The purpose of this paper is to describe how a series of one-shot or single class library instruction webinars were created for on-campus and distance education students at Virginia Tech, a land grant institution in rural southwestern Virginia. Virginia Tech's distance learning department on campus trained in Centra 7.6 software and the lead…

Distance librarians often do not have the opportunity to engage face-to-face with users of library services. Without this personal interaction, it can be difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of library services in meeting the needs of the distance learners. Distance librarians may not realize it, but most have a wealth of information at their…

This case study investigates how a team of librarians at Nova Southeastern University (NSU) worked together to assess and optimize their library's current instructional videos in order to create a mobile-first video hosting platform, known as LibraryLearn. Instructional library videos serve as invaluable resources for students who are not present…

The majority of librarians who have taken on instruction responsibilities have had little to no formal training in educational theories or pedagogical practices. We do the best we can without a foundation for our teaching. This Perspectives column looks at how much theory we really need to know, and how can we gain this knowledge in order to…

During a program titled "Libraries and Museums in an Era of Participatory Culture," co-sponsored by the Salzburg Global Seminar (SGS) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), one of the discussion groups developed recommendations for skills needed by librarians and museum professionals in today's connected and…

Work on students' study practices posits the digital and material as separate domains, with the "digital" assumed to be disembodied, decontextualised and free-floating, and spaces in the material campus positioned as prototypically "traditional" and analogue. Libraries in particular are often characterised as symbolic of…

Each year, Colorado public libraries offer engaging summer reading programs to encourage children and teens to read for fun and to prevent summer learning loss. In summer 2014, the Colorado State Library invited Colorado public libraries to ask parents in their communities to help evaluate the effectiveness of these programs by completing a…

In autumn 2012, the University of Birmingham launched FindIt@Bham, a Primo-based Resource Discovery Service, after a series of focus groups with students and staff to help determine its initial configuration and customization. This article presents the results from a large-scale online survey and focus groups that were conducted to poll users'…

Libraries are critical learning spaces and may play a significant role in intercultural education initiatives, particularly in Sweden where the national curriculum ascribes central functions to libraries for learning activities. Unfortunately, the ways in which teachers and librarians may collaborate to leverage mutual resources is not fully…

This report is based on a series of presentations at the second CLIR Seminar on "Participatory Design of Academic Libraries," held at the University of Rochester's River Campus June 5-7, 2013. Participatory design is a relatively recent approach to understanding library user behavior. It is based on techniques used in anthropological and…

This qualitative case study provides fresh understandings about first year undergraduate international students' library and information use at an Australian university, and their associated information literacy learning needs. The findings provide evidence to inform the development of library spaces and information literacy responses that enhance…

As e-resources become more ubiquitous, and the technologies available to access them more sophisticated, libraries have greater opportunities to reach out to global users. However, this same distance means that some users never even set foot in a physical library. This case study will describe how one large academic library started a business,…

The author, the new associate university librarian at Arizona State University (ASU) Library, discusses the "New Media Consortium Horizon Report: 2017 Higher Education Edition," an annual report that identifies and describes emerging technologies for learning and teaching. She highlights a major theme of the report--digital equity--and…

Pupils need to develop information literacy (IL) skills in schools in order to be active members of a skilled workforce, for lifelong learning and digital citizenship. However, there has been little focus on the extent to which this happens in a classroom setting and on information competencies of teachers. As part of a broader study of teachers'…

As an elementary school librarian, Sally Smollar has had access to the latest technologies since document scanners were considered cutting edge. Even then, allowing students to scan images to insert into their stories was a game changer. Since those days, Smollar writes that she has never stopped experimenting with various platforms and…