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Historical note: The Libraries have a rich portfolio of collections, services, and public programming. Distributed in 14 facilities with collections including over 6.5 million volumes and a rapidly growing virtual collection of electronic resources, the Libraries provide critical resources in support of the University's comprehensive programs and land-grant mission. The Libraries are an integral part of the campus life and a significant collaborator within the state, national, and international research library communities.
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Browsing University Libraries by Type "Conference Paper"
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Item Building the collections of tomorrow(2023) Knazook, Beth; Narlock, Mikala R.Position Statements for the international forum: Collections as Data: State of the field and future directions, a working event held April 25-26 in Vancouver, Canada. Cultural heritage curation and data curation are information specializations that are, and should be, increasingly intersecting, especially with the rapid growth of digital cultural heritage resources and tools created by ambitious digitization programs and the rise of complex, computation-driven research in the digital humanities and adjacent fields. Curators have immense power to shape collections – libraries, archives, and museums acquire, describe, interpret, digitize, preserve, and facilitate access to key government and business records, cultural heritage materials, and innumerable unique resources. Curation practice is moving beyond the FAIR6 principles into the CARE principles, which recognizes and empowers the humans and communities often at the center of data collection. This shared area of investment by curators, both of cultural heritage and research data, is a space in which we can support and learn from one another.Item The Cost of Speaking Out: Do Librarians Truly Experience Academic Freedom?(2019) Leebaw, Danya; Logsdon, AlexisAcademic librarians might believe they are protected by academic freedom policies, but how extensive are their protections and what is their lived experience when it comes to freedom to speak and act in the workplace or in public? In the United States, the 2016 election and the rise of the Far Right and state oppression of marginalized communities brought urgency to these questions. Many librarians feel compelled to speak and act against oppression in and outside of the library. Academic freedom protection for librarians is far from settled practice, and is complicated by the profession’s focus on the broader concept of intellectual freedom for library users. The authors are interested in studying the experiences and perceptions of academic freedom among academic librarians, a topic which has not been widely studied. We are also interested in studying the relationship of social identity and financial status to academic freedom for library staff. Doing so raises interesting questions about academic freedom more broadly, such as the extent to which academic freedom policies matter when library staff stay silent out of fear of negative repercussions. In order to study these questions, we developed and issued a survey to academic librarians in the Fall of 2018. We hypothesized that most academic librarians would value academic freedom but not believe they are completely protected by academic freedom policies. We also hypothesized that librarians who belong to socially marginalized groups and/or are economically insecure would experience fewer freedoms in the workplace. In this paper, we provide a preview of our overall findings and also a more detailed analysis of the relationship of race and financial security to freedom of expression and experiences of infringement. Our initial findings support our hypotheses: academic freedom is very important to a sizeable majority of academic librarians. However, the degree to which they experience or perceive their own freedoms varies by scenario and by their racial identity and financial situation. Indeed, we find that non-white librarians and financially precarious librarians feel less free and experience more infringements than their white and financially secure counterparts.Item Creating an Evidence‐Based Health Literacy Training Program for Seniors [Poster Presentation: Institute for Healthcare Advancement - Health Literacy Conference](2010-12-07) Ellwood, Alisha; Beschnett, Anne; Aspinall, Erinn EThe poster Presentation, “Creating an Evidence‐Based Health Literacy Training Program for Seniors,” was accepted for presentation at the Institute for Healthcare Advancement’s Health Literacy Conference in Irvine, CA (May 6-7, 2010). A similar poster was presented at the Mayo Clinic Geriatric Care Conference in Rochester, MN (April 7, 2010).Item Creating an Evidence‐Based Health Literacy Training Program for Seniors [Poster Presentation: Minnesota Alliance for Patient Safety Conference](2010-12-07) Ellwood, Alisha; Beschnett, Anne; Aspinall, Erinn EThe poster presentation, “Creating an Evidence‐Based Health Literacy Training Program for Seniors,” was accepted for presentation at the Minnesota Alliance for Patient Safety Conference (November 4-5, 2010).Item For Fun and Profit: Supporting Research Commercialization with Interdisciplinary Liaison Teams(2017) Sayre, Franklin; Lilyard, Caroline; Schoenborn, MaryItem HeLP MN Seniors: An Evidence‐Based Health Literacy Program [Poster Presentation: Medical Library Association Conference](2010-12-07) Beschnett, Anne; Aspinall, Erinn E; Ellwood, Alisha; Brasure, Michelle; Koppa, Pat; Rieke, Judy; Wolter, Gin; Watson, LindaThe paper presentation, “HeLP MN Seniors: An Evidence‐Based Health Literacy Program,” was accepted for presentation at the Medical Library Association Conference (May 21-26, 2010).Item How do Engineering Students and Faculty use Library Resources?