For the most part, information landscapes such as libraries are structured, organized, created, and used by the dominant groups. These spaces may be unfamiliar territory for many students. Humour used in library orientation elicits enjoyment and helps to connect librarians and students. Low and high inference humour used during orientation can…

In today's digital and distributed information environment, engaging with users is imperative for the success of liaison librarianship in the academy's learning and research environment. Such associations require the liaison's personal approach for connecting and building relationships with clients. This paper addresses the main factors for…

What perceived role do one-shot information literacy sessions play in the professional status of librarianship? In what way is this perception resulting from and contributing to the feminization of instructional labor? How will criticizing and/or changing one-shots disrupt or perpetuate gender and other forms of inequity? All these questions…

In "Connected Teaching: Relationship, Power, and Mattering in Higher Education," Harriet L. Schwartz presents "relationship as a site and source for learning." It is both where the learning takes place and the mechanism through which we teach and learn, making it the "essential driver of teaching and learning."…

Universities are pursuing learning analytics practices to improve returns from their investments, develop behavioral and academic interventions to improve student success, and address political and financial pressures. Academic libraries are additionally undertaking learning analytics to demonstrate value to stakeholders, assess learning gains…

The Iowa Private Academic Library Open Educational Resources (IPAL OER) Project supported 62 open educational resources (OER) projects at 18 private colleges and universities in Iowa. The project impacted 1,800 students during the 2021-2022 academic year. Students saved more than $208,000 on the costs of textbooks. OER adoption led to positive…

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted libraries tremendously and changed the way services were offered to patrons. Dahlgren Memorial Library was no exception and the library strived to find ways to keep their student assistants employed. This article will discuss how the library trained its student assistants to cover the chat system and work on projects…

Remote reference consultations have considerably increased due to the need to provide remote services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conducting reference consultations via videoconferencing not only offers many benefits to student researchers; it also presents an opportunity for librarians to embrace a learner-centered teaching mindset when…

This article describes how the Penn State University Libraries have responded to the unique challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic presents to international student populations. Additionally, the authors discuss support and service programs for international students that may ease the disruptions expected in upcoming semesters. A collaborative…

This article describes the creation and piloting of a series of online information literacy instructional modules intentionally incorporating Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles. Using UDL frameworks to guide different elements of the online modules, the authors have been able to accommodate the challenging learning differences,…

An academic librarian providing one-shot instruction sessions to first-year students is uniquely positioned to enact a feminist ethic of care in the classroom. First-year university students are particularly in need of caring. The library instruction session is often their introduction to and first impression of the library and an opportunity to…

Beginning with a discussion of how collections diversity has been conceptualized and assessed within the literature, we then analyze four areas in which professional practices and modes of thinking create barriers to collecting materials from historically marginalized voices. Specifically, we discuss how metadata practices can obscure these…

Reference services in academic libraries often focus on user education and giving students the skills to perform their own searches. This article describes a new Research Concierge Service established in response to the COVID-19 pandemic by Ozarks Technical Community College (OTC) in southwest Missouri. The service entails library staff curating a…

The rapid shift to online courses at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities (UMN) in spring 2020 prompted a change in the way instruction librarians worked with faculty and students. The librarians adopted a trauma-informed approach that provided students with a sense of stability, agency, and connection to the university and one another. UMN…

This is a case study of integrating streaming media reserves services into a suite of course reserve services provided by the User Services and Resource Sharing department at the University. This integration presented several challenges including: employees having no prior streaming media experience, staffing, technology, copyright, and user…