PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to: address how the library middle management role has changed; assist middle managers in identifying new opportunities and broadening their horizon within middle management; offer strategies for middle managers to be more efficient and effective in the changing era; and lay out the challenges middle managers are facing to further discussions.Design/methodology/approachBoth authors have been middle managers for many years and are experiencing the change from the traditional roles. As the new roles are emerging, the authors have done literature reviews in order to understand what factors have caused the changes, how middle managers can deal with these changes, and identify the challenges they will face. Through research, the authors have also studied how business managers handle changes and identify areas from which library middle managers can gain insight.FindingsThe authors identify the causes of the changes that impact middle managers in academic libraries, through evaluation of day‐to‐day experiences and literature research.Research limitations/implicationsSince this is a new trend, the data are difficult to collect and the best practices are still under development in many academic libraries. Research implications are in the new roles for middle managers, including roles in communication channels, management teams, collaboration, and responsibilities.Practical implicationsThe authors identify the new roles in middle management in a few areas: communication, management teams, collaboration, and responsibilities. The paper also outlines keys for being effective in middle management, including total quality management, staff readiness, and thinking outside of the box.Originality/valueThe paper addresses the cause of the changing roles for middle management and the specific impact that these changes are having on middle managers. This paper also identifies the new roles being undertaken by middle managers.
Learning analytics tools are becoming commonplace in educational technologies, but extant student privacy issues remain largely unresolved. It is unknown whether or not faculty care about student privacy and see privacy as valuable for learning. The research herein addresses findings from a survey of over 500 full-time higher education instructors. The findings detail faculty perspectives of their own privacy, students' privacy, and the high degree to which they value both. Data indicate that faculty believe that privacy is important to intellectual behaviors and learning. This work reports initial findings of a multi-phase, grant-funded research project that will further uncover instructor views of learning analytics and its student privacy issues.
Training in research methodology is an essential component of educating twenty-first century information professionals and library practitioners. Traditionally, competencies in library and information science (LIS) education emphasized the fundamental knowledge of research methods and critical skills in evaluating the findings. However, librarians are not only consumers of research; they are also active contributors to scholarship and need practical skills in designing and carrying out research projects. Research competencies, including the fundamentals of quantitative and qualitative research methods, are listed in the American Library Association’s (ALA) Core Competences of Librarianship. Courses in research methods are offered in many LIS programs in the United States but are not always considered part of the core curriculum. Training in research methodology is inconsistent across LIS programs and in Master’s-level courses rarely goes beyond an overview of methods and terminology. This article summarizes the findings of a study that examined the current state of research methods training in LIS Master’s-level education in the United States and investigated how future library professionals are being prepared to be consumers of research and practitioner-researchers from the perspective of the faculty who teach the courses. The data for this study were collected using multiple techniques, including content analysis of documents, questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews. Teaching faculty, selected from ALA-accredited LIS programs, contributed their perspective through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews.
Librarians of color make up a small proportion of information professionals, but their perspectives should still be included in theory and best practices. This study seeks to create an inclusive understanding of reference and information service (RIS) by exploring the experience of RIS for librarians of color. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis, the experience of RIS for eight librarians of color, from various ethnic groups and types of libraries, is analyzed. Five themes of experience emerged from the analysis: uniqueness and difference; broad range of professional skills; messiness and beauty of the human interaction; working in a web of outside forces; and learning, growth, and change. In relation to prior research, findings show that these librarians of color experience reference and information work as multifaceted and user-focused, in common with librarians in general. However, they have unique experiences of reference and information services work because of microaggressions and discrimination and because of their focus on serving as a role model or mentor.
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