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The avIAn Archives of Iowa and Frederic Leopold

2019-05-16 , Anderson, Erin , Anderson, Erin , Kay, Anita , Reference and Instruction , University Library

The Avian Archives of Iowa Online (avIAn) is a web portal for Iowa ornithological primary sources dating from 1895-2012. The portal’s eight archival collections provide robust documentation of over one hundred years of bird study in Iowa and encompass some of the Midwest’s most influential conservationists. This presentation and database demonstration will share documents and photographs from the Frederic Leopold collection. We will learn about Leopold’s life-long study of Wood Duck populations in Iowa while simultaneously exploring the content and functionality of this new and publicly accessible digital resource. In addition, we will present background information on the project’s inception and development.

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Primo Usability Study, Spring 2018

2018-03-13 , Anderson, Linda , Anderson, Linda , University Library

New features added to Quick Search (Primo), besides the new interface, include a choice to search Partner Libraries (TRAC consortium) and a search scope choice of Library Collections + Articles; Library Collections; ISU Digital Collections; and Special Collections.

Tasks in the interview scripts were written to explore volunteers’ usual methods of searching for articles and/or books, and to see if they are aware of and use features such as Advanced Search; facets; scope dropdown inside the search box; options to save results such as email, Favorites (pin icon), citation or Endnote; Partner Libraries search; My Library Card; and if they can find