The June 2020 issue
<https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/issue/view/1117> of *Information
Technology and Libraries* (ITAL) was published on June 15. Editor Ken
Varnum and LITA President Emily Morton-Owens reflect on the past three
months in their Letter from the Editor, A Blank Page
<https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/article/view/12405>, and LITA
President’s Message, A Framework for Member Success
<https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/article/view/12105>, respectively.
Kevin Ford is the author of this issue’s “Editorial Board Thoughts”
column, Seeing
through Vocabularies
<https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/article/view/12367>.
Rounding out our editorial section, the June “Public Libraries Leading the
Way” section offers two items. Chuck McAndrew of the Lebanon (New
Hampshire) Public Libraries describes his leadership in the
IMLS-funded LibraryVPN
project <https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/article/view/12391>.
Melody Friedenthal, of the Worcester (Massachusetts) Public Library talks
about how she approached and teaches an Intro to Coding Using Python course
<https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/article/view/12207>.
Peer-reviewed Content
Virtual Reality as a Tool for Student Orientation in Distance Education
Programs: A Study of New Library and Information Science Students
<https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/article/view/11937>
Dr. Sandra Valenti, Brady Lund, Ting Wang
Virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a popular technology for gaming and
learning, with its uses for teaching presently being investigated in a
variety of educational settings. However, one area where the effect of this
technology on students has not been examined in detail is as tool for new
student orientation in colleges and universities. This study investigates
this effect using an experimental methodology and the population of new
master of library science (MLS) students entering a library and information
science (LIS) program. The results indicate that students who received a VR
orientation expressed more optimistic views about the technology, saw
greater improvement in scores on an assessment of knowledge about their
program and chosen profession, and saw a small decrease in program anxiety
compared to those who received the same information as standard
text-and-links. The majority of students also indicated a willingness to
use VR technology for learning for long periods of time (25 minutes or
more). The researchers concluded that VR may be a useful tool for
increasing student engagement, as described by Game Engagement Theory.
Collaboration and Integration: Embedding Library Resources in Canvas
<https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/article/view/11863>
Jennifer L. Murray, Daniel E. Feinberg
The University of North Florida (UNF) transitioned to Canvas as its
Learning Management System (LMS) in summer 2017. This implementation
brought on opportunities that allowed for a more user-friendly learning
environment for students. Working with students in courses which were
in-person, hybrid, or online, brought about the need for the library to
have a place in the Canvas LMS. Students needed to remember how to access
and locate library resources and services outside of Canvas. During this
time, the Thomas G. Carpenter Library’s online presence was enhanced, yet
still not visible in Canvas. It became apparent that the library needed to
be integrated into Canvas courses. This would enable students to easily
transition between their coursework and finding resources and services to
support their studies. In addition, librarians who worked with students,
looked for ways for students to easily find library resources and services
online. After much discussion, it became clear to the Online Learning
Librarian (OLL) and the Director of Technical Services and Library Systems
(Library Director) that the library needed to explore ways to integrate
more with Canvas.
At the Click of a Button: Assessing the User Experience of Open Access
Finding Tools <https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/article/view/12041>
Elena Azadbakht, Teresa Schultz
A number of browser extension tools have emerged in the past decade aimed
at helping information seekers find open versions of scholarly articles
when they hit a paywall, including Open Access Button, Lazy Scholar,
Kopernio, and Unpaywall. While librarians have written numerous reviews of
these products, no one has yet conducted a usability study on these tools.
This article details a usability study involving six undergraduate students
and six faculty at a large public research university in the United States.
Participants were tasked with installing each of the four tools as well as
trying them out on three test articles. Both students and faculty tended to
favor simple, clean design elements and straightforward functionality that
enabled them to use the tools with limited instruction. Participants
familiar with other browser extensions gravitated towards tools like Open
Access Button, whereas those less experienced with other extensions
preferred tools that load automatically, such as Unpaywall.
Measuring the Impact of Digital Heritage Collections Using Google Scholar
<https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/article/view/12053>
Ángel Borrego
This study aimed to measure the impact of digital heritage collections by
analysing the citations received in scholarly outputs. Google Scholar was
used to retrieve the scholarly outputs citing Memòria Digital de Catalunya
(MDC), a cooperative, open-access repository containing digitized
collections related to Catalonia and its heritage. The number of documents
citing MDC has grown steadily since the creation of the repository in 2006.
Most citing documents are scholarly outputs in the form of articles,
proceedings and monographs, and academic theses and dissertations. Citing
documents mainly pertain to the humanities and the social sciences and are
in local languages. The most cited MDC collection contains digitized
ancient Catalan periodicals. The study shows that Google Scholar is a
suitable tool for providing evidence of the scholarly impact of digital
heritage collections. Google Scholar indexes the full-text of documents,
facilitating the retrieval of citations inserted in the text or in sections
that are not the final list of references. It also indexes document types,
such as theses and dissertations, which contain a significant share of the
citations to digital heritage collections.
Are Ivy League Libraries’ Websites ADA Compliant?
<https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/article/view/11577>
Wenfang Yang, Bin Zhao, Yan Quan Liu, Arlene Bielefield
As a doorway for users seeking information, library websites should be
accessible to all, including those who are visually or physically impaired
and those with reading or learning disabilities. In conjunction with an
earlier study, this paper presents a comparative evaluation of Ivy League
university library homepages with regard to the Americans with Disabilities
Act (ADA) mandates. Data results from WAVE and AChecker evaluations
indicate that although the error of Missing Form Labels still occurs in
these websites, other known accessibility errors and issues have been
significantly improved from five years ago.
Near-field Communication (NFC): An Alternative to RFID in Libraries
<https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/ital/article/view/11811>
Neeraj Kumar Singh
Libraries are the central agencies for the dissemination of knowledge.
Every library aspires to provide maximum opportunities to its users and
ensure optimum utilization of available resources. Hence, libraries have
been seeking technological aids to improve their services. Near-field
communication (NFC) is a type of radio-frequency technology that allows
electronics devices—such as computers, mobile phones, tags, and others—to
exchange information wirelessly across a small distance. The aim of this
paper is to explore NFC technology and its applications in modern era. The
paper will discuss potential use of NFC in the advancement of traditional
library management system.
Sincerely,
Ken Varnum, Editor
*Information Technology and Libraries <http://italjournal.org/>*
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