Volume 16, numéro 3, 2021

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Objective – This study uses quantitative methods to determine if the metadata requirements of institutional repositories (IRs) promote data discovery. This question is addressed through an exploration of an international sample of university IRs, including an analysis of the required metadata elements for data deposit, with a particular focus on how these metadata support discovery of research data objects.

Methods – The researchers worked with an international universe of 243 IRs. A codebook of 10 variables was developed to enable analysis of the eventual randomly derived sample of 40 institutions.

Results – The analysis of our sample IRs revealed that most had metadata standards that offered weak support for data discovery—an unsurprising revelation in view of the fact that university IRs are meant to accommodate deposit and storage of all types of scholarly outputs, only a small percentage of which are research data objects. Most IRs seem to have adopted metadata standards based on the Dublin Core schema, while none of the IRs in our sample used the Data Documentation Initiative metadata that is better suited for deposit and discovery of research datasets.

Conclusion – The study demonstrates that while data deposit can be accommodated by the existing metadata requirements of multi-purpose IRs, their metadata practices do little to prioritize data deposit or to promote data discovery. Evidence indicates that data discovery will benefit from additional metadata elements.

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Objective – The goals of this study were to 1) characterize the quantity and nature of research outputs created by or in cooperation with community-based research units (CBRUs) at Canadian universities; 2) assess dissemination practices and patterns with respect to these outputs; 3) understand the current and potential roles of institutional repositories (IRs) in disseminating community-based research (CBR).

Methods – The researcher consulted and consolidated online directories of Canadian universities to establish a list of 47 English language institutions. Working from this list of universities, the researcher investigated each in an attempt to identify any CBRUs within the institutions. Ultimately, these efforts resulted in a list of 25 CBRUs. All but 1 of these were from universities that also have IRs, so 24 CBRUs were included for further analysis. The researcher visited the website for each CBRU in February 2021 and, using the data on the site, created a list of each project that the CBRU has been involved in or facilitated over the past 10 years (2010-2020). An Excel spreadsheet was used to record variables relating to the nature and accessibility of outputs associated with each project.

Results – These 24 CBRUs listed 525 distinct projects completed during the past 10 years (2010-2020). The number of projects listed on the CBRU sites varied widely from 2 to 124, with a median of 13. Outputs were most frequently reports (n=375, which included research reports, whitepapers, fact sheets, and others), with journal articles (n=74) and videos (n= 42) being less common, and other formats even less frequent. The dissemination avenues for these CBRU projects are roughly divided into thirds, with approximately one third of the projects’ results housed on the CBRU websites, another third in IRs, and a final third in “other” locations (third party websites, standalone project websites, or not available). Some output types, like videos and journal articles, were far less likely to be housed in IRs. There was a significantly higher deposit rate in faculty or department-based CBRUs, as opposed to standalone CBRUs.

Conclusion – The results of this study indicate that academic libraries and their IRs play an important role in the dissemination of CBR outputs to the broader public. The findings also confirm that there is more work to be done; academic librarians, CBRU staff, and researchers can work together to expand access to, and potentially increase the impact of, CBR. Ideally, this would result in all CBRU project outputs being widely available, as well as providing more consistent access points to these bodies of work.

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Objective – The objective of the study is to increase the knowledge about what questions students ask at the library desk and what the purpose is of their use of the desk. Our focus has been on the physical meetings with the students. The aim is to contribute to the discussion on the future development of the library service desk. 

Methods – We recorded questions asked at the desks to explore how students use the library service desks. The recording, where library staff sorted questions into predefined categories, took place over four weeks between the years 2017–2018.

Results – Our recording showed that 63% of the questions asked at the library service desks were about loan services, document delivery, and access to physical and electronic collections. Practical things such as opening hours, lost and found items, and the location of the group study rooms, accounted for 16% of questions. Questions about information technology (IT) made up 8% of questions. Finally, the results showed that 8% of the questions from the four weeks of counting were counselling and guidance questions, and 2% were about literature lists, reference management, and reference management tools. We found more questions about counselling and guidance in the spring weeks and more practical questions in the fall. We did not find any clear connection between the number of questions and the size of the branch libraries.

