Search

Her research area and interests include user services, Latinx use of information organizations, academic library administration, library management, and organizational storytelling in library environments. Her research interests include information ethics, censorship, intellectual freedom, information policy, public libraries, privacy, and qualitative research methods. Her research has explored how data curation can support equitable data reuse and how a community's data reuse capacity can be enhanced through proper data curation support. [Extracted from the article]

An introduction is presented in which editor discusses articles on various topics including public library response to the COVID-19 pandemic; social justice actions in libraries and community development.

The seemingly limitless amount of false information online, especially about important political and current events, has become an increasingly sizable problem for the health of democratic governance around the world, most especially in the realm of social media. Misinformation online now has significant tangible real-world impacts, with libraries being the best situated social institution to help prepare all users to identify misinformation and navigate through the online environments in which it lives. This article proposes the idea of lifelong information literacy—the teaching and reinforcing information literacy to all users at every opportunity. The constantly changing nature of misinformation online merits treating information literacy education as a continual process for all libraries. To maintain their long-cherished and hard-earned role as arsenals of democracy, libraries need to consider how to become arsenals of lifelong information literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which editor discusses various articles within the issue on topics including reading in prison libraries, early literacy in public libraries and value of a master of library science degree.

The article offers information on the constant changes to periodical and several members of the periodical's editorial board. Topics discussed include the changing landscape of the libraries in the U.S.; the diversity problem in the periodical's staff; and the editorial board members, such as Michelle Caswell, Ricardo L. Punzalan and Michael Crandall.

This article discusses the design and implementation of a pediatric library program in a short-term, in-patient, acute care behavioral health facility in Pasco County, FL. The collection was built initially with resources already held by the University of South Florida's (USF) School of Information (SI), with additional resources acquired through financial support from the Southeastern/Atlantic Region of the Network of the National Library of Medicine and the School of Information's Dr. Henrietta M. Smith Youth Services Fund. For this unique project, the USF SI Responsive Librarianship Lab researchers established both a physical library and an ongoing group session health literacy program at the facility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented to the issue of the journal that discusses topics such as appointments to the editorial board, departing editors, and research about libraries.

An I LQ i special issue next year will explore another way that libraries and their supporters can combat antilibrary efforts: through direct civic engagement. As we write this editorial, the legislatures of more than a half-dozen states have passed laws with criminal penalties for librarians, although some governors have vetoed the legislation and the state court in one case blocked implementation of that state's law. [Extracted from the article]

This article examines young people's perceptions of government, as well as the connection between these perceptions and their information and civic literacies. A case study of 37 young teens uses descriptive survey data, along with participant observation and other qualitative data collection methods, and finds that participants base their perceptions of government on a variety of factors, including institutions, the presidency, policies and policy outcomes, and the media's portrayal of government. Nearly half of the overall perceptions that each participant had of government was negative. Within these perceptions, however, participants demonstrated contradictory opinions and gaps in civic and information literacy, providing important implications for librarians and library workers and educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to focus on middle-school-aged young people’s information-seeking behavior and the knowledge and perceptions they have of and about federal government websites.Design/methodology/approach The case study included 37 youth across four middle schools in the mid-Atlantic USA who all participated in a research-focused after-school program. During these sessions, they participated in several data collection activities, including an interview, a survey, a word association activity, an evaluation of the homepage of a government website, and card-sorting. Using conventional, directed, and summative content analysis techniques, the narratives from each data collection activity were coded using in vivo and theory-based terms.Findings The study finds that the majority of participants viewed government websites favorably, but were frequently unsure of what government websites are or who is responsible for their creation. Perhaps more significantly, participants’ views of information-related policies frequently were raised during discussions about government websites. The perceptions reflected the youth information-seeking behaviors and information literacy gaps.Originality/value Overall, these findings shed light on the opinions of an understudied population in e-government research and inform both policy makers and educators on how to best disseminate government information to youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Touchscreen tablet technology is being widely adopted in primary and secondary schools throughout the world. Current research largely explores how to use this technology to teach reading and writing, mathematics, and to a lesser extent science. However a research gap exists in exploring tablet technology to teach geography. The research in this article examines if any differences in learning outcomes exist between a more traditional teaching method and one that is centered on using touchscreen tablet technology when teaching USA states’ shapes and locations to second-graders. The results indicate that there is no statistically significant difference between the two teaching methods, but that combining the two methods may lead to significant improvements in learning outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on disadvantaged tweens’ (ages 11 through 13) strategies for making predictive and evaluative judgments of the credibility of health information online. More specifically, this paper identifies the features of Google search results pages and web sites that signal credibility (or lack thereof) to this population and the reasons behind their perceptions. Design/methodology/approach – The authors employed an ethnographic approach (using various types of data collection methods) targeted to generate in-depth descriptions of tweens making predictive and evaluative judgments of credibility, focussing on the ways in which these tweens naturally assess the credibility of online information. Findings – The research has yielded novel findings concerning the types of factors that influence disadvantaged tweens’ credibility assessment strategies, such as limited English-language vocabularies, lack of familiarity with perhaps otherwise well-known sources, and forced reliance on (and/or general preference for) non-textual modalities, such as audio and video. Practical implications – The findings indicate a need for implementing digital literacy programs in a naturalized setting, building on tweens’ existing heuristics and thereby resulting in strategies that are simultaneously compatible with their natural inclinations within the online environment and likely to consistently lead them to accurate credibility-related judgments. Originality/value – This study provides novel insights into how disadvantaged tweens interact with online health information in a natural context, and offers invaluable information regarding the ways in which credibility assessment processes should be facilitated within formal or informal digital literacy programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which editor discusses various articles within the issue on topics including emergence of neoliberalism undermined democracy by posing direct challenges to libraries, women's acceptance of digital technology and practices in LIS professions.

