This qualitative case study explored elementary teachers' perceptions of the role of the school librarian and the implementation of flexible scheduling and collaborative planning. Data collected consisted of field notes, audiotaping of formal interviews and planning sessions, weekly plan books, monthly calendars, questionnaires and the collection of student work. During formal data analysis, new questions began to emerge. These three questions then guided the process of data analysis. These questions were: (1) What are teachers' perceptions of the role of the school librarian as indicated through responses and actions? (2) What changes occurred in teachers' perceptions during the school year? and (3) What are teachers' issues and concerns about the implementation of flexible scheduling and collaborative planning? Four roles of the school librarian emerged from data analysis. These were: the resource role of the school librarian; the cooperative role of the school librarian; the transition from a cooperative to a collaborative role; and the collaborative role of the school librarian. In addition, seven categories were developed through the analysis of interviews and questionnaires. One category developed as several teachers expressed their concern in not having a regularly scheduled library time for students to check-out books. A few teachers also indicated the need for students to learn library skills. Within each of the seven categories, several issues also emerged. The findings of the study indicate there were numerous changes during the school year in teachers' perceptions related to the role of the school librarian. There were also ten implications which resulted from the study. One of these implications focused on professional development within schools and school districts. Professional development assists in the role of ownership and as Fullan (1991) states, ownership of something new is tantamount to real change. Through professional development, teachers and librarians can learn about the process of cooperative and collaborative planning together.

The objectives of this investigation were two-fold. The first was to determine the personal characteristics of Bibliographic Network Coordinators, both past and present; the second was to compare these identified characteristics with those of persons working in traditional library positions at comparable levels of responsibility.

The problem with which this investigation is concerned is that of determining the predictors, correlates, and consequences of job satisfaction in a university library. A managerial model was constructed for the purpose of providing an overall framework of analysis. It was hypothesized, in the managerial model, that organizational effectiveness in any organization is linked closely to the concepts of job satisfaction and employee satisfactoriness. These two concepts, in turn, are closely related to managerial behavior.

With the advent of the 21st century, technological innovations are transforming the face of education and the school library media center. One of these significant developments is the ability to communicate through the Internet. The purpose of this study is to examine the perceptions of Texas public school library media specialists who are active Internet users about their utilization of the Internet, and how their efforts in implementing and supervising Internet access in their school library media centers impact the Texas public schools that they serve. A survey instrument of Likert items was developed that queried these public school library media specialists for their perceptions of Internet use in their schools. MANOVA was the chosen statistical measure for this study. An initial electronic mail-out to 1,232 Texas public school library media specialists (K-12) with Internet addresses were contacted to participate in this study. After a time frame of one month, 196 Texas school library media specialists e-mailed the researcher, confirming their willingness to be a survey participant. All respondents to this e-mail request participated in this study, and a second U.S. mail-out was sent containing the actual survey instrument. The researcher found that the use of the Internet by school library media specialists in Texas did not increase global collegiality from the viewpoint of the survey respondents. Survey respondents felt that an Internet acceptable use policy did not ensure student access to the Internet in Texas public school library media centers. The study examined the relationship between acceptable use policies and Internet censorship, and the researcher found no connection between these two elements from the perspective of the school library media specialist. The study found that school library media specialists believe that their training did improve their students' library research skills. Furthermore, the survey respondents believed that their Internet training improved student learning. Finally, the study found no connection between school size, based on the Texas Education Agency's school classification system, and student access to the Internet.

