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Recent semi-structured interviews with 28 librarians and branch managers on the placement of social workers in public libraries revealed a need for library and information science (LIS) programs to better prepare students for their role as social service information providers and to provide models for working with and supervising social workers in the library. It is clear that libraries are experiencing increasing demands to respond to the social-service information needs that users bring to the library, and the importance of libraries to communities in times of uncertainty and crisis is clear. In response, some libraries are including social workers on staff, but this trend does not completely relieve librarians of the need to serve the public's social-service information needs. LIS students need to understand the professional boundaries of librarianship and social work and to develop the ability to feel confident in their interactions with users who have been traumatized, are in crisis, or are struggling with challenges such as the need for credible health information; home and food insecurity information; legal aid; access to the Internet for individuals and families from low-income situations; accessible adult education programs; and more. Interview participants offered a number of suggestions for how to incorporate social work concepts into LIS education and asked for several specific skills such as training in mental-health first aid, de-escalation techniques, and greater knowledge of social-service resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the results of a survey of heads of public library administrative units concerning their experiences with and perceptions of the employment of social workers. Among respondents, only six employed social workers. Among those who have not hired a social worker, fewer than half said that they were currently interested in hiring a social worker. Respondents revealed many issues that need to be considered, despite the many benefits that library administrators expect libraries to experience from adding a social worker to their staff. The top three reasons for not hiring a social worker are funding, licensure, and liability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Project GATE (Children's Access to and Use of Technology Evaluation), based on grades 4-8 children's responses from surveys, focus group participations, and observations in the Saint Louis Public Library, girls' attitudes toward computers and toward their skill level were equally as positive as those of their male counterparts. Girls differed little from boys in what they wanted to learn and how they used computers, with games the largest portion of observed computer use for both genders. Eighty-five parents queried by survey and ten by focus group responded very similarly about their children's attitudes and use. Juxtaposing this study with other contemporary research findings suggests that some former research results, as well as conventional wisdom about gender differences in relation to computers, no longer hold true for net-generation youth. The need for moving on beyond these already-addressed issues into more sophisticated analyses is established. The Project GATE study is unique in speaking to these gender-related questions in a public library setting. The results draw attention to the public library as a venue for studying informal use of computers and for self-generated information seeking and recreation, as well as homework-related use, in a gender-neutral environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes children''s use of networked technology in three branches of an urban public library. Direct observations of their use of computers and data gathered from brief interviews with them were recorded using personal digital assistants (PDAs). Findings suggest that (1) the largest proportion of children''s use of computers is for access to games, (2) use of computers for communication purposes (e.g., chat, e-mail, and word processing) is minimal, and (3) repeat use of the computers varies by branch. Grade level analysis reveals that middle school students access games less than elementary students do at two branches and that middle school students use the computers more than elementary students do for communication purposes. Overall, girls and boys use games, chat, and e-mail in comparable proportions. In other categories of use, there are gender differences but no consistent pattern emerges across branches. This investigation provides a first view of children''s unmediated use of technology in the public library, their reasons for using library computers, and provides baseline data for assessing the outcomes of technology programs and services developed by the library to serve the needs of this user group. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Although outcome-based evaluation was routine in governmental and nonprofit agencies by 2002, it had not been systematically applied to the evaluation of children''s services in public libraries. At the same time, digital technology had grown commonplace in public libraries, with 94.5% of libraries providing Internet access to the public in the year 2000. This article examines various definitions and models of outcome-based evaluation; describes the lack of knowledge regarding children''s use of technology in public libraries, despite their majority status among users; and presents an original outcome-based evaluation model (the Project CATE model) developed to assess this use. Although this unique, dynamic, and interactive evaluation research model was conceived as a collaboration between the Saint Louis Public Library and the Florida State University School of Information Studies, it is designed to be transportable and applicable in a wide variety of assessment situations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A secondary analysis of a user survey administered in 13 public libraries examined user ratings of reference services by transaction type. Transaction type is defined dichotomously as self-generated (users transacting questions they have determined for themselves) or imposed (agent users in the library seeking information on behalf of someone else). Users with self-generated questions rated library services lower than did users with imposed questions. Both groups rated the library experience lower than their reference desk experience, and imposed queries were responsible for proportionately higher “first time” use of the reference desk. No significant difference existed between groups for ratings of finding useful information in the library, finding everything wanted in the library visit, frequency of library use, or levels of attained formal education. There were significant differences found for ratings of the reference librarian''s service behaviors, user satisfaction with reference service, and frequency of reference desk use. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]