Session Description:
Why don’t students like e-textbooks? What can you do to increase preference while also creating opportunities to expand library services? Based on a quasi-experiment conducted with undergraduates, this paper demonstrates the impact of training on preference for and usage of e-textbooks. Armed with this data, librarians can offer instructional activities to increase student preference and use, and at the same time revitalize relationships with faculty and students at their institutions. Create a win-win scenario by helping students maximize both their budgets and their learning, while simultaneously promoting the library as an expert resource for the latest content and technologies.

Session Description:
Explore different models for serving as an embedded librarian in study abroad programs. This session considers two different models for actively supporting education abroad: the visiting librarian and the embedded subject specialist. Discover how librarians can support education abroad activities and immersive, experiential learning through the entire life cycle of the study abroad experience.

Session Description:
Librarian retention in academic libraries is important for the overall health and growth of our institutions. In this program, we discuss preliminary results of a study that explored the leading factors that contribute to librarian turnover in academic libraries. Participants will reflect on turnover factors at their own institutions and leave with potential strategies to increase retention.

Session Description:
This paper presents an analysis of financial data from dozens of North American academic libraries. The purpose was to search for patterns in the allocation of funds to different types of library expenditures: labor, materials and other operational expenditures. The relationships serve as a basis for comparing strategic decisions amongst peer institutions. The analysis also investigates shifts in budget allocations across years before, during and after the recent recession. The overall value of this research is to provide normative evidence for reference in strategic decision making.

Session Description:
This paper reports results from 30 semi-structured interviews with academic librarians, faculty, and Ph.D. students that explore current practices researchers use in creating and managing scholarly identity (SI) via online platforms (e.g., ORCID). It also investigates innovative services that academic librarians provide (or could provide) to support these efforts. Results indicate that online SI tools are confusing, difficult to maneuver, and fraught with perils that might damage professional reputations. Participants welcome practical assistance from libraries, including advice on strategies for efficient and ethical use of digital platforms. Attendees will receive practical recommendations and worksheets for effective implementation/expansion of SI service.

Session Description:
This presentation discusses the findings of a survey regarding women, information technology, and leadership positions in academic libraries. Research was conducted to investigate if the findings in other disciplines, like computer science and higher education leadership, are also applicable to the unique environment of academic libraries. The researchers sought to investigate two issues: the lack of gender diversity in library IT and the scarcity of leaders promoted into IT roles. The presenters invite attendees to participate in the ongoing scholarly conversation with an open dialogue regarding personal experiences, potential solutions, and avenues for further research.

Session Description:
What are graduate students learning about Research Data Management (RDM) and how are they learning it? This study will help librarians to understand the information behaviors of graduate students in their current roles as lab managers, research assistants, and researchers in their own right, and will help to assess the gaps in their knowledge. Through interviewing graduate students at a medium-sized university we sought to understand their knowledge of RDM and the potential role of the library to meet their needs through data-related services.

Session Description:
This research is focused on understanding user preferences for “my account”-based recommendations of library content. By interviewing users we have explored user attitudes about three areas of recommendation services; including 1) eliciting preferences for recommendation, 2) displaying recommendations, and 3) revising recommendations based on results. User interviews indicated a need for crafting recommender services in library settings with transparent functionality. Users requested that system designers make clear how recommendations are designed and provided. Further findings indicated a desire to use recommender systems to explore interdisciplinary research domains that have otherwise not been considered.

Session Description:
Do you ask thought provoking questions or are most of your questions asking students to repeat information from only moments ago? Asking questions during a library session is a simple and effective means to engage students, though asking good questions takes planning. The paper explores the pedagogical approach to asking thought provoking questions and encourage students learning. The authors will discuss the roots of inquiry found in the ACRL Framework as well as Depth of Knowledge analysis as a means to develop outcome-oriented questions. The authors will conclude with recommendations for integrating questions into lesson plans for information literacy sessions.

Session Description:
Librarians speculate that the digitization and delivery of items through the HathiTrust may reduce or eliminate demand for the corresponding print content. This belief feeds into a perception that monographs housed within academic libraries and delivered via such services are ripe for deduplication or outright withdrawal from research libraries. Developing an evidence-based understanding of how the availability of digital access to these items might impact both local circulation and the rate of ILL/DD lending for such items is a critical step in determining how our institutions might approach the management of these collections in the future.