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Objectives – This study was conducted to determine the library activities, preferred learning spaces, and challenges encountered by the students of Mountain Province State Polytechnic College (MPSPC) Library, Philippines. Specifically, it sought to answer the following problems: 1) What are the library activities of MPSPC students?; 2) What are the preferred learning spaces in terms of a) physical environment and b) virtual environment?; and 3) What are the challenges associated with library learning activities encountered by the MPSPC students? The study then will be used to explore the feasibility of proposing a learning commons.

Methods – This study used a descriptive research method to determine the library activities, learning spaces, and challenges encountered by MPSPC students in the Philippines. It made use of a researcher-made survey questionnaire. Problem statement number 1 dealt with the library activities of MPSPC students. Problem statement number 2 dealt with the preferred learning spaces. Data were gathered from 500 graduate and undergraduate students from a total of 3,015 enrolled during the first semester of the SY 2019-2020 using a purposive random sampling technique. Descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage, and rank were used.

Results – The most frequent library learning activities performed by the MPSPC students were doing assignments, using reference books, searching/browsing printed materials, reviewing notes, and writing. Students’ least frequent library activities were surfing the web, using the computer, using e-resources, eating while reading/writing, and sleeping. The most preferred physical learning spaces were a makerspace, group study spaces, quiet study rooms, and individual study spaces (individual study carrels), while the most preferred virtual learning spaces were computer workstations, interactive learning spaces, video viewing stations, and internet cafés. The overall challenges encountered by MPSPC students were insufficient learning spaces, poor internet connection, inability to find documents or books needed, lack of reading area, lack of printing or photocopying service, lack of professional books, and lack of e-resources. The least challenges encountered by MPSPC students included very high library fees, poor ventilation, poor lighting facility in the designated area, uncomfortable furniture, and lack of staff’s kindness.

Conclusion – The MPSPC students perform various educationally purposeful library activities, which are generally engaging and support the library's mission. Students vary in their needs of physical and virtual learning environments. Both of these learning spaces are in demand among students, which are the key components of the learning commons. Also, they specified the need for adequate learning spaces to support their various library learning activities. The findings serve as the basis for crafting a project proposal to establish a learning commons tailored to MPSPC students’ library activities and preferred learning spaces, with consideration for the challenges encountered by students, to support their learning and academic success.

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Objective – The Depository Services Program (DSP) provided printed Government of Canada publications to libraries until the termination of its distribution program in 2013. Full Depository Libraries (FDLs) received all eligible publications distributed by the DSP automatically. This study endeavours to determine whether academic library members of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) that were formerly FDLs have maintained their print, federal government holdings since 2013; and what the results of the data collected in this study reveal about access to government information in Canada more broadly.

Methods – The study identified a sample of 100 monographs distributed to FDLs via the DSP between 1979 and 2009. Each monograph was then searched for in the public catalogues of former FDL CARL member libraries to determine current holdings.

Results – Most libraries included in the sample did not have records of all 100 publications, but every publication was located in at least 5 libraries and 12 publications were found in all libraries included in the study. Of the libraries in our sample, 1/3 had retained more than 90 of 100 publications, and 3/4 had retained at least 80.

Conclusion – The redundancy that was a cornerstone of the DSP network still exists to a certain extent and should be leveraged to ensure retention and access to these essential materials for years to come. Existing collaborations and partnerships are well positioned to support a pan-Canadian discussion about preservation of and access to historical federal government information in Canadian libraries and library networks.

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Objective – The University of New Hampshire (UNH) Library conducted an exploratory study of the pedagogical practices of social science instructors at UNH who teach using quantitative data in undergraduate courses. This study is connected to a suite of parallel studies at other higher education institutions that was designed and coordinated by Ithaka S+R.

The four aims of this study were to explore the ways in which instructors teach and engage undergraduates in the social sciences using quantitative data; understand the support needs of these instructors; develop actionable recommendations for campus stakeholders; and identify opportunities for the development of resources, services, or activities in the library to support the use of quantitative data in the classroom.

Methods – For the UNH study, the research team recruited eleven participants through convenience sampling for one-on-one, semi-structured interviews. The study sample included lecturers, assistant professors, associate professors, and full professors across seven social science disciplines from the Durham and Manchester campuses.

Results – Courses using data provide a unique opportunity for students to gain experience by working with hands-on examples. The two overarching themes identified speak to both the motivations of instructors who teach with data and the challenges and opportunities they face: teaching with data for data literacy and scientific literacy and teaching with data for statistical, data, and tools skill building.

Conclusion – Data literacy is an important set of competencies in part because of the quality and quantity of data students encounter; they need to have the ability to critically evaluate data, methods, and claims. This study directed attention to an area that had not previously been examined at UNH and is an important first step toward creating greater awareness and community of practice for social science instructors teaching with data. The UNH Library offers research data services and is exploring new ways of supporting data literacy. UNH has opportunities to create additional supports for instructors and students that could improve student learning outcomes. Such efforts may require cross-college or cross-department coordination as well as administrative support.

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Objective – Across North America, public libraries have increasingly served their communities by working with partners to connect patrons to essential healthcare services, including preventative. However, little is known about the extent of these partnerships, or the need for them, as seen from the perspective of public library workers. In this study, we set out to address the following research question: What needs and opportunities are associated with health promotion partnerships involving public libraries?

Methods – Using snowball sampling techniques, in September 2021, 123 library workers from across the state of South Carolina in the United States (US) completed an online survey about their health partnerships and health-related continuing education needs; an additional 19 completed a portion of the survey.

Results – Key findings included that library capacity is limited, but the desire to support health via partnerships is strong. There is a need for health partnerships to increase library capacity to support health. Public libraries already offer a range of health-related services. Finally, disparities exist across regions and between urban and rural communities.

Conclusion – As an exploratory study based on a self-selecting sample of public library workers in a particular state of the US, this study has some limitations. Nonetheless, this article highlights implications for a variety of stakeholder groups, including library workers and administrators, funders, and policy makers, and researchers. For researchers, the primary implication is the need to better understand, both from the public library worker’s perspective and from the (actual or potential) health partner’s perspective, needs and opportunities associated with this form of partnership work.

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Objective –To explore the information practices of LGBTQIA+ students and the potential for academic libraries to impact or influence these practices.

Design – Focus groups and individual interviews.

Setting – Two single-sex Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the USA.

Subjects – Twenty-three (23) LGBTQIA+ students who were recruited through convenience and snowball sampling.

Methods – Students from the two colleges were hired and trained as recruiters and interviewers. Twenty-three (23) total interviews on information practices were conducted—nine (9) via focus group, fourteen (14) via individual interviews. No two students participated in both a focus group and an individual interview. Question banks were drafted by the authors for the interviewers to use.

Main Results – Four primary themes arose in qualitative, applied thematic analysis: Acceptance, Support, Personality, and Social Media. Acceptance was further discussed by an interviewee stating one of the colleges in the study was started by lesbians, but this is silent in the campus history. Thus, it is difficult to feel accepted on a campus with so much erasure of LGBTQIA+ history. In conjunction with Acceptance is the lack of Support from both campuses, namely in events, activities, and other affirming programming for LGBTQIA+ students. Students felt the need for more explicit, unequivocal support for LGBTQIA+ students from campus administration. Findings also suggested that Personality, namely participants’ self-identified introversion, may contribute to information deprivation due to fewer social connections and therefore less information sharing. Social Media, the final theme, was noted as the most powerful forum for information sharing for students, as well as a space to normalize LGBTQIA+ movement and visibility. Finally, students viewed the library in a traditional light, such as a study space. The reasoning for some LGBTQIA+ students rejecting the library as a safe space was unclear, though the authors hypothesize this may be due to safety while returning back to their dorms at night.

Conclusion – With a paucity of research in the information practices of LGBTQIA+ students, specifically those enrolled at HBCUs, the authors concluded that continued research is needed to understand how libraries can create safety and visibility. One primary mode for this might be to make more visible that libraries are not neutral, and that supporting LGBTQIA+ students should be a priority.

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Objective – To investigate and compare the information-seeking behaviors of older adults in one developing and one developed country during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design – Structured interviews via Zoom (video), telephone, or email.

Setting – Two towns with moderately large populations (about 300,000), one in eastern India and one in the Midwest of the USA.

Subjects – Sixty adults ages 65 and older, 35 in the India cohort and 25 in the USA cohort.

Methods – The researchers recruited participants from the communities in which their respective institutions are located by using online advertisements in Facebook groups, local (print) advertisements/flyers, and word of mouth. The ten interview questions were informed by Dervin’s (1998) sense-making methodology and sought to identify a specific information need, behavior to address the need, and the influences on and outcomes of the behavior. They conducted the interviews in July and August of 2020, translated the questions into Hindi for Hindi-speaking participants, and analyzed responses using qualitative content analysis. Within each of the resulting themes and categories, the researchers compared the responses of American and Indian participants.

Main Results – The researchers found many significant differences between the information behaviors of Indian and American participants. Some of the biggest differences were in the information needs expressed by the participants, as well as the sources consulted and the reasons for consulting those sources. For example, when asked about the types of information needed, 77% of Indians focused on a “COVID and health-related” information need, as opposed to only 33% of Americans. And 37% of Americans indicated information needs related to “political and economic issues,” especially the upcoming 2020 election, as opposed to only 3% of Indians. When asked about sources, 28% of Indians consulted television, compared to only 6% of Americans. Web-based sources were generally used more by Americans, with 31% of Americans consulting websites, compared to 13% of Indians. In regard to their reasons for consulting a source, 28% of Indians chose a source based on availability, compared to only 9% of Americans. And 32% and 36% of Americans chose information based on ease and familiarity (“I know how to find it”), compared to only 18% and 13% of Indians, respectively. Only 3% of Indians met all their information needs, as opposed to 43% of Americans, and Indians were more likely to stop searching after encountering barriers. Americans had more confidence in their information behavior overall, and only 32% of Americans were interested in taking a class on how to find information, as opposed to 97% of Indians.

Conclusion – Older adults in developing and developed countries described very different information-seeking experiences. The disparities between the types of information sought, sources consulted, and barriers encountered highlight not only cultural differences, but also systemic inequities that exist between the information infrastructure of the two countries, especially as concerns access to computers and the Internet. The study points to areas for future improvement, including the need for interventions such as information literacy instruction.

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Objective – To understand the major activities, tools, sources, and challenges of online communities focused on datasets.

Design – Content analysis informed by activity theory.

Setting – The r/Datasets subreddit, a web forum for sharing, seeking, and discussing datasets.

Subjects – 1232 “hot” or “top” discussion threads (1232 original posts and 6813 responding comments) first posted between 2010 and 2020.

Methods – The researchers used Reddit’s API to collect their sample of threads. Using a random subset of the sample, the researchers developed a coding scheme for content analysis, which identified major themes in the data. Through this process, they controlled for quality: each researcher coded half the subset independently, then together evaluated their intercoder reliability and discussed and resolved disagreements. The researchers also employed labelled latent Dirchlet allocation to construct topic models corresponding to the theme’s manual content analysis, which produced profiles of the top 100 terms most likely to appear in that topic. Finally, the researchers extracted URLs from threads in the sample to ascertain types of information and data sources used by the community. Presenting their findings, the researchers discussed notable themes and proposed a metadata model for describing datasets, the Data Q&A metadata (DQAM) model.

Main Results – The r/Datasets community engages in three distinct activities: asking and answering questions, disseminating information, and community building. The closely related Q&A and dissemination activities shared themes of obtaining and aggregating data, sensemaking, collaborating and crowdsourcing, and data evaluation. Community members frequently discussed tools, competencies, and sources for data work. Major challenges for members of the community related to the general themes of data quality, accessibility, ethics, and legality. A proposed 16-element metadata schema should meet the needs of data enthusiasts.

Conclusion – The content analysis reveals a dedicated community engaged in an array of data-seeking and data-sharing activities. Data producers should be mindful of how their data can be accessed and used outside of their original professional or scholarly contexts.

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Objective – To map the experiences of students of English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) navigating an academic library.

Design – A wayfinding study to evaluate how students navigate a library.

Setting – An urban-based academic library at an institution of higher education.

Subjects – Students of English for speakers of other languages (ESOL).

Methods – A mixed methods study including visual recordings, web screen capture, interviews, and surveys. Subjects were recruited through email. Twelve participants were selected and given an initial screening survey. They were given four tasks to complete: Find a book in the stacks, find a book in the reserves, find a DVD in media, and find a database. They were equipped with a GoPro camera and were given a think-aloud protocol (TAP). They were then given a post-task debriefing interview. Qualitative data were analyzed and coded. Quantitative data like success of task and time to completion were also recorded.

Main Results – Success rate varied among tasks: Finding a book in reserves had the highest rate at 75%, while finding a database had the lowest at 50%. Time also varied from 12 minutes to find a book in the stacks to just under 6 minutes to find a database. Seven of the 12 participants indicated they had prior library experience; however, they still encountered skill gaps. They lacked familiarity with the space, policies, website, and terminology. Participants also struggled with library jargon and inconsistent use of jargon among staff and librarians.

Conclusion – The researchers discovered there were discrepancies between language used in signs, directions provided by staff, and information provided on the website. Signage was important because several participants made remarks on lack a familiarity with the library space. They would get lost and anxious. In addition, the video recordings and subsequent discussions among the staff and librarians showed issues arising from the power dynamics in the library organization. Staff felt pressured to provide reference services when librarians were unavailable due to staffing shortages, which led to miscommunication. These conclusions lead to empathy-based training to address language discrepancies and experiences among staff. It also provided additional rationale for hiring.

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Objective – To understand the lived experiences of transgender and gender-nonconforming populations in seeking health information about breast cancer.

Design – Thematic literature review.

Setting – Four English-language databases featuring clinical, patient engagement, and library and information sciences (LIS) research.

Subjects – Twenty-one published articles.

Methods – The researchers chose three concepts (trans, LGBTQ+, and breast cancer), identified related terms for each, and used these terms to conduct literature searches in four databases: PubMed, Web of Science, Library Literature & Information Science Full Text, and Library, Information, Science & Technology Abstracts. Search results were reviewed for relevance to the research objective. The researchers applied grounded theory to analyze the 21 selected articles through open, axial, and selective (thematic) coding. The qualitative research software NVivo was used to perform thematic analysis of each article, and a shared codebook was developed to ensure saturation of axial themes and consistency of coding amongst researchers.

Main Results – Three overarching themes emerged from selective coding that exemplify experiences of transgender and gender-nonconforming persons seeking health information about breast cancer: access, erasure, and quality. Compared to their cisgender peers, these historically marginalized populations and their caregivers experience more difficulty accessing the already limited breast cancer information, healthcare, and support services suited to their needs. In particular, transgender and gender-nonconforming patients are often burdened with choosing between receiving health information and care designed for heteronormative persons and risking self-disclosure and possible discrimination by culturally incompetent health professionals.

Conclusion – The researchers noted the alarmingly limited resources available for gender-nonconforming patients seeking information and support for health matters other than mental health or sexually transmitted diseases. The researchers also called for increased efforts by LIS curriculums and professionals to study and understand the needs of transgender and gender-nonconforming patrons, and to improve the quality and quantity of information resources specifically dedicated to these unique populations.

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Objective – To explore the impact of the neighbourhood literacy environment (NLE) by examining associations between public library locations, book circulation rates, and neighbourhood racial composition.

Design – An ecological study using aggregated data sources.

Setting – Forty selected neighbourhood public libraries in the state of Ohio, United States of America.

Subjects – Analysis of (1) existing circulation statistics from January 2014 to December 2018 for the neighbourhoods of Cincinnati and Hamilton Public Libraries; and (2) the American Community Survey (ACS) data from 2018.

Methods – Among the key components studied for the population was the NLE, which the authors defined as access to literacy materials in a neighbourhood. The data the authors examined for the targeted populations were race, age, poverty level, and library location. The two groups of variables computed were: (1) the connection between circulation rates of children’s books and child poverty; (2) the connection between circulation statistics and the proportion of people who self-identify as Black in the neighbourhood. Additionally, the researchers used the Spearman’s rank order correlation coefficient (rs) to measure the relationships between the correlating variables within each neighbourhood library branch – number of books circulated per child; the census data of children who self-identified as Black; and the children who were designated as 20% below the federal poverty level (FPL). The Chi-square test was used to calculate associations between access to a library branch and child poverty in each neighborhood. In this study, the researchers only looked at the associations between variables at an aggregate level. The authors defined the terms they used in the study: (1) children were ages 0-18 years; (2) children’s books were literature intended for an audience from 0-18 years old; (3) the definition of poverty was taken from the U.S. Census and classified as neighborhoods with 20% of children below the FPL.

Main Results – There were 40 library branches that served 81 neighbourhoods, of which there was only a 38% distribution in the high-poverty areas, compared with 58% for the low. Approximately 24 million books were circulated during the 5-year period of 2014 -2018. The median circulation rate per child at the neighbourhood level was 22 books. The results showed steep variations in circulation rates per child across branch locations; the numbers range from 3 to 98 books per child across neighborhoods. The authors indicated that the increases and decreases in the circulation rates were tied to branch location and the area’s socioeconomic status. The primary finding of the data analyzed was a negative correlation between the population identified as Black/African American and lower circulation rates in poorer neighbourhoods.

Limitations identified by the authors were (1) the allocation of literacy resources per branch was unknown; (2) the in-library book user statistics in high-poverty neighbourhoods may not be accurately documented; (3) the precise allocations for literacy funds and the use of in-library resources for developing literacy skills need further study.

Conclusion – The authors noted that race, economic status, and proximity to public libraries were pertinent factors in understanding inequitable access to books for children in the neighbourhoods studied. The NLE was an important dynamic beyond the home; the availability of books and engagement with them were contributing factors to the development of literacy skills. The associations observed between the variables indicated that improving the NLE matters and libraries must mindfully work to alleviate the disproportionately lower levels of access to books and their unfavorable outcome for children in low-income areas.