Data that is automatically generated by users in an academic library as they engage with various library resources is often held in disparate systems. This prevents library staff from knowing how an individual uses these resources in combination and therefore opportunities to provide more targeted support or information may be missed. This case…[Read more]

This chapter details the development of the Penn Libraries’ Japanese Naval Collection, from its inception in a student’s scrapbook discovery to the iterative process of searching for and purchasing Imperial Japanese Navy Training Fleet materials and related items. It also encompasses promotion of the collection online by making digital fac…[Read more]

The purpose of this course is to introduce graduate students to the tools, methods, and history of sinology. Sinology refers to the study of China as performed in a philological manner. Philology refers to the historical study of language and literature in its fullest context. It is inherently interdisciplinary. It draws on the fields of…[Read more]

This presentation explains my undergrad/grad seminar “East Asian DH” (EALC111/511) at University of Pennsylvania in Spring 2018. I focus on the survey format of the seminar, as dictated by the challenge of trying to reach students working on many aspects of the un-discipline of East Asian studies, which encompasses a large region, at least three…[Read more]

Introduction. Open access to digital research output is increasing, but academic library policies can place restrictions on public access to libraries. This paper reports on a preliminary study to investigate the correlation between academic library access policies and institutional positions of openness to knowledge. Method. This primarily…[Read more]

As Library and Information Science research has evolved, new domains of interest have shaped the field, and with them comes a need to question the appropriateness of applying traditional methodologies to these new domains. This panel focuses on the methodological realities of studying fun life-contexts and will address how researching a new domain…[Read more]

Die Präsentation gibt einen Überblick über Neuigkeiten zu Aktivitäten und Initiativen zum Thema “Open Access in Österreich”. (The presentation provides an overview of current activities and initiatives regarding the topic “Open Access in Austria”.)

This presentation discusses a new digital initiative undertaken by the authors to study Depression-era housing in Cleveland through the Ernest J. Bohn Collection, which is held by Case Western’s Kelvin Smith Library Special Collections. Bohn, who directed the Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Authority from 1933–1968, was instrumental in est…[Read more]

Academic libraries in the UK are placing an increased emphasis on engagement and partnership building with academics. Attempts to articulate what is meant by this engagement rely on analogies from the commercial world, notably from sales- driven environments. This language can prove counteractive to true faculty engagement. It retains a focus on a…[Read more]

If you lead, you will face a crisis. Of all the demands made on leaders, crisis leadership is probably the most challenging, and it is the one they are least prepared to handle properly due to lack of experience and skills. While thinking ahead about how to respond in a crisis can help, it really comes down to whether each leader’s personal e…[Read more]

This paper explores the commodification of archival information through the exploitation of library labor related to the ongoing management, preservation, description, and digitization of unique and rare materials. Through this discussion, the author highlights the cultural, social, and economic factors that play a central role in creating an…[Read more]

An introduction to accessing academic publications for staff working in public libraries.

Although there were many handwritten, often informal catalogues of Sir Robert Cotton’s manuscripts and books during his lifetime and in the years afterwards, the desire for an official printed catalogue which could be circulated in the public realm did not really bear fruit until the late 1600s. And when two versions finally did appear — the…[Read more]

The Exhibition Library reimagines the medium of art exhibition as well as that of art catalogue. Catalogues carry exhibitions through time and space, figuring as tropes for imagining arrangements and the course of works and settings they describe. However, they rarely give us a clue about what really happened, since they are often made before the…[Read more]

This essay is partly a response + riposte to Johanna Drucker’s Jan. 2014 essay in the Los Angeles Review of Books, “Pixel Dust: Illusions of Innovation in Scholarly Publishing,” and partly a plea for the University, and the Humanities, along with their publishing “arms,” to be refashioned, not as sites of cultural Authority from which Knowledge…[Read more]

Relative to many of the ongoing discussions and debates around the changing (and often precarious) landscapes of scholarly publishing, and especially around Open Access publishing, we at punctum books have put together a sort of “primer” (which also serves as our own, expanded vision statement) on what we see as the perils of the commodification…[Read more]

This article provides an overview of design thinking as a component of, and contributor to, great library user experiences. When design thinking is used to shape the environment in which users connect with library spaces and personnel, the result is a better library experience—by design.