The article discusses the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. presidential election for libraries. The outcome of the election and the policies that were implemented since the 2017 inauguration pose many challenges for the activities and roles of libraries including the inclusion of people with disabilities, the defunding and closure of federal agencies that support libraries, and the closure of public and school libraries.

On the same day that Russia launched its genocidal invasion of Ukraine, the I New York Times i decided to publish an editorial written by a professional far right provocateur who attacked libraries for providing books that represent the true diversity of human experience and identity.[1] As with so many critics of access to information, his objections were over access to very specific kinds of information; he used emotive but malleable terms like "woke" to critique librarians who help patrons understand systemic structures that promote inequities and injustices. In the intervening time, the American Library Association (ALA; [3]) has revealed 2021 to be the worst year for challenges to and bans of books since such challenges have been tracked. The beloved librarian who just months ago was valiantly facilitating curbside book pickups and running outdoor distanced-learning activities for children in the community, despite the pandemic, is now a monster corrupting and "grooming" the children with forbidden books. As the ALA ([3]) revealed in its I State of American Libraries i report, 1,597 books had been challenged by the end of 2021 with proposed bans, an exponential increase from previous years' numbers. [Extracted from the article]

The authors, the incoming editorial team of "Library Quarterly," discuss the history and future of the publication. They note that not long after its founding in 1931, the publication began to address the social and community roles of the library in addition to more narrow library-science topics. They compare the challenges facing U.S. libraries during the recent Great Recession with those of the 1930s Great Depression.

These articles will appear in regular issues of the journal, and they will carry the special identifier of being "Centennial Articles." In a 2019 editorial, we shared our plans to celebrate entering the tenth decade of the I Library Quarterly i and its approaching 100th anniversary with a series of special issues. To complement the Centennial Issues, the editors will also be commissioning special long-form articles from distinguished voices in the field to examine issues that have helped define the past and present of libraries and that seem to do the same in the future. [Extracted from the article]

The engagement of the US federal government with libraries has been disjointed. Financial support for libraries has been controversial and inconsistent, and many policy decisions have directly affected library operations and activities, particularly those of public libraries. Libraries' experiences with the federal government offer many lessons about the broad ideological attitude toward--and constraints on--library support before the 2016 election. These lessons have import for all publicsphere institutions as they navigate the even more complicated current environment. This article argues that the best hope for library funding and support is to concentrate efforts at the local and state levels, coordinating efforts and sharing ideas and resources across locations and types of institutions. A national advocacy strategy coordinated across the states will maximize advocacy efforts where we may have a greater chance of success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the special issue on libraries in the U.S.

Recognizing exemplary work that advances research about libraries, the Jesse H. Shera Award for Distinguished Published Research is presented by the Library Research Round Table of the American Library Association (ALA). As the editorial team of the I Library Quarterly i , we try to craft each issue to contain innovative, reflective, challenging, and insightful research about libraries and their communities. [Extracted from the article]

The article announces that two articles within the issue including "Teens, Technology, and Libraries: An Uncertain Relationship" by Denise E. Agosto and colleagues have won the Jesse H. Shera Award for Distinguished Published Research, highlighting the importance of academic journals.

Due to an increasing reliance on public libraries to deliver government services online, coupled with decreasing funding for public services, many public libraries have begun to collaborate with local government agencies and community organizations to provide vital services to their communities. Drawing upon findings made through an extensive literature review, site visits at a number of public libraries across the country, and interviews with state library staff, government officials, and community organization leaders, this paper highlights the e-government service roles of public libraries, the innovative partnerships between community groups, government agencies, and public libraries in the realm of e-government, and the impacts of these services and partnerships on communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]