Conclusion – By conducting this study, we have learned more about why students use the library desk. Our study shows that students come to the library desk to ask about a lot more than just borrowing staples. The results from the study will inform the development of the library desk service going forward.

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Objective – The objective of this research was to identify the four professional competences of graduates in Library and Information Sciences and Technologies (LIST) considered most pertinent, from the points of view of students, teachers, and employers. We also sought to compare the perceptions of the different groups. The study was based on the premise that alignment of these perceptions may enhance the employability of LIST graduates.

Methods – A questionnaire, used and validated by Arias-Coello et al. (2014), was further translated by Martins and Carvalho (2018). The questionnaire consisted of a set of questions regarding four dimensions: Information Management; Communication and Interpersonal Relationships; Domain and Application of Information Technologies; Organization Management. We sent the survey by email to the target audience; it was available to complete in April and May 2018. Data analysis included calculating mean and standard deviation, as well as Shapiro Wilk normality tests, statistical tests for multiple comparisons, ANOVA, Kruskal Wallis test, Friedman test, Wilcoxon test, and Pearson's correlation.

Results – In relation to certain dimensions, one could think that age would be a determining factor, but this has not been proved. In fact, results showed that age is not a factor that influenced the importance attributed to different competences in the several dimensions. The respondents' academic degrees and areas of knowledge were linked to significant differences transversally. The Kruskal Wallis test indicated that students, teachers, and employers perceived the importance of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) skills equally. As for the other competences, overall there were significant differences between students and employers, and there were significant differences between students and teachers regarding the perceived importance of organization management skills. There were also significant differences between teachers, students, and employers regarding the perceived importance of communication skills. We also found that responses within the teacher group had less dispersion of answers, therefore there was greater internal agreement. The opposite occurred in the employer group.

Conclusion – The differences detected in the perception of the different groups were minor. However, it is necessary to create initiatives for the alignment of the perceptions of students and employers, because if all groups have the same perception, they will develop and value the same skills, responding to the needs of the labor market, thus promoting the employability of LIST graduates. The inclusion of a curricular internship, even one of short duration, in the first year of the degree could also be a way of endeavoring to bring together the expectations of both groups. These suggestions are part of a proposal to change and update the study plan and enhance the performance of course management.

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Objective – Libraries have had to temporarily shut their doors because of the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in the provision of online and remote services. This review analyzed services offered by libraries, the technological tools used, and the challenges facing libraries during the pandemic.

Methods – This study employed a systematic literature review, following the PRISMA checklist (Moher at al., 2009). The Building Blocks search strategy was employed to search for keywords of concepts in Library and Information Science Abstract (LISA), Library and Information Science Technology Abstract (LISTA), Library Science Database, Web of Science (WoS) core collections, and Google Scholar. A set of inclusion and exclusion criteria was pre-determined by the authors prior to database searching. Quality assessment of included studies was performed using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (Hong et al., 2018). A tabular approach was used to provide a summary of each article allowing the synthesis of results, which led to the identification of eight broad categories of services provided by libraries in included studies.

