Session Description:
This paper presents the results of a larger study on the leadership attributes of the 14 library directors at the universities in the Big Ten Academic Alliance. Specifically, it examines how some of the signature initiatives they undertook in the early stages of their careers helped in forming their leadership foundations. The results show that these future library directors played key roles in initiating, managing, and leading many of the signature initiatives under study. Significantly, these signature initiatives formed not only their leadership foundations, but also propelled them to the highest positions of library leadership.

Session Description:
Find out how library directors are reinventing small liberal arts college libraries in this paper, based on extensive one-one-one interviews with a diverse set of twenty innovative library directors. Learn about trends in staffing and organizational structure, the methods of decision-making, and the planning processes, and compare the approaches in the liberal arts setting to those at larger research libraries. Consider how particular changes or trends may be expressed at your own institutions, as you identify appropriate directions for your campus.

Session Description:
Learn how library staff addressed sexual harassment at our library by collecting data about staff experiences, using grassroots organizing, and taking action while navigating institutional structures to effect change. Results of our staff survey and details of the process to develop organizational change in our library around anti-sexual harassment efforts will be presented.

Session Description:
Helping students critically engage with evidence as both consumers and creators of information is a hallmark of ACRL’s Framework for Information Literacy. However, some criticize the Framework for not clearly connecting the development of information literacy (IL) competencies to civic-mindedness or social justice, i.e., moving from awareness to action. Responding to this critique, this empirical collaboration between a Librarian and a Communication professor examines the relationships between IL competencies and civic engagement attitudes among approximately 400 public speaking students (22 course sections). Join us to discuss the potential for critical IL instruction to further civic attitudes!

Session Description:
Statistics about ebook usage afford libraries more information than ever about how collections are being used. This session will explore what one library learned after more than five years of collecting ebooks for the sciences and engineering. Pros and cons of using COUNTER statistics to evaluate usage will be discussed, and statistics will be examined in the context of platform, resource type, and discoverability, both from the library’s discovery tool and other web sites. The presenter will discuss the lessons learned and provide suggestions about how other libraries can utilize ebook statistics to create high-quality, high-use collections for campus communities.

Session Description:
Learn about research into academic reading habits that examines why undergraduates may not complete their required course reading. Interviews with students at a large, urban, public, commuter university explored students’ course reading access and practices, and the impact on their use of time. Students described multiple ways to acquire and engage with course materials, and shared challenges including prior knowledge, reading proficiency, and institutional support. Results from this study enable librarians to consider their role in supporting undergraduates in completing their course readings, and to encourage students’ success in college.