The September 2019 issue of Information Technology and Libraries (ITAL) is available now. In this issue, ITAL Editor Ken Varnum announces six new members of the ITAL Editorial Board. Our content includes a recap of Emily Morton-Owens’ President’s Inaugural Message, “Sustaining LITA“, discussing the many ways LITA strives to provide a sustainable member organization. In this edition of our “Public Libraries Leading the Way” series, Thomas Lamanna discusses ways libraries can utilize their current resources and provide ideas on how to maximize effectiveness and roll new technologies into operations in “On Educating Patrons on Privacy and Maximizing Library Resources.“
Featured Articles:
“Library-Authored Web Content and the Need for Content Strategy,” Courtney McDonald and Heidi Burkhardt
Increasingly sophisticated content management systems (CMS) allow librarians to publish content via the web and within the private domain of institutional learning management systems. “Libraries as publishers”may bring to mind roles in scholarly communication and open scholarship, but the authors argue that libraries’ self-publishing dates to the first “pathfinder”handout and continues today via commonly used, feature-rich applications such as WordPress, Drupal, LibGuides,and Canvas. Although this technology can reduce costly development overhead, it also poses significant challenges. Read more.
“Use of Language-Learning Apps as a Tool for Foreign Language Acquisition by Academic Libraries Employees,” by Kathia Ibacache
Language-learning apps are becoming prominent tools for self-learners. This article investigates whether librarians and employees of academic libraries have used them and whether the content of these language-learning apps supports foreign language knowledge needed to fulfill library-related tasks. The research is based on a survey sent to librarians and employees of the University Libraries of the University of Colorado Boulder (UCB), two professional library organizations, and randomly selected employees of 74 university libraries around the United States. Read more.
“Is Creative Commons A Panacea for Managing Digital Humanities Intellectual Property Rights?,” by Yi Ding
Digital humanities is an academic field applying computational methods to explore topics and questions in the humanities field. Digital humanities projects, as a result, consist of a variety of creative works different from those in traditional humanities disciplines. Born to provide free, simple ways to grant permissions to creative works, Creative Commons(CC)licenses have become top options for many digital humanities scholars to handle intellectual property rights in the US. Read more.
“Am I on the library website?,” A LibGuides Usability Study by Suzanna Conrad and Christy Stevens
In spring 2015, the Cal Poly Pomona University Library conducted usability testing with ten student testers to establish recommendations and guide the migration process from LibGuides version 1 to version 2. This case study describes the results of the testing as well as raises additional questions regarding the general effectiveness of LibGuides, especially when students rely heavily on search to find library resources. Read more.
“Assessing the Effectiveness of Open Access Finding Tools,” by Teresa Auch Schultz, Elena Azadbakht, Jonathan Bull, Rosalind Bucy, and Jeremy Floyd
The open access (OA) movement seeks to ensure that scholarly knowledge is available to anyone with internet access, but being available for free online is of little use if people cannot find open versions. A handful of tools have become available in recent years to help address this problem by searching for an open version of a document whenever a user hits a paywall. This project set out to study how effective four of these tools are when compared to each other and to Google Scholar, which has long been a source of finding OA versions. Read more.
“Creating and Developing USB Port Covers at Husdon County Community College,” by Lotta Sanchez and John DeLooper
In 2016, Hudson County(NJ) Community College (HCCC) deployed several wireless keyboards and mice with its iMac computers. Shortly after deployment, library staff found that each device’s required USB receiver(a.k.a. dongle)would disappear frequently. As a result, HCCC library staff developed and deployed 3D printed port covers to enclose these dongles. This, for a time, proved very successful in preventing the issue. This article will discuss the development of these port covers, their deployment, and what worked and did not work about the project. Read more.
Submit Your Ideas
Contact ITAL Editor Ken Varnum 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 us at (312) 280-4268 or lita@ala.org.