Browsing by Author "Applegate, Rachel"

Now showing 1 - 10 of 28
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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.
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    Bridging the Gap in Digital Library Continuing Education: How Librarians Who Were Not "Born Digital" Are Keeping Up.
    (2008) Applegate, Rachel; Long, Chris Evin
    Studies on the continuing education pursuits of librarians are prevalent in library literature, but none has focused on the efforts made by librarians trained in the pre-Internet era to keep abreast of the skills needed in the digital library age. This study collected data from randomly solicited members of the Indiana Library Federation, a statewide library association including librarians from all types of libraries. Qualified respondents were those who received their M.L.S./M.L.I.S. prior to 1996. Participants were asked about the digital library-related topics they had studied in the past two years, the continuing education methods they had used, and how helpful they had found the activities in which they had engaged. Analysis of the responses reveal that a large majority of the librarians in this study see training in digital library skills as important and they seem to be making the acquisition of these skills a priority.
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    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.
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    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.
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    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.
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    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.
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    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.
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    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.
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    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.
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    An Examination of the Bachelor's Degree Attainment Experiences of African American Males Post-Incarceration
    (2021-08) Wallace, James W., Jr.; Murtadha, Khaula; Thompson, Chalmer; Scheurich, Jim; Applegate, Rachel
    The United States of America incarcerates more of its citizens than any other industrialized nation. Moreover, African American males are disproportionately targeted for incarceration in a system reminiscent of the system of slavery abolished after the civil war. As the cycle of recidivism plays itself out in this nation, this research examines the experiences of Black males who have broken the cycle to reestablish themselves within society through educating themselves in our nation's colleges and universities. This work is a phenomenological multiple case study that examines the experiences of five men who were incarcerated for a felony offense and successfully obtained bachelor's degree upon release. This research asks the questions: what motivated the pursuit of a degree, how did they pay for it, what resources were utilized, what challenges were overcome, and what impact this achievement had on their lives? Additionally, this research examines current correctional and educational policies and their impact on the Black community and concludes by making recommendations grounded in the research on how the nation can reduce recidivism rates and better serve African American communities.