This study measured and explored changes in perceptions of the roles and responsibilities of the library media specialist when the level of collaboration increased. Seven library media specialists targeted four members of their educational communities with whom to increase collaborative activities. Before and after the collaboration began, the library media specialists, the teachers with whom they chose to collaborate, other members from the same educational community, and a control group that did not participate in increased collaboration were given a roles and responsibilities rank-order form. This form was used to measure changes in perceptions regarding the importance of the three roles and selected responsibilities related to the three roles before and after the collaborative experience. The library media specialists and the targeted teachers also kept reflection logs to record factors that enhanced collaboration, factors that inhibited collaboration, and any changes in their teaching style as a result of the collaborative experience. Results indicate that the participating library media specialists themselves experienced the most change. Role identification remains a problem as library media specialists seek to become teaching partners with classroom teachers yet still must keep the library media center aligned with school and district goals and move toward making it an information center that provides information resources for all members of the educational community in an effective, efficient and timely manner. Major enhancers to increased collaboration included flexible scheduling of the library, sharing ideas and resources, partnership in teaching, and student achievement. Major inhibitors included time, wanting to keep things the way they were, and lack of resources. Changes in teaching practice included working with another professional instead of in isolation, integrating many resources into the lesson to provide for the learning needs of all students, the incorporation of technology into the lesson, and an awareness of the roles of both library media specialists and teachers.

This study examines whether librarians’ views on ebooks in libraries can impact the potential success of ebooks in libraries. Because of the lack of research available concerning e-books in Iceland a preliminary research was conducted to gather information on the current situation in Iceland. Following a survey was sent out to all libraries with access to Rafbókasafnið to examine their opinions and perception on e-books. Because of a small response rate, the data was observed from the perspective of a qualitative research. This study used Winston’s theory of innovation and Rogers’ diffusion of innovation to look at important factors needed for the successful diffusion of an innovation. The study found that overall it seemed that the librarians’ perception of e-books was quite positive. However, the perspective of the individuals seemed to be affected by the societal structure and societal needs within their community which seemed to have a greater effect on the individual than their characteristics did. The study also revealed that there was a clear hindrance in the diffusion process of the e-books with the lack of Icelandic e-books available. This also seemed to lead to a lack of effort from the librarians in marketing this new e-book service. Marketing did not seem to be of high priority with the librarians who preferred direct contact with patrons.

Introdução: O ser humano na sua condição social, precisa necessariamente da intervenção de outro ser nas suas funções. Na área da saúde, o profissional, vivencia situações e diante do acúmulo de informações recuperadas na Internet, necessita de um mediador que torne possível transformar essa informação em conhecimento. Nos últimos 20 anos, temos verificado um aumento gradativo e descontrolado na quantidade de documentos bibliográficos em todas as áreas do conhecimento, mas especialmente na biomédica. Objetivo: Considerando que a internet e a tecnologia da informação são amplamente disponíveis atualmente, alguns estudos sugerem que as bibliotecas e os bibliotecários podem vir a se tornar instituições obsoletas no cenário acadêmico. O objetivo do presente estudo foi analisar o perfil de usuários da biblioteca em nossa instituição, além de tentar verificar o papel da mediação informal desempenhada pelos bibliotecários neste contexto. Métodos: 570 usuários da Biblioteca da FMUSP, que visitaram nossa biblioteca no período de dezembro de 2012 a Abril de 2013, foram convidados a responder um breve questionário, sobre seus hábitos de busca de conhecimentos na literatura. O questionário foi mandado e respondido por e-mail. O perfil destes usuários foi analisado e a seguir, os participantes foram divididos em 2 grupos. Grupo 1 (n=190): receberam qualquer auxilio do bibliotecário durante suas buscas, grupo 2 (n= 52): acessaram a informação de maneira independente, sem a mediação do bibliotecário. Analisamos algumas características destes dois grupos. Resultados e conclusões: O presente estudo permitiu caracterizar que a maioria dos usuários que compareceu à biblioteca era do sexo feminino e que estão na faixa etária entre trinta e quarenta anos, sendo na maioria médicos jovens e estudantes de medicina, habituados a usar as bases de dados. A maioria recebeu algum tipo de mediação formal ou informal dos bibliotecários no acesso à informação. Sendo que este auxílio pode ter influenciado no uso de descritores em suas buscas. Com esta pesquisa, foi possível avaliar algumas das necessidades informacionais dos respondentes. Tais informações aliadas à extensa revisão da literatura podem ser úteis para balizar futuras intervenções dos profissionais da biblioteca para otimizar seu papel na mediação. Não foram observadas diferenças entre os grupos / Introduction: Human beings in their social condition necessarily need the intervention of another being in his duties. In healthcare, professional, experiences and situations before the accumulation of information retrieved on the Internet, you need a broker that makes it possible to transform this information into knowledge. Over the past 20 years, we have seen a gradual and uncontrolled increase in the amount of bibliographic documents in all areas of knowledge, but especially in biomedical. AIMS: Considering that the internet and the information technology are widely available nowadays, some studies suggest that libraries and librarians may become obsolete in the academic scenery. The purpose of the present study was to access the profile of library users in our institution, as well as to evaluate the need for mediation by the librarians in a Medical School. METHODS: 570 individuals that visited our library from December 2012 to April 2013 were invited to respond to a brief questionnaire addressing their habits when pursuing scientific information. The questionnaire was sent and responded by email. 419 participants were post graduate students and the others were physicians from our institution. The population was divided in two groups. Group 1 (n= 190): submitted to library training in searching information, group 2 (n= 52): accessed information by themselves without mediation. We analyzed the differences in behavior between those two groups. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The majority of individuals that used our library were, females, with a mean age of 39 years and most of them physicians or medical students. The great majority were frequent users and had personal experience in the library before. No differences in behavior were observed between groups in terms of frequency, data base, or use of key words. The present work has inumerous limitations, but may useful inhelping librarians improve their technique facing the new era of information

