If your library is fortunate enough to be hiring, how do you socialize new librarians into your organization? A panel from different types of libraries such as academic, public, and school will discuss ideas for helping new hires succeed by imparting, both formally and informally, the culture of the organization.

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My dissertation interrogates the role played by teachers, professors, researchers, administrators, and librarians in comics activism in the years before the establishment of the Comics Code Authority. Teachers occupied a unique space: public servants in one sense, subject matter experts in another. At the same time, they were not impervious to the media’s treatment of the anti-comics crusade, nor were they immune to the sway of religion, politics, and race in the conversation. Using teachers’ professional journals and local newspapers, I find that educators existed on both sides of the debate as drivers of the action—sometimes as actors, but also as proxies and participants. In addition, as arbiters of kids’ free time, keepers of literacy, imparters of citizenship, developers of good taste, and specialists in the behavior and needs of students, teachers had a special vantage point from which to observe the effects of comics on young readers. Theirs was a valuable position, and it was coopted by any number of factions jockeying for influence. Probing the records of the comic book industry’s regulatory body, I determined that educators were targets of the industry’s campaign to legitimate the genre. My dissertation also situates universities as key sites of pro-comics activities and expands the actors in the anti-comics campaign to include independent scholars, as well as university faculty, administrators, and students. Peer-reviewed research was used by parties on both sides of the debate. Evaluating this scholarship, I conclude that unaffiliated researchers made consequential contributions to the debate, speaking directly to the public in ways that more traditional researchers could not. Finally, my project establishes the nuance in educators’ role in the anti-comics campaign and surveys the ways they were actors, subjects, and instruments in the movement. Utilizing textual analyses of key Silver Age comics, I find that the comic books created in the wake of the anti-comics crusade were direct outgrowths of the anxieties and aspirations of educators—a deliberate effort by comic book publishers to gain their endorsement.

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Libraries exist around us and for most of us they are a part of our every day life. But how often do we stop and think about their meaning? Libraries in fiction are usually not the center of the narrative, they play a role quietly in the background and offer a backcloth to the story. Yet they are a vital part of the story. Without them a big part of the magic in the stories would be lost. And what is their role in our lives? What do the libraries mean to the books they harbor, the readers who seek them out and society in which they have their axiomatic role? This essay’s focus is my story “Between the shelves”, which is about the young girl Julia and the mysterious passageway she discovers in her local library. Here she finds shelf after shelf with strange-looking books. They all seem to have peculiar titles, one of them is When Napoleon won the battle of Waterloo. Driven by her curiosity she starts reading the book, and soon finds herself inside it, living the battle. The library is not just a building, it is also a hub where different alternative realities can be reached through the books. In this essay I will compare the topics of my story, such as the interpretation of the library (both as a physical and mental place), the sense of mystery, interpretation of the librarians etc. to other fiction. I will compare these topics both with books for adults and for children to see if the interpretation differs.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the collection development practices of electronic resources at the University of Namibia (UNAM) library and its constituent branches. Collection development is one of the critical activities of any library management process; therefore, the goal of collection development in university libraries is to effectively provide relevant and up-to-date information resources. The main aims of the study were: to explore the collection development procedures and policies for electronic resources at the UNAM library; to investigate the factors that influence the collection development of information resources; to assess the extent which teaching staff and subject librarians are involved in collection development at the UNAM library; to discover the barriers to effective collection development of electronic resources at the UNAM library; and to determine the influence of the UNAM library budget allocation on the collection development of electronic resources. The population of the study comprised of 291 teaching staff from all eight faculties of UNAM. A total of 149 faculty members responded to the survey, which gave a response rate of 51.2%, while a total number of 16 library staff were interviewed. The study employed a quantitative approach, and the qualitative approach was applied on the part of the library staff. For quantitative data collection, the study used a self-administered questionnaire, while for qualitative data, the study used an interview schedule with library staff. The data from the interviews were used to complement the data from the survey. Quantitative data were analysed using SPSS, while the qualitative data were analysed using thematic content analysis. The study revealed that not all faculty members are aware of the guideline, procedure, and policies on the collection development activities. Eighty one percent (81%) of the respondents are aware of the importance of their role in selecting library materials, 72% are aware of acquiring books, and 67% are aware of the budget allocated to their faculty. The majority totaling 94% of the faculty members are not aware of weeding or disposal of library books, followed by 83% who are not aware of collection evaluation, and 81% are not aware of the collection development policy in place at the UNAM library. From the data collected, the study found that a majority (67%) of faculty members are aware of ICTs used in collection development activities. Even though the majority of faculty members are aware of ICTs used in collection development activities, (45%) faculty members are not aware that ICTs can be used in collection development. The major challenge facing the UNAM library is the absence of the collection development policy, which makes it difficult for the teaching staff, students, and library staff to understand all the issues related to the collection development of electronic resources in the library. Another challenge is the inadequacy of funds to cater for the increasing costs of electronic resources in various subject fields. / Information Science / M. A. (Information Science)

Abstract available in pdf file.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Miami University, Dept. of Psychology, 2005. / Title from second page of PDF document. Document formatted into pages; contains [2], vi, 72, [22] p. : ill. Includes bibliographical references (p. 35-37).