Results – The first set of searches from the 5 databases produced 3,499 results. After we removed duplicates and applied the inclusion and exclusion criteria based on titles and abstracts, 37 potentially relevant articles were identified. Further screening of the full-text led to the final inclusion of 23 articles used for the qualitative synthesis. The majority of the studies were conducted in the United States of America (n= 6, 26.1%), followed by India (n=4, 17%), and China (n=2, 8.7%). The remaining studies were carried out in United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Mexico, Romania, Czech Republic, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Lesotho, and Zimbabwe. The most common method used in selected studies was the case study (n= 11, 48%), followed by survey (n=7, 30.4%), content analysis (n=4, 17.4%), and mixed methods (n=1, 4.3%). The majority of the studies were carried out in academic libraries (74%), while the rest were based on medical, public, and special libraries. Findings show that the majority of academic libraries in the included studies are providing and expanding access to electronic resources (n=16, 69.6%) and increasing open access resources and services (n=11, 47.8%). More so, most academic libraries are assisting in virtual education and teaching endeavors of faculty and students (n=13, 56.5%). In addition, some medical and public libraries are bolstering public health safety through health literacy (n=12, 52.2%), supporting research efforts, and engaging in virtual reference services, among others. In order to carry out these services, libraries are harnessing several educational, social networking, communication, and makerspaces technologies. Most of the libraries in the included studies reported budgetary challenges, and the need for new ICT infrastructure and Internet service as they move their services online.

Conclusion – This review found that libraries are adapting in a number of ways to continue their roles in meeting patrons’ needs in spite of the growing challenges posed by COVID-19 restrictions and lockdown. For libraries to thrive in these trying times, there must be a well-structured approach to ensuring continuity of services. Libraries should prioritize the acquisition of electronic resources as well as increase their efforts to digitize resources that are only available in printed copies. As library services have predominantly shifted online, there should be concerted effort and support from government and funding agencies to equip libraries with the technological facilities needed to provide cutting-edge services. The quality assessment of the included studies shows that there is need for rigor and transparency in the methodological description of studies investigating library services provision in a pandemic. This review provides an overview of the ways libraries have responded to the challenges posed by a global pandemic, and hence will be of use and interest to all librarians especially those in health and academic sectors.

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Objective – Evidence based medical education requires supportive information services to facilitate access to the needed educational evidence. Information services designed specifically for evidence based medical education are limited or locally developed for educational units. For librarians to have an opportunity to cooperate efficiently with medical educators in evidence based medical education, they require an empirical prototype for transmission of clinical evidence at the right place and the right time. Therefore, there is a need to recognize types of information services which support evidence based medical education. The purpose of this review is to identify implementation trends of evidence based educational information services.

Methods – We found related studies by implementing search strategies in PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, Scopus, LISTA, and Google Scholar with keywords like: evidence based medical education, information services, and library services. We used reference-checking and citation-checking of related articles for completing the process of locating relevant articles. After employing inclusion and exclusion criteria, we selected 11 articles for inclusion in the review and analyzed them using a narrative review technique.

Results – After analyzing the results of the included studies, we identified two elements categorized as program development and five elements categorized as implementation trend. Prerequisites of program and the process of designing were essential parts of program development of information services. Schedule and type of access, how to receive educational-clinical questions, information services types, responding time, and providing evidence based outputs were the elements of the implementation process of educational supported information services.

Conclusion – Designing an evidence based educational information service strongly depends on the information needs of learners at each educational level. Schedule and type of access to information service, time of responding to the received query, and preparation of evidence based output are essential factors in designing practical educational-developed information services.

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Objective – This review aims to determine the suitability of the READ Scale for chat service assessment. We investigated how librarians rate chats and their interpretations of the results, and compared these findings to the original purpose of the Scale.

Methods – We performed a systematic search of databases in order to retrieve sources, applied inclusion and exclusion criteria, and read the remaining articles. We synthesized common themes that emerged into a discussion of the use of the READ Scale to assess chat service. Additionally, we compiled READ Scale designations across institutions to allow side-by-side comparisons of ratings of chat interactions.

Results – This review revealed that librarians used a variety of approaches in applying and understanding READ Scale ratings. Determination of staffing levels was often the primary goal. Further, librarians consistently rated chat interactions in the lower two-thirds of the scale, which has implications for service perception and recommendations.

Conclusion – The findings of this review indicated that librarians frequently use READ Scale data to make staffing recommendations, both in terms of numbers of staff providing chat service and level of experience to adequately meet service demand. Evidence suggested, however, that characteristics of the scale itself may lead to a distorted understanding of chat service, skewing designations to the lower end of the scale, and undervaluing the service.