Arizona State University is the largest public university in the United States with an enrollment of 70,440 in 2010. ASU's online offerings are also expanding rapidly with a target of 30,000 students by 2020. In one program, growth and transformation from hybrid to 100% online demanded scalability to handle large enrollments. Thus an instructional…

Providing library instruction in distance learning environments presents a unique set of challenges for instructional librarians. Innovations in computer-mediated communication and advances in cognitive science research provide the opportunity for designing library instruction that meets a variety of student information seeking needs. Using a…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the predominant factors contributing to low reading abilities of pupils at Elsie Lund Basic School in the Tamale Metropolis, Ghana. Purposive sampling technique was used to select twelve (12) classroom teachers of the Elsie Lund Basic School. The instrument used to collect data was one-to-one in-depth…

To promote the development of greater creativity in my students' design work, I created an online tool--called Reflective Inquiry (RI)--that accompanies all of my open-ended assignments and that I require students to submit with each project. The RI is composed of a series of prompts that students must respond to, almost daily, to explain and…

This report presents findings about how a sample of U.S. college students gathers information and engages with news in the digital age. Included are results from an online survey of 5,844 respondents and telephone interviews with 37 participants from 11 U.S. colleges and universities selected for their regional, demographic, and red/blue state…

In 2013, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards received a 5-year Investing in Innovation Fund Development grant from the U.S. Department of Education to develop, implement, and study Accomplished Teaching, Learning, and Schools (ATLAS). ATLAS is an online case library that contains examples of "accomplished teaching"…

Proper planning and assessment surveys of projects for academic library Web sites will not always be predictive of real world use, no matter how many responses they might receive. In this case, multiple-phase development, librarian focus groups, and patron surveys performed before implementation of such a project inaccurately overrated utility and…

To demonstrate the effectiveness of university libraries, we investigated the relationship between university students' sports performances and their libraries collections of sports. By examining approximately 20 university libraries' collections and their sports ranks, as indicated by Waseda Sports 2008, we demonstrated their positive…

During a six month contract with the Royal University of Bhutan, the author was required to develop the initial stages of a first library qualification to be offered in Bhutan. Questions raised by this project included: is a first qualification in librarianship needed in Bhutan? What are the potential student numbers in such a programme? What…

Purposeful assessment of space for the understanding and improvement of the academic library is a relatively new area of inquiry. This essay offers a framework to consider different factors affecting such an assessment and insights for undertaking a meaningful inquiry about the relationship of space to an academic library's evolving purpose as…

The private universities in Bangladesh are playing an important role in modernizing the higher education system in the country and the role of librarians is also different and challenging. Specially, procuring books and monographs is an exigent function being this lost its demand very quickly. In some cases, titles bear only one semester…

This article reports a librarian's collection development efforts to support her institution's first independent doctoral degree (Ed.D., Educational Leadership) via a citation analysis comparing information usage by education doctorate dissertation authors from six peer institutions nationally. This analysis is part of a long-term examination of…

School librarians in the Mesquite Independent School District (ISD) have been operating solo on their campuses since the 1970s. Campus clerical assistance in the school libraries was a luxury that they couldn't afford. Since the district's vision was of a teaching librarian, a Library Processing Department was established in 1972. As years passed,…

Librarians are the ultimate information workers, with little they can count as done at the end of the day. Staying productive and motivated when there are no finished items that you have created at day's end can be difficult. For just this reason, David Allen, author and productivity expert, has proposed an information-worker-centric theory of…

By applying just-in-time philosophy to today's school libraries, librarians can fulfill the role of program administrator by continuing to provide the resources students and faculty deserve, exactly at their individual points of need. Just-in-time librarianship is a mindset that could prove unsettling for some school librarians. The main facets of…