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This follow‐up report of 133 job advertisements for systems librarians in American Libraries during 1996‐1997 compares the results of a content analysis of job advertisements and a survey of employers and newly hired systems librarians. The report shows that, although a majority of employers are satisfied with their newly hired systems librarians, they indeed have higher expectations for the positions in terms of qualifications and responsibilities. There is a great gap between job advertisements and reality in regard to systems librarians’ education requirements, work experience, job responsibilities, and areas of knowledge and skills. The types of libraries, to a certain extent, influence systems librarians’ actual qualifications and job responsibilities.

The investigators examined 133 job advertisements with job title “systems librarians’‘ and other similar job titles in American Libraries from January 1996 to December 1997. Information about full‐time positions available in the United States only was collected. For examination, four variables and their components were studied: degree requirements, work experience, job responsibilities, and knowledge and skills. Based on the classified job advertisements three types of libraries were identified: academic, public and other libraries. Two follow‐up questionnaires were distributed to library directors and newly hired systems librarians of the 133 libraries. The follow‐up survey based on the two questionnaires reflects that the majority of employers are satisfied with their newly hired systems librarians. However, they have higher expectations from the positions in terms of qualifications and responsibilities. The investigators also examined the curricula of seven American LIS schools which concentrate on educating “systems librarians” to provide recommendations to the curriculum design.

The purpose of this study is to examine the development of Dataverse, a global research data management consortium. The authors examine specifically the institutional characteristics, the utilization of the associated data sets and the relevant research data management services at its participating university libraries. This evidence-based approach is essential for understanding the current state of research data management practices in the global context.

The data was collected from 67 participants’ data portals between December 1, 2020, and January 31, 2021.

Over 80% of its current participants joined the group in the past five years, 2016–2020. Thirty-three Dataverse portals have had less than 10,000 total downloads since their inception. Twenty-nine participating universities are included in three major global university ranking systems, and 18 of those university libraries offer research data services.

This project is an explorative study on Dataverse, an international research data management consortium. The findings contribute to the understanding of the current development of the Dataverse project as well as the practices at the participating institutions. Moreover, they offer insights to other global higher education institutions and research organizations regarding research data management. While this study is practical, its findings and observations could be of use to future researchers interested in developing a framework for data work in academic libraries.

An investigation of 133 job advertisements for systems librarians in American Libraries in 1996‐1997 was conducted to examine the increasingly important role that systems librarians play in the ever‐changing information environment, and to identify the knowledge, skills and qualifications of systems librarians expected by employers in various types of libraries. The results show that although systems librarians in different types of libraries may play different roles and have different emphases in their duties, the responsibility and knowledge requirements for them are generally expanding. Systems librarians are not only technology experts but also managers and coordinators. Positions for systems librarians in most academic and public libraries require at least one year of work experience. Employers expect systems librarians to have a strong computer and network background. Over two‐thirds of the position in public and academic libraries and more than half of the openings in other libraries require MLIS/MLS degrees.

The purpose of this study is to examine public library staff attitudes towards an open-source library automation system in the state of Indiana. The researchers were interested in understanding the library staff’s perceptions of the value of the system in performing their job duties and improving library services.

The researchers travelled to nine public libraries every three months to survey library staff from January to December 2010. The participants completed the surveys at the libraries and were given the option to remain anonymous. The survey consisted of six questions regarding the use of the Evergreen system for work processes and basic demographic information of the staff. There were a total of 323 survey respondents. Of the 323 respondents, 57 (17.65 per cent) used the Evergreen system in their daily work routines at the library.

The primary benefits reported were: ability to check the availability of library materials at other Evergreen libraries via the shared catalogue, the Evergreen system provided more functionality than their previous library automation systems and the ability to reserve materials for patrons.

This was a convenience sample. All survey participants provided their responses voluntarily during the 12-month study period. A more comprehensive sampling procedure should be considered in the future.

The study indicated the need for improvements in the Evergreen Indiana system. Those improvements were also relevant to other open-source integrated library systems.

The purpose of this project is to study how art museum practitioners use current image‐indexing practices and services to retrieve images from museum collections. The investigation examines several areas, including image needs, information‐seeking strategies, information queries, search functions, display formats, and human‐computer interaction.

The six participating museums are in Washington, DC, and the states of California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio. The investigator interviewed 35 museum practitioners in various departments at the six museums about their image sources, search behaviors, and use of images.

Wide variations and internal conflicts exist among curators, IT staff, slide librarians, registrars' offices, educational staff, faculty, and photographers. Museum practitioners' knowledge and expertise should inform the design and presentation of digital images of museum collections as well as the images' relationships with the construction of digital museums.

