howard, Rachel (Educopia Institute, 2010)
Here is a set of best practices for policies regarding the selection, preparation, and management of digital content for preservation purposes. Though the authors draw upon PLNs (Private LOCKSS Networks) in their featured examples, the chapter may be applied more broadly to many distributed digital preservation initiatives. As such, it will be of great use to librarians, curators, and archivists, as well as administrators, who are seeking to ready their collections for preservation.
Course Material Decisions and Factors: Unpacking the Opaque Box
Walz, Anita R. (Pacific University Press, 2018-11-30)
The opacity of course-material selection practices and related lack of recent scholarship on the topic is a barrier for open education advocates seeking to understand the context of instructor course material selection. This chapter reviews the limited numbers of large-scale and disciplinary-oriented literature on the topic, reasons for the apparent lack of transparency, scholarship-prescribed processes, instructor incentives and rationale, and potential roles for open education advocates, including librarians. Suggested citation: Walz, A., (2018). Course Material Decisions and Factors: Unpacking the Opaque Box. In Wesolek, A., Lashley, J,. & Langley, A. (Eds.), OER: A Field Guide for Academic Librarians. (pp.115-140). Hillsboro, OR: Pacific University Press. Retrieved from https://commons.pacificu.edu/pup/3 [File includes front-matter, editors' introduction, table of contents, and chapter cited above.]
Designing Stories: A Storytelling Approach to Tutorial Videos
Feerrar, Julia (ACRL, 2017)
Electronic Theses and Dissertations: Progress, Issues, and Prospects
McMillan, Gail; Fox, Edward A.; Srinivasan, Venkat (Center for Digital Discourse and Culture, Virginia Tech, 2009)
ETDs form an important component of global scholarship and research output. Many universities around the world require, accept, or at least encourage students to submit their theses and dissertations electronically. The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD), which promotes ETD activities worldwide, now has over 779,000 ETDs accessible through its Union Catalog, run by Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). Other NDLTD partners provide powerful tools for searching, browsing, and visualization...
A Library Viewpoint: Exploring Open Educational Practices
Walz, Anita R. (Ubiquity Press, 2017-03-27)
There are a wide range of faculty responses to open; everything from curiosity to resistance. Some of these reactions are due to professional tradition, guild thinking, and lack of awareness about open. Academic libraries offer a unique context for exploring open. They do not fall prey to disciplinary concerns and, as such, are hotbeds of collaboration and innovation. It is no wonder that libraries are a natural home for open educational philosophy. In this chapter, author Anita Walz offers her personal insights into the current state of open education. She candidly shares her thoughts on faculty adoption of OERs, the current cost of learning resources, and the promise of open pedagogy.
A New Service from Libraries: Electronic Publishing
McMillan, Gail (Association of College and Research Libraries, 1995)
Libraries are continuously improving traditional services but now they are also responding to stringent economic times by producing and distributing information electronically. Publishing electronic journals, distributing pre-publication abstracts, digitizing images, incorporating hyperlinks between and within documents and databases, and providing online access to local news are some of the innovative services academic libraries have begun to provide. This paper describes how one library addressed the challenges and took advantage of opportunities and readily available new technologies to meet the information needs of their future remote clients as well as their current local patrons.
Open Exit: Reaching the End of the Data Lifecycle
Ogier, Andrea; Nicholls, Natsuko; Speer, Ryan (2016-03)
Other Duties (And Places) as Assigned: How Analog Approaches Are Impeding Progress in Online Librarianship
Blicher, Heather; Neel, Rebecca; Howard, Joy (ABC-CLIO: Libraries Unlimited, 2022-10)
Just as librarians have intentionally developed and strengthened face-to-face services according to ACRL Standards, so too should we intentionally create and support standards-based online work. To accomplish this work, we need both dedicated, experienced librarians and progressive organizational structures that embrace the post-traditional work environments needed to fully support online and post-traditional students. The inequities felt by both online librarians and the academic audiences they serve (students and faculty) can be traced back to the gendered nature of librarianship as a whole. We have an opportunity to address this narrative and resulting practices and policies in this moment of social change, but it requires a confrontation of commonly accepted norms in the field (hegemony) and the internal inequities that are showing up in the analog/digital divide within our field. An intentional focus on equity is vital for truly successful distance programs because if we view distance services as secondary or less optimal to traditional, on-campus services we are automatically relegating distance library users to a secondary status within the library community. And if distance services truly are less optimal, we simply need to redesign them. Problems Addressed: Equitable work environments Opportunities for upward mobility in the DOL area of the profession Empowering fellow librarians
Scholarly Communications Project: Publishers and Libraries
McMillan, Gail (Association of Research Libraries, 1995-01)
When the Scholarly Communications Project was getting underway in 1989, the founding director, Lon Savage, envisioned a pioneering effort: exploration of new means of scholarly communications and ways to reduce costly distribution of print publications normally done through commercial publishers. Paul Gherman, University Librarian at Virginia Tech when the Project began, felt strongly that such a project belonged in the library; that it would be an opportunity for library staff to get involved in a new publishing medium that increasingly would be integral to the library's mission. Thus, the Project director, who often refers to himself as "an old newspaper man" and who is not a librarian, was very concerned about publishers' interests, while the librarian looked at electronic publishing as a way for libraries to use new technology to keep their services meeting the current information needs of their patrons. Since the Scholarly Communications Project moved into the library in 1991, the founding director has retired, leaving a flourishing enterprise. The first electronic-only journal has been joined by four print-also journals, abstracts for two additional journals, two research databases, two experimental digital image collections, an experiment in providing access to television news, a regional newspaper, and the university faculty/ staff newspaper. Thus, the activities of the Project have placed the library directly into the information provider's role, improving the level of services the library offers...
