Department of Library and Information Science Works

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'Academic Library Support Staff Competencies: What Should Support Staff Know and be Able to Do?
(Association of College and Research Libraries, 2009) Applegate, Rachel
This research reports on data from a recent widely-disseminated survey of academic and public librarians and library support staff. The paper describes what professional competencies respondents considered most (and least) important for support staff. It shows what are the most-highly-rated items overall, and examines areas where opinions differed the most, comparing academic and public libraries, and support staff, MLS, and director respondents. Connected to the ALA Library Support Staff Certification Project.
Build It and What? Measuring the Implementation and Outcomes of an Information Commons
(Association of College and Research Libraries, 2007) Applegate, Rachel
Describes a multi-faceted, data-driven approach to information commons design and evaluation incorporating patron behaviors, desires, and outcomes; examines pros and cons of various evaluation methodologies.
Charting Academic Library Staffing: Data from National Surveys
(American Library Association, 2007) Applegate, Rachel
Many issues in academic library practice and research are affected by staffing patterns. To provide an overview of librarian distribution among large, medium, and small institutions, librarian to nonlibrarian ratios, and ratios of library staff to students and faculty, a database comprising 1,380 four year nonspecialized U.S. academic institutions was constructed. Among other findings, these descriptive data show that academic librarians are distributed bimodally, with a few large libraries employing about half of all academic librarians. Findings concerning librarians, institutions, and staffing ratios by library size, Carnegie classification, and control are presented.
Clarifying Jurisdiction in the Library Workforce: Tasks, Support Staff, and Professional Librarians
(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010) Applegate, Rachel
Jurisdiction refers to those tasks or responsibilities that are seen as central to and exclusively controlled by a profession. When library work is examined, what is the proper jurisdiction for professional, masters-level librarians? This study examines the definition of professional with respect to library workers by using data from a national survey of competencies for library support staff and by comparing American Library Association-approved competencies for beginning MLS librarians and certified support staff. According to this analysis, professional librarians are those who know context (history, theory), do research, educate patrons, and manage people and collections. They are not necessarily those who provide direct services.
Deconstructing Faculty Status: Research and Assumptions
(Elsevier, 1993) Applegate, Rachel
Arguments for faculty status have traditionally been based upon a comparative model: librarians want their roles to be compared to those of faculty, not administrators. The author of this article, however, finds almost no empirical research on the status, roles, and benefits of faculty, librarians, and administrators to support this model. She posits several alternative approaches to the faculty status issue.
Designing Comprehensive Assessment Plans: The Big Picture Leads to the Little Picture
(Association of College and Research Libraries, 2009) Applegate, Rachel
Having an overall plan for assessment brings measurement and meaning together--and keeps you from being overwhelmed. This paper reviews five top, bottom, middle, and sideways approaches to assessment planning: modeling an academic department, serving a strategic plan, evaluating departments, weaving existing data, and being selective (scorecards and dashboards). It is one thing to know how to assess this or that--another to make all assessment serve the library’s general mission.
Disrupting the Status Quo: Forging a Path to Promotion that Explicitly Recognizes and Values Faculty Work Focused on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
(2022-10-24) Gibau, Gina Sanchez; Applegate, Rachel; Ferguson, Margaret R.; Johnson, Kathy E.
This article focuses on the importance of creating new pathways to promotion and tenure that explicitly recognize and reward excellence related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). We explain the approach we have taken at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Challenges to the status quo related to faculty systems of evaluation are reviewed, as well as the urgency afforded by the interconnectedness of a global pandemic, an economic recession, and a national reckoning with respect to race that could accelerate reforms in higher education. We reflect upon eight critical lessons learned when implementing a new pathway to promotion that recognizes integrated excellence in DEI activities. We hope the lessons we learned will inspire other institutions to lead similar transformational change efforts aimed at disrupting systems that historically have created inequities in the retention and advancement of faculty from marginalized groups.
Educating Assessors: Preparing Librarians with Micro and Macro Skills
(2016) Applegate, Rachel; Department of Library and Information Science, School of Informatics and Computing
Objective – To examine the fit between libraries’ needs for evaluation skills, and library education and professional development opportunities. Many library position descriptions and many areas of library science education focus on professional skills and activities, such as delivering information literacy, designing programs, and managing resources. Only some positions, some parts of positions, and some areas of education specifically address assessment/evaluation skills. The growth of the Library Assessment Conference, the establishment of the ARL-ASSESS listserv, and other evidence indicates that assessment skills are increasingly important. Method – Four bodies of evidence were examined for the prevalence of assessment needs and assessment education: the American Library Association core competencies; job ads from large public and academic libraries; professional development courses and sessions offered by American Library Association (ALA) divisions and state library associations; and course requirements contained in ALA-accredited Masters of Library Science (MLS) programs. Results – While one-third of job postings made some mention of evaluation responsibilities, less than 10% of conference or continuing education offerings addressed assessment skills. In addition, management as a topic is a widespread requirement in MLS programs (78%), while research (58%) and assessment (15%) far less common. Conclusions – Overall, there seems to be more need for assessment/evaluation skills than there are structured offerings to educate people in developing those skills. In addition, roles are changing: some of the most professional-level activities of graduate-degreed librarians involve planning, education, and assessment. MLS students need to understand that these macro skills are essential to leadership, and current librarians need opportunities to add to their skill sets.
Faculty Information Assignments: A Longitudinal Examination of Variations in Survey Results
(Elsevier, 2006) Applegate, Rachel
A one-time survey may give a falsely precise indication of local usage. Examining four iterations of a library assignment survey reveals large within-discipline variation; even individual faculty members are inconsistent in their use of library assignments from year to year. Additional causes of variation include changing faculty and pedagogy. This article examines data from a survey sent to faculty about library assignments in their courses in 1996-1997, 2001-2002, and 2003-2004 at a small private masters-level college, and in 2004-2005 at a large public doctoral-intensive university. The researcher expected to discover how coursework in different disciplines required different levels of independent information seeking ("library usage"). The survey method was chosen when the contents and formats of course syllabi proved too inconsistent to yield the needed information about usage of library assignments. Use of library assignments was expected to be relatively consistent from year to year, and from institution to institution, because of the assumption that discipline strongly affects use of library information sources. Each time, the survey achieved a good response rate and gave apparently valuable information about current library assignments. However, the expected disciplinary consistency was much less than anticipated. The variation from year to year within disciplines -- an average of sixteen percentage points -- was almost as great as the variation between disciplines in any one year--an average of 18 to 29 percent. This article describes the intent, scope, focus, and initial findings of the original surveys, then uses the data from the four together to explore potential causes of the year to year variation. The results of this secondary analysis suggest that faculty use of information-seeking assignments is much more volatile than any onetime survey might show.
Gender Differences in the Use of a Public Library
(Taylor & Francis, 2008) Applegate, Rachel
Experience and anecdotal evidence suggest that men and women use—or do not use—public libraries in different ways and amounts. Compared to extensive research on male and female differences in reading, computer use or within the context of the school library, there is relatively little descriptive research showing the library preferences of adult men and women. This study analyzed over 1,200 user responses in a survey conducted as part of a strategic planning process of an affluent public library. Male patrons in many respects were simply below-average in many areas (fewer visits, fewer services or resources used) but also showed distinctly different choices in a few areas, mainly related to electronic and business-related items. They also are almost completely uninterested in children's areas, a sharp contrast with adult female patrons). Male usage is distinct enough to warrant special attention from library planners. The results help library managers understand better what different patrons already use, and those areas where greater marketing or different strategic choices may be needed.

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