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / F. Todd Goodson / Kay Ann Taylor / Library instruction in a university setting, in the primary manner it has been taught for decades, has a problem: the instruction is not teaching. Many library instruction sessions at universities are taught through a traditional lecture-style instruction session where students are allowed no voice in the classroom and there is no room for any evaluation of the information presented. Teaching without an engaged pedagogical framework without any active participation is problematic for teaching critical information literacy. This research focused on library instruction within higher education institutions and the choices made by instruction librarians to include (or not) critical pedagogy and critical information literacy within their teaching styles and classrooms. This study explored (a) the decisions of librarians to teach either in the traditional or critical library pedagogy manner and (b) barriers or encouragement in librarians’ choice to teach through a critical lens. With critical theory as the overarching framework and engaged pedagogy a central part to all these theories, critical engaged pedagogy combines critical race feminist theory, critical library pedagogy, and critical information literacy (the latter two frequently used interchangeably). The combined theoretical framework gives context for researching the reasons that instruction librarians choose (or do not) to implement these theoretical and pedagogical styles into their instruction of information literacy in classrooms. Using the qualitative methodology of narrative inquiry, specifically narrative analysis, this study analyzed and interpreted data from interviews, observational data, and field notes recorded in a reflexive journal through the lens of this theoretical framework. Findings showed that in their everyday experiences as academic instruction librarians, the participants faced both barriers and encouragement to their decisions regarding teaching methods and curriculum in addition to how they are impacting their students’ lives and learning. Four different themes emerged from the data. The first theme, sometimes a teacher, sometimes not, speaks to the struggle that the participants handled every day: though they were instruction librarians, they were not able to always feel as though they were real teachers or faculty on their campuses. The second theme, if only I had a choice, discusses how discipline faculty affect their teaching decisions and the participants’ goal to at least try to teach critical evaluation to the students. The third theme, teaching is a political act, focuses on participants’ teaching under a critical library instruction pedagogy, emphasizing their engagement with the students, the falsehood of neutrality, and teaching about marginalized groups, injustice, oppression, and similar political-minded concepts in their classes. The fourth theme, real world, lifelong skills, discusses how the participants view their impact on student learning and student lives in general, demonstrated through teaching students critical thinking and evaluation (of the real world) skills in addition to impacting students beyond the classroom.

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Review of A Practical Writing Guide for Academic Librarians: Keeping It Short and Sweet, by Anne Langley and Jonathan D. Wallce. Oxford: Chandos Publishing, 2010. 162 p. $75.00. ISBN 978-184334-532-9