(American Society for Engineering Education, 2013-06-25) Fransen, JanIn 2011, library staff at a large Research I university began looking for ways to track use of library resources by students, faculty, and staff. Access points tracked in Fall 2011 ranged from loans and use of digital resources to workshop attendance and appointments with peer research consultants. Access points related to consultations with archivists and media librarians were added in Spring 2012. Working with campus institutional research staff, we were able to correlate Fall 2011 library use with higher term GPA and retention for first year students while controlling for other variables related to student success. The Student Success line of inquiry is useful for demonstrating that successful students do find value in the library. However, as students move beyond their first year, the factors contributing to student success become increasingly complex and interrelated. Therefore, while we continue to collect first year data and plan to check the correlation strength each semester, we are not extending this area of study beyond first year students. The rich dataset used for the Student Success analysis lends itself to another use, one that is arguably more “actionable” than the first: By aggregating the collected data over college, level (undergraduate, graduate student, etc.), and other groupings, we have our first good look at who is using library services (and who is not) as well as what they are doing. The work in progress combines data collection in the Fall 2011 and Spring 2012 semesters and focuses on just science and engineering students, faculty, and staff. As of this writing, we have conducted basic demographic analyses on how College of Science & Engineering (CSE) faculty and students differ from their colleagues in other colleges, and have investigated possible correlations between library use and student success indicators for CSE first year students. We have also uncovered data limitations that will affect how we use the collected data, and how we refine data collection in the future.Item Information Literacy of Online Health Consumers in Minnesota(2018-09) Hunt, Shanda; Theis-Mahon, Nicole; Chew, KatherineIn the United States 72% of Internet users look online to find health information, with some being high quality and other information dangerous. The University of Minnesota is a land grant institution, and the Health Sciences Libraries have a strong outreach role, educating health information consumers across Minnesota about high quality resources. In 2016, we conducted a study at the Minnesota State Fair to identify where Minnesotans find online health information, how they use it, their confidence in assessing it, and what they think is missing. Convenience sampling yielded a total of 255 participants who valued the ability to access OHI and used it for a variety of purposes. A high percentage of participants thought they had the knowledge, skills, and confidence to navigate OHI, yet were uncertain about indicators of quality. They felt that current resources lacked personalization and evidence-based information. Our study recommendations on further educational outreach around online health information include promotion of interactive educational websites, partnerships with public libraries to host large-scale education sessions on the topic, and skill building around assessment of health websites.Item Information Science Solutions to Communicating Public Health Research Findings to the Public(2018-05) Bakker, Caitlin; Hunt, ShandaWe conducted a needs assessment of public health researchers November 2016 - January 2017. The aims of the study were to capture the evolving needs, opportunities, and challenges of public health researchers in the current environment and provide actionable recommendations. Participants (N=24) were recruited through convenience sampling and one-on-one interviews were audio recorded. Qualitative analyses were conducted using NVivo 11. The data revealed that researchers recognized the need to communicate the significance of public health research findings to the public, yet felt they lacked the skills and resources necessary. Many researchers questioned the value of making articles, research data, and other outputs openly available. They expressed their frustration in trying to make complex data sets and research findings easily digestible by broad audiences. Finally, they did not make the connection between their professional marketing activities and dissemination. Information professionals can assist public health researchers in modernizing and broadening their dissemination practices by considering alternative forums, such as repositories and open education resources, and by utilizing formats, such as data visualizations, that more effectively convey research findings. Libraries can also introduce researchers to plain language summaries of research outputs and ways in which social media is being used to communicate to the public. These strategies could advance public health communication to the public, practitioners, and policymakers, as well as contribute to open science.Item Lies, Damned Lies, and Copyright (Mis)Information: Empowering Faculty by Addressing Key Points of Confusion(Association of College & Research Libraries National Conference, 2011-03) Sims, Nancy A.The University of Minnesota Libraries’ Copyright Program surveyed and interviewed faculty, instructors, researchers, librarians, and library employees to document their knowledge of key areas of copyright law that intersect with common academic practices. All respondents were found to have considerable weaknesses and gaps in knowledge around many key issues. The findings show that all campus populations are in need of further education about the complicated issue of fair use. Some of the findings also suggest avenues for improving copyright education efforts, such as targeting misconceptions about the