A joke among managers is that managing and leading people is akin to herding cats. People can be fickle and idiosyncratic and do what they want, when they want, in seeming defiance of all tenets of logic. For good or bad, people are led by the emotions in their hearts far more than the critical thoughts in their brains. But this does not mean…

This research project investigates librarians' attitudes toward unions and collective bargaining through data collected from a nationwide survey of 359 academic librarians in the United States. We found that academic librarians have a generally positive view of unions and collective bargaining agreements, a notable result in a national political…

Since the invention of artificial light, people have been working, studying, and playing for longer hours than ever before. They are also sleeping less as a result. This article examines the impact of sleep deprivation on people generally, and specifically on college students. Students accrue a large sleep debt that impairs their ability to…

The Future Voices in Public Services column is a forum for students in graduate library and information science programs to discuss key issues they see in academic library public services, to envision what they feel librarians in public service have to offer to academia, to relate their visions for the profession, or to describe research that is…

This article describes an exploratory study examining the common perception among library-based publishers that open access academic publications (especially monographs) are not readily discoverable in library catalogs. Using titles from the Michigan Publishing imprint, digital culture books, the study provides an empirical basis for evaluating…

This article examines the relationship between the standardized service quality survey LibQUAL+ and the rise of audit culture. Recent scholarship examining assessment and accountability systems and the ideological principles driving their implementation in higher education raises concerns about the impact these systems have on teaching, learning,…

Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a topic of interest among information technology innovators. As AI is refined, practical uses of the technology to improve the transfer of information are increasingly investigated, developed, and adopted in a variety of public environments, including in libraries. Given the relatively recent emergence…

This study sought to examine the landscape for library positions supporting health sciences research and teaching. We investigated whether emerging research practices in health-related research at college and research universities are being accompanied by job opportunities for health sciences librarians at college and university libraries…

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the establishment of metrics that can be used by libraries to analyze, anticipate, and plan for resource allocation for specialized print-based collections within an academic library. In the context of transactions associated with the circulation of library materials, that is checkouts, renewals, and…

Librarians have the potential to influence the university's representation of knowledge, making it important to understand the attitudes they bring to work each day. Results of this Q study indicate librarians may believe their profession's ethos of neutrality renders debate over social justice within the library moot. Only a small number of…

Recent ethnographic research of physical academic library spaces demonstrates that students often utilise these spaces quite differently than the library's staff may have originally intended. Student feedback in library remodelling efforts improves design outcomes and helps to foster a sense of student engagement with the larger academic…

On October 1, 2017, the history of Las Vegas, Nevada was forever changed when a mass shooting claimed the lives of 58 innocent people at a concert site on the Vegas Strip. Only three miles away, the University of Nevada Las Vegas and its main branch, Lied Library, became a space where students sought shelter and answers. To understand how this…

Our ability to make informed decisions about ebooks is constrained by our limited understanding of how students perceive and use them. A team of librarians and a professor in learning sciences asked graduate students to serve as informants on student experience with ebooks. We analyzed student work in two semester-long studies, focusing on…

Students in many Australian universities start their studies mathematically underprepared as there are no prerequisites for mathematics, and assumed knowledge requirements are often overlooked. Many degrees include at least one statistics subject for which students require a reasonable level of mathematical ability to successfully complete.…

The clock and calendar regulate many library activities, but the seasonal and temporal dimensions of libraries are largely unexplored. Intrigued by observations of colleagues' temporal attitudes and behavior, the authors drew on the work of sociologist Eviatar Zerubavel to investigate the perceptions of time, schedules, and urgency among…