Social Media as Time Suck: The Myth of Efficiency
Nardine, Jennifer T. (2012-07-25)
A discussion of the pros and cons of using social media in academic libraries, and a case model of streamlining the process. I.e. Virginia Tech Libraries use Hootsuite as a social media manager, allowing a single librarian to maintain multiple social media channels at a several-posts-a-day pace without neglecting other areas of her work while still allowing for input by other Library members as time allows.
Supporting digital wellness and wellbeing
Feerrar, Julia (ACRL Press, 2020)
Elements of digital life, such as information overload, distraction, privacy concerns, and interpersonal interactions, can significantly affect an individual’s well-being. Cultivating digital wellness involves the ability to navigate these aspects of digital life and to make mindful decisions related to time spent, account settings, sharing, and more. Education in support of digital wellness and well-being is an important and growing feature of wellness-related initiatives on college and university campuses. Academic libraries can be key partners in these kinds of programs. This chapter shares approaches for librarians looking to support digital well-being. Following a review of the literature on digital wellness and college students, the author details a case study of two pilot approaches to digital wellness support at the University Libraries at Virginia Tech: contributing to a large campus-wide event and developing cocurricular workshops. Connecting relevant outreach and instructional programs to digital well-being, and framing them in wellness terms, offered librarians new opportunities to build partnerships across campus and to connect with students.
Teaching Undergraduates to Collate and Evaluate News Sources with Altmetrics
MacDonald, Amanda B.; Miles, Rachel A. (Association of College and Research Libraries, 2021-08)
In the digital age of information, undergraduate students often have a difficult time identifying and differentiating among online sources, such as news articles, blog posts, and academic articles. Students generally find these sources online and often struggle to vet them for consistency, context, quality, and validity. In this chapter, we present a new purpose for altmetrics in which librarians teach undergraduates to use altmetrics as a tool to evaluate and differentiate between online mainstream and scholarly sources, which can lead to a deeper understanding of the research process and the engagement and discussion surrounding research as well as an increased ability to evaluate sources more critically. On a more advanced level, students will be able to analyze different levels of inaccuracy and misrepresentation of research from mainstream sources and more accurately identify highly sensationalized research topics from mainstream sources, seminal works of research, and deliberately misleading information and/or fake news. Slides for the learning activity are available at https://sandbox.acrl.org/library-collection/using-altmetrics-evaluate-pseudoscience-news-media
Throwing It All at the Wall: Building a Comprehensive Technology and Research Equipment Lending Collection
Bradley, Jonathan; Rogers, Alice (Association of College & Research Libraries, 2023-09-28)
Technology is an ongoing need for instructors, students, staff, and researchers at institutions of higher education. Many academic departments attempt to solve needs on a case-by-case basis, purchasing and providing equipment to the specific groups of people they serve. Although these solutions work in the short term, they do not address widespread needs across universities or long-term use of the equipment beyond a given project. As modern academic libraries expand collections and services, we are poised to more efficiently provide access to expensive technology to our institutions due to our centralized nature. To meet this need, the Studios Network of Virginia Tech University Libraries developed the Studios Technology Lending Desk (STLD). In this chapter, we discuss how we have shaped our acquisition, support, and outreach methods to create a service that provides Virginia Tech’s faculty, staff, and students with technology to pursue a variety of creative endeavors within their fields of study and beyond. In sharing our experiences and the ethos behind choices we have made, we hope to inspire other programs to establish or extend their lending services to include technology that supports creators at their libraries.
Valuing Open Textbooks: Derivatives, Adaptation, and Remix
Walz, Anita R. (University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing, 2018-07-25)
This chapter considers the potential of OER (open educational resources) beyond free access by looking at remix, adaptation, or creation within and outside of the classroom. It includes abbreviated descriptions of adapted works, including Virginia Tech's first open textbook "Fundamentals of Business." Suggested citation: Walz, A. (2019). Valuing Open Textbooks: Derivatives, Adaptation and Remix. In K. Jenson & S. Nackerud (Eds.). The Evolution of Affordable Content Efforts in the Higher Education Environment: Programs, Case Studies and Examples. (pp.265-275). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing. Retrieved from https://open.lib.umn.edu/affordablecontent

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