Digital technologies have pushed museum practitioners to initiate organizational changes to accommodate the effects of technology. Museums' digital images and their relevant information are the foundation of the digital museums. Museums must incorporate a re‐examination of their roles in the digital age. An ideal digital museum is not just an online version of the museum, if that is achievable, or an online catalog of museum collections with pictures. It is also a resource that must be founded upon museum practitioners' expertise and professional practices.

This purpose of this paper is to investigate whether higher education instructors use information from Wikipedia for teaching and research.

This is an explorative study to identify important factors regarding user acceptance and use of emerging information resources and technologies in the academic community. A total of 201 participants around the world answered an online questionnaire administered by a commercial provider. The questionnaire consisted of 16 Likert‐scaled questions to assess participants' agreement with each question along with an optional open‐ended explanation.

The findings of this project confirm that internet access was related to faculty technology use. Online resources and references were ranked the first choice by the participants when searching for familiar and unfamiliar topics. The investigator found that participants' academic ranking status, frequency of e‐mail use and academic discipline were related to their use of online databases, web‐based information and directing students to information from the Web. Although the participants might often use online resources for research and teaching, Wikipedia's credibility was the participants' major concern.

This project is an exploratory study and more considerations are needed for this research area.

The paper shows that participants who used online databases more often showed a negative attitude toward Wikipedia. Those participants who used Wikipedia for teaching and research also allowed students to use information from Wikipedia and were more likely to be contributors to Wikipedia.

This paper seeks to investigate how to use a web analytics tool to conduct deep analysis of users' web behaviors. This study aims to focus on examining whether the types of traffic sources and temporal fluctuation influence the web visitors' performance on the web portal of a K‐12 resource inventory.

One year's data were collected via the Advanced Segmentation function of Google Analytics. To compare visitors' behavior from different types of traffic recourses with the intervention of temporal effect, clickstream data of three visitor segments were collected.

Traffic sources and temporal effect have been found to influence web site visitors' performance interactively. Search engines seemed good at bringing a significantly large amount of traffic to the eThemes site, but most visitors are likely “information encounters”. However, visitors from direct traffic (bookmark/typed URLs) seemed to visit the eThemes site purposefully – stay for a long time on the site and view more web pages. Additionally, loyal users of the site seemed to employ the eThemes site as an everyday life information source.

This study introduces a strategic approach to study and analyzes web site visitors' behavior longitudinally. The findings of this study contribute to loyal user behavior identification. Empirical evidence has been found to support the correlational relationship between traffic sources, the temporal factor, and Key Performance Identifiers of a site.

The purpose of this one‐year longitudinal study is to examine the usage and production of educational videos on YouTubeEDU, an open, video‐sharing, educational area of YouTube established in 2009 and used primarily by institutions of higher education. The aim of the YouTubeEDU project is to provide free global access to higher education videos. Analysis from a library science perspective is valuable to further development of YouTubeEDU.

From August 2010 to July 2011, the top 50 video clips were recorded monthly. YouTubeEDU loosely arranged clips according to the number of site visits and classified them into 13 disciplines: business, education, engineering, fine arts and design, health and medicine, history, humanities, journalism and media, law, literature, mathematics, science, and social science. Analysis of subject area and content correspondence was conducted using YouTubeEDU‐assigned, creator‐defined, and study‐specific attributes.

The majority of top videos per month were university public relations materials. Overall, 40 percent of the videos were academically‐oriented; English is the predominant language. Even some videos contributed by non‐English‐speaking higher education institutions were in English. The researchers also discovered misclassification of videos in several disciplines.

Based on the researchers' monthly observations, future collaboration with the YouTubeEDU project is needed to collect comprehensive data regarding worldwide visitor traffic and higher education video contributions.

Many areas needed improvement in the YouTubeEDU project; the proposed changes would ensure that the quality and utility of videos meet the standards of higher education institutions while embracing the needs of global learners.

This study aims to investigate an online font library, Identifont, which presents a series of questions to interact with users and assists them in finding fonts. This font‐locating approach is unique from other current online font libraries.

The investigators recruited 35 graduate and undergraduate students from several design‐related academic programs at the University of Texas at Austin from September 2004 to April 2005. The participants were given six tasks to accomplish with Identifont based on provided character sets.

The data analysis suggested that a logical process of finding fonts can be identified. This computer‐mediated process, if reflected in the order and substance of the questions provided by a font‐locating tool, can help users perform their jobs more easily and efficiently. However, participants also stated that the tool was not very useful with a small subset of text characters and it led to several possible typefaces, instead of just one. Based on the findings of the project, fulfilling such a gap between missing characters and the question‐answer approach of the font‐locating tools is the next step for system improvement of the tools.

Identifont presents an innovative way to locate fonts, and this study aims to test its effectiveness from an end user perspective. The analysis provides a detailed understanding about Identifont and establishes a research ground for a large‐scale study on other search functions.