relation of citation to copyright law, and tying instruction on fundamental principles to faculty authors’ ownership interests in their works.Item More Than a "Washed-Up Has-Been:" Textual Aspects of the Holmes Icon(2013-10-25) Johnson, TimothyThis paper focuses on textual exemplars from the Sherlock Holmes stories in support of an argument that these texts are just as important in understanding Holmes as a cultural icon as are the visual exemplars found in printed materials, theater, motion pictures, and television. Following a brief summary of the visual exemplars, the author presents six textual examples from the Holmesian canon to support the central argument of this paper—that the "textual logo" or "emblematic wording" is as much a part of the Holmesian iconography as the essential images. In the end, the author concludes that the idea of Holmes as a cultural icon has moved beyond the bounds of the English-speaking world, i.e. is understood in a global context, and that this understanding is rooted in a robust iconography that includes both textual phrases and visual images.Item OPEN ACCESS GEOLOGY: USING THE INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORY TO HOST STATE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY PUBLICATIONS(Geoscience Information Society, 2012) Johnston, Lisa R; Thorleifson, HarveyThe Minnesota Geological Survey (MGS) hosts information systems containing data sets that are valuable historic and scientific resources for the state. Several options are being pursued to curate, preserve, describe, and disseminate these data to broader audiences, including web services, national data archives, and institutional repositories. One of the challenges has been to find a means to make available scanned versions of geological survey publications. Geoscience research literature is increasingly published electronically and made digitally available for immediate online access. For state geological survey publications, a library-run institutional repository (IR) can be an excellent solution to host digitized and born-digital content. In the past few years, MGS has scanned all of its publications published since 1872 through a number of library and state preservation grants. The comprehensive project included over 40,000 pages of reports, guidebooks, and bulletins, and over 600 maps, along with GIS data files from recent decades. This talk will describe how the MGS content was archived in the university’s institutional repository and the issues and challenges we faced such as format decisions, workflow issues, and modes of user access.Item Partnerships in a Data Management Village: Exploring how research and library services can work together(2015) Hofelich Mohr, Alicia; Lindsay, Thomas; Johnston, Lisa RProviding data management services is a task that takes a village; a distributed model of support, involving collaboration among diverse institutional offices, is needed to do it well. Researchers especially benefit when specialized institutional support offices are aware of other relevant providers and the impact their services have on the management of data across the research life cycle. However, once a village is assembled, how do we work with members to be committed collaborators, rather than a passive referral network? In this presentation, we will describe a case study of our in-depth collaboration between the University Libraries and the College of Liberal Arts (CLA) at the University of Minnesota. Both groups are developing new suites of data management services to meet evolving researcher needs and rising demands for data management support. Working together has provided many advantages for sharing resources and knowledge, but also has presented challenges, including how to define the respective roles of college-level and university-wide data management services, and how formalized collaborations may work. We will describe these challenges and how the collective and complementary skills of our offices will provide researchers with support across much larger portions of the research life cycle than either office could provide alone.Item Reproducibility of Search Strategies in Systematic Reviews(2014-05) Koffel, Jonathan; Rethlefsen, MelissaItem Selling the Mission: The North American YMCA in China 1890-1949(Institute of History, National Central University, Chungli, Taiwan, 2012-12-01) Bean, RyanThe archival material relating to the history of the North American Young Men’s Christian Association’s (YMCA) activities in China, housed at the Kautz Family YMCA Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries, spans over a hundred years of involvement in the region. The greater part documents the entry of American YMCA secretaries into the field in 1890 through to the creation of the People’s Republic in 1949. The YMCA’s role in the history of missionary work is curious. The YMCA was not organized as a missionary enterprise, though it worked intimately with missionaries. Over time the YMCA’s scope and work in China evolved. This paper seeks to trace an outline of that evolution - in particular the evangelical outreach in the missionary field - as evidenced by the material contained within the Kautz Family YMCA Archives.Item Serving Multiple Stakeholders: Crafting a “blended” scorecard at the University of Minnesota Health Sciences Libraries(Association of Research Libraries, 2010) Chew, Katherine; Aspinall, Erinn EPurpose: Since its introduction in the early 1990s, the Balanced Scorecard has been widely used in the corporate world as a means of assessing overall organizational health. In recent years, the Balanced Scorecard has been successfully adopted by non-profits, including large academic and public library systems. Health sciences and other special libraries also stand to benefit from the use of a Balanced Scorecard. However, they often work under complex organizational structures that involve administrative-level reporting to