ITAL

March 2018 ITAL Issue Published

| Chrishelle Thomas
lita: empowering libraries through technology

The March 2018 issue (volume 37, number 1) of Information Technology and Libraries (ITAL) has been published and may be read at:

https://ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/ital/index

This issue marks the journal’s 50th anniversary. The table of contents and brief abstracts of reviewed articles are below.

Ken Varnum
Editor

“Academic Libraries on Social Media: Finding the Students and the Information They Want”
Heather Howard, Sarah Huber, Lisa Carter, and Elizabeth Moore

https://doi.org/10.6017/ital.v37i1.10160

Although most libraries today participate in some form of social media, few take the time to learn how they might use this medium more effectively to meet the needs and interests of their users. This study by Purdue University Libraries offers an instructive example of how to apply user research to the development of an effective social media strategy. This article will be of interest to librarians looking to gain a better understanding of the social media habits of college students or improve communication with their users.

“Accessible, Dynamic Web Content Using Instagram”
Jaci Wilkinson

https://doi.org/10.6017/ital.v37i1.10230

Using social media to reach a library’s communities has traditionally focused on using Twitter and Facebook to engage patrons. In this article, the authors discuss how they developed an interface to push content from their archives and special collections to Instagram. This article is especially interesting as it focuses on a number of issues: developing the API, designing for accessibility, and taking advantage of evolving social media trends.

“Trope or Trap? Role-Playing Narratives and Length in Instructional Video”
Amanda S. Clossen

https://doi.org/10.6017/ital.v37i1.10046

This article, detailing the results of a large-scale survey, provides a solid and useful addition to the literature on how best to create instructional videos. A must read for instructional-video-creating librarians!

“Identifying Emerging Relationships in Healthcare Domain Journals via Citation Network Analysis”
Kuo-Chung Chu, Hsin-Ke Lu, and Wen-I Liu

https://doi.org/10.6017/ital.v37i1.9595

Ever wonder how the articles in a particular research domain connect to one another, or how those connections might evolve over time? Eager to help researchers quickly and visually identify key articles within a particular research domain? Incorporating data mining techniques for co-citation analysis, Chu, Liu, and Lu offer a tantalizing glimpse – a study that builds an automated web-based citation analysis system presenting an automated system that can do both.

“Digitization of Textual Documents Using PDF/A”
Yan Han and Xueheng Wan

https://doi.org/10.6017/ital.v37i1.9878

This article provides a technical yet practical explanation of the value of using the open PDF/A file format for the long-term preservation of digital content, and will appeal to staff in any type of library responsible for determining preferred file formats for future discovery and access.

Editorial Content

Submit Your Ideas
for contributions to ITAL to Ken Varnum, editor, at varnum@umich.edu with your proposal. Current formats are generally

  • Articles – original research or comprehensive and in-depth analyses, in the 3000-5000 word range.
  • Communications – brief research reports, technical findings, and case studies, in the 1000-3000 word range.

Questions or Comments?

For all other questions or comments related to LITA publications, contact LITA at (312) 280-4268 or Mark Beatty, mbeatty@ala.org