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To create more direct and equal collaborations with faculty, the University of Minnesota Libraries in the Twin Cities adapted a new model of engagement: the "Research Sprints." Research Sprints place librarians in direct proximity with faculty to rapidly and collaboratively work on a component of a research project in less than a week. In this article, we use a grounded theory approach, in which researchers review the data they have collected to find repeated ideas and then group them into concepts or categories, to analyze survey results from faculty and librarian participants across three iterations of Research Sprints. Research Sprints offer academic libraries an opportunity to build social capital with faculty but require strong project management to succeed.

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of first-year undergraduates' (n = 5,368) use of academic library resources in their first year on their degree completion or continued enrollment after four years of study. Propensity score matching techniques were used to construct treatment (library users) and control (library nonusers) groups with similar background characteristics and college experiences. The results suggest that using the library at least one time in the first year of enrollment significantly increased the odds that students would graduate in four years or remain enrolled after four years as opposed to withdrawing from the university. First-year students who used electronic resources and books also had significantly improved odds of graduation over withdrawing, while students who used electronic books and took a library instruction course had significantly improved odds of remaining enrolled over withdrawing.

The purpose of this paper was to investigate whether there are relationships between first-year college students' use of academic libraries and four academic outcomes: academic engagement, engagement in scholarly activities, academic skills development, and grade point average. The results of regression analyses suggest students' use of books (collection loans, e-books, and interlibrary loans) and web-based services (database, journal, and library website logins) had the most positive and significant relationships with academic outcomes. Students' use of reference services was positively associated with their academic engagement and academic skills, while enrollment in library courses was positively associated with grade point averages.

In Fall 2011, staff at the University of Minnesota Libraries-Twin Cities undertook a project to measure how often, and in what ways, students used the Libraries' services. Partnering with the University's Office of Institutional Research, the team investigated ways to match library service usage to individual accounts while retaining patron privacy to determine who was--and was not--using the library. With complete data sets, the group was able to determine overall usage rates for undergraduate and graduate students and compare how students in different colleges used library services. This article discusses data gathering techniques, analysis, and initial findings. (Contains 2 tables, 2 figures and 15 notes.)

Academic libraries, like other university departments, are being asked to demonstrate their value to the institution. This study discusses the impact library usage has on the retention and academic success of first-time, first-year undergraduate students at a large, public research university. Usage statistics were gathered at the University of Minnesota during the Fall 2011 semester for thirteen library access points. Analysis of the data suggests first-time, first-year undergraduate students who use the library have a higher GPA for their first semester and higher retention from fall to spring than non-library users. (Contains 6 tables and 27 notes.)

Blogs are a hot topic in academia. A search on "blog" in the "Chronicle of Education's" Web site returns nearly two hundred articles, covering such topics as the dangers an impolitic blog can do to an institution's leaders (Read, 2006) or the blogger's career (Tribble, 2005) and the mutual use of blogs by instructors to lambaste students (Lipka, 2006) and vice versa (Bartlett, 2005). Just as journalists think of blogging as a form of journalism (Grossman, 2004) and young women view blogs as a form of diary (Gumbrecht, Nardi, Schiano, and Swartz, 2004), the archives of the "Chronicle of Higher Education" show that many people in academia view--and judge--blogs as forms of academic production or a vehicle for scholars to become public intellectuals. In this article, the authors discuss the use of blogs in higher education, including how students and instructors use blogs, the value of blogs in this setting, and privacy and security implications. They conclude with information on how the University of Minnesota library system has implemented a blogging program called UThink to enhance its services. (Contains 1 table.)

Describes CGI (Common Gateway Interface) scripts that are available on the Web and explains how librarians can use them to make Web pages more interactive. Topics include CGI security; Perl scripts; UNIX; and HTML. (LRW)