Editorial • July 2019
Academic Knowledge Production and University Presses: Some Random Thoughts
Wendi Arant Kaspar
Ever since the news about Stanford’s University Press having a catastrophic budget cut came out, I have been contemplating scholarly publishing and its purpose. Perhaps this is because the “crisis” around university presses is very similar to the rhetoric that has surrounded academic libraries since web browsers hit higher education—rhetoric that at any one time has both utopian and apocalyptic threads. ...
Article • July 2019
A Tool for Academic Libraries to Prioritize Leadership Competencies
Gabrielle K.W. Wong
As part of a research project, the author conducted a survey about Hong Kong academic librarians’ perception on leadership capabilities. The survey made use of the Leadership Competencies Model developed for the Library Leadership and Management Association (LLAMA). The results draw attention to a subset of competencies and expose perceptual differences between librarians at different leadership levels. ...
Article • July 2019
Academic Librarians’ Experiences and Perceptions on Mental Illness Stigma and the Workplace
Erin Burns, Kristin E.C. Green
Research has been conducted within academia about faculty members and students who have experienced mental illness from a variety of theoretical perspectives, including disability studies. While this research acknowledges that the stigma surrounding mental illness keeps people from sharing their experiences, there has not been research that focused specifically on librarians in higher education. This study sought to determine ...
Article • July 2019
Reframing Information Literacy as Academic Cultural Capital: A Critical and Equity-Based Foundation for Practice, Assessment, and Scholarship
Amanda L. Folk
Within the past decade, academic librarianship has increased its focus on critical librarianship and assessing student success, as well as undergoing a complete reconceptualization of information literacy. However, our assessment and scholarship related to information literacy and student success largely neglects the persistent racial and social-class achievement gaps in American higher education. This article draws upon ...
Article • July 2019
Do Download Reports Reliably Measure Journal Usage? Trusting the Fox to Count Your Hens?
Alex Wood-Doughty, Ted Bergstrom, Douglas G. Steigerwald
Download rates of academic journals have joined citation counts as commonly used indicators of the value of journal subscriptions. While citations reflect worldwide influence, the value of a journal subscription to a single library is more reliably measured by the rate at which it is downloaded by local users. If reported download rates accurately measure local usage, there is a strong case for using them to compare the cost-effectiveness of journal subscriptions. ...
Article • July 2019
A Seat at the Table: Information Literacy Assessment and Professional Legitimacy
Robert Detmering, Samantha McClellan, Amber Willenborg
This qualitative study explores academic librarians’ perceptions of and experiences with information literacy assessment, focusing primarily on issues of professional identity, agency, and power. Findings from in-depth interviews reveal that instruction librarians view teaching as integral to their professional identity ...