Search

Although studies related to diversity within librarianship as a profession are increasing, few have examined librarians with disabilities--and none so far have included their voices or perspectives. This qualitative study involved interviews with ten academic librarians with disabilities in Canada. With a grounding in the social model of disability, it examines their workplace experiences and concerns and the barriers they face within the context of cultural assumptions about disability and work, finding that the major barriers encountered are lack of awareness of disability issues and negative cultural stereotypes of disability.

This article discusses a public service review and redesign that resulted in a blended service desk combining reference and circulation functions, staffed by nonlibrarians. The redesign implements a number of organizational structures that encourage service excellence, as found in the business literature and in examples of nonlibrary organizations that excel in customer service. The article identifies key organizational structures that have been shown to support or hinder good service and discusses the process of implementing these structures in practice and the results of an assessment process designed around determining success.

ABSTRACT Many video, screencast, webinar, or interactive tutorials are created and provided by vendors for use by libraries to instruct users in database searching. This study investigates whether these vendor-created [...]

Purpose - Usability testing can play a valuable role in improving the effectiveness of online information literacy instruction, while forming a core component in a wider assessment plan. This article aims to discuss the usability testing of an online information literacy tutorial for freshman undergraduates at Wilfrid Laurier University Library. Design/methodology/approach - Two librarians, working to fulfill an important mandate of the Library's Information Literacy Task Force, defined goals, created and implemented a modest, though effective, approach to usability assessment. Findings - The testing provided detailed information on the ease of use of the tutorial, as well as users' satisfaction levels with content and design, These findings informed subsequent revisions and enhancements to the online tutorial. Originality/value - Student evaluation questionnaires distributed subsequent to the tutorial overhaul indicate the success of usability testing in the development of a more effective learning tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]