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College and Research Libraries
July 2004, Vol. 65, No. 4
Abstracts
The Academic Library as a Gateway to the Internet: An Analysis of the Extent and Nature of Search Engine Access from Academic Library Home Pages
Carol A. Wright
PDF version
Academic libraries have the opportunity through their Web pages to present to the university community recommended sites and appropriate techniques for searching the Internet. But in the design and organization of home pages, academic libraries often provide inadequate navigational paths to sites that provide search engine selection and evaluation criteria. The author conducted a study of the home pages of 114 academic libraries that belong to the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) to determine their paths to Internet search engines. This paper presents the study results and makes recommendations for improvement.
Raising the Bar: An Approach to Reviewing and Revising Standards for Professional Achievement for Library Faculty
Edward F. Lener, Bruce Pencek, and Susan Ariew
PDF version
The committee revising the retention, promotion, and continued appointment policy in the Virginia Tech libraries took a broad view of its task in articulating its goal, gathering information from internal and external sources, allocating drafting responsibilities, and winning support. The committee’s work revealed an unexpected need and led to an explicit affirmation of professional obligations of librarians to one another. Thus, adoption of the new policy and the principles it embodied became a lever for changes in the organizational culture.
Academic Dishonesty, Plagiarism Included, in the Digital Age: A Literature Review
Zorana Ercegovac and John V. Richardson Jr.
PDF version
The reviewed literature reported on plagiarism in the context of the digital era from the perspective of a broader educational spectrum. The authors of this review ask questions with regard to what constitutes plagiarism, how prevalent plagiarism is in our schools, colleges, and society, what is done to prevent and reduce plagiarism, the attitudes of faculty toward academic dishonesty in general, and individual differences as predictors of academic dishonesty. This article identifies research questions that have not been addressed sufficiently in the literature and suggests specific research areas for further investigation.
Planning Bioinformatics Education and Information Services in an Academic Health Sciences Library
W. John MacMullen, K.T.L. Vaughan, and Margaret E. Moore
PDF version
This article describes a planning process for the development of bioinformatics education and information services in an academic health sciences library. The project’s five goals were to: (1) understand the changing environment for information related to bioinformatics; (2) understand the information needs of faculty whose work involves bioinformatics; (3) explore potential service offerings; (4) anticipate factors influencing the implementation of new services; and (5) envision strategies for recruiting and training information professionals to fill these roles. The authors describe the library’s practice environment and review recent research on the information needs of biomedical researchers and clinicians. A variety of potential library-based services in relation to bioinformatics are enumerated, and the institutional, environmental, and personnel factors affecting the deployment of services are examined. Finally, the authors describe the educational and training context of the library, and explore potential roles for librarians and information professionals in the context of bioinformatics services.
Toward a New Venture: Building Partnerships with Faculty
Ada M. Ducas and Nicole Michaud-Oystryk
PDF version
In spring 2000, the authors undertook a study to examine the extent of collaboration between librarians and faculty at the University of Manitoba and to identify the current and future roles of librarians. Two surveys were designed—one directed at faculty, the other at librarians. The current article reports the results of the librarian survey and presents some comparative data between the two surveys. This study demonstrates the extent to which their opinions intersect and examines the quality of the partnership. It measures the impact of the collaboration and describes areas where it could be enhanced and expanded. In addition, the study identifies new roles for librarians that would further enhance the partnership between faculty and librarians.
Library Jargon: Student Recognition of Terms and Concepts Commonly Used by Librarians in the Classroom
Norman B. Hutcherson
PDF version
This article reports the results of a study that used a pair of fifteen-item multiple-choice surveys to measure first- and second-year university student recognition of a select group of commonly used library terms. A total of 297 students responded. The results from the surveys indicate that commonly used terms such as plagiarism, reference services, research, copyright, and synonyms have high levels of recognition whereas library or computer-specific terms such as Boolean logic, bibliography, truncation, precision, and descriptor do not. The article includes a number of suggestions for overcoming this potential impediment to classroom communication.
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