multiple and diverse stakeholders. As such, the standard four perspectives of the Balanced Scorecard may not serve to adequately tell the library’s story. The Health Sciences Libraries (HSL) at the University of Minnesota has been working to develop and implement a “blended” scorecard that will provide meaningful measures of success for its multiple stakeholders. Design/Methodology/Approach: In 2006, the HSL formed a Metrics that Matter team that was charged to develop new ways of measuring library activities to express outcomes and impacts in ways meaningful to its funders and constituents. The team’s final report recommended that the HSL use a modified form of the Balanced Scorecard based on Cogdill, et. al.’s The Value of Library and Information Services in Hospitals and Academic Health Sciences Centers report to the Medical Library Association. In 2009, the HSL developed a blended scorecard that customized the standard four balanced scorecard perspectives by incorporating language from the strategic goals of the University Libraries and the Academic Health Center, its two major stakeholders. Findings: The HSL is in the early adoption phase of using their blended scorecard approach to measuring overall organizational health. In January 2009, the language of the blended scorecard was developed, approved by HSL managers, and presented to library personnel. Additional work was done to incorporate annual goals and strategic planning into the matrix and identify relevant measures and targets for each perspective. Pilot testing of the blended scorecard will be continued with the HSL 2010-2011 goal setting. The authors will present the lessons learned through this experience by outlining the steps taken to 1) develop a blended scorecard, 2) seek staff buy-in and organizational support, 3) implement pilot testing, and 4) adjust the blended scorecard based on findings. Practical Implications/Value: The HSL plans to use the blended scorecard to discover the extent to which its organizational goals have been met. Results will be used internally to set future goals and initiatives and externally to communicate successes and areas for improvement to its primary stakeholders. When used annually, the HSL hopes to have a set of comparison metrics that can be analyzed to determine success over time.Item Small Press Journals in the Age of Open Access: A Case Study in Agricultural Economics(2016) Kelly, Julia; Eells, LindaItem User-defined valued metrics for electronic journals(2013-02-18) Chew, Katherine; Stemper, James; Lilyard, Caroline; Schoenborn, MaryPurpose: Building on the work done by the California Digital Library (CDL), the University of Minnesota Libraries is developing a set of user-defined value-based electronic journal usage metrics. User value is assessed in three overall categories: (1) utility or reading value, (2) quality or citing value, and (3) cost effectiveness. In addition to analyzing vendor-generated usage metrics, also included were Affinity String data, derived from the University of Minnesota’s central authentication system that anonymously captures a user’s academic department and degree program or position at the university and combined with vendor-generated usage data, provides a granular picture of journal use down to the title level. Collection management librarians and library users can benefit from a viable, more accurate metric for use and value of library resources than cost-per-download, which would ensure that the most needed/valued resources are available to further research and learning. Methodology: Metrics were identified that are utilized to determine e-journal retainability: OpenURL link resolver requests for article views, COUNTER-compliant downloads, JCR Impact Factors, Eigenfactor Scores, local citations from Thomson Reuters Local Journal Use Reports and Affinity String requests for article views. Two years of usage data were assessed using Pearson correlation coefficients to compare the different metrics. Affinity String data is correlated with the results to determine any discipline or degree level differences. A composite score is assigned to each journal to assess its overall value in comparison to other journals within the same broad subject category. Findings: This project found SFX clickthroughs a more consistent predictor than COUNTER downloads of the journals our faculty will cite in their articles, with Eigenfactor a more consistent predictor of citation behavior than Impact Factor.Item Virtual Makerspace Workshops: Practical Lessons for Adapting Content and Technology(International Symposium on Academic Makerspaces, 2021-11-21) Bishoff, Carolyn; Carlson, Tiffany; Jubara, Rami; Heinz, CharlieThe University of Minnesota Libraries manages two makerspaces that are designed to support creative work, experiential learning, and student wellbeing across majors and disciplines. The library makerspaces are not formally integrated with college or departmental curricula, so anyone using the space is doing so completely voluntarily. Because of this, our staff engage in a significant amount of awareness-building and outreach to students, faculty, and staff. Workshops are one of the primary ways we invite users into the library makerspaces. These events – Design for 3D Printing, Podcasting 101, and Bullet Journaling, to name a few – provide a low-barrier way to visit the space, learn a skill, and meet some of our staff. Students come to the university with a variety of perceptions of makerspaces and may have assumptions or associations that originated in primary school. Workshops give us a chance to establish relationships, challenge assumptions about makerspaces, and provide positive experiences for first-time users. When classes and operations went remote in March 2020, our workshops did too. Our staff adapted our lesson plans, learned new technologies, expanded our online presence, and taught hands-on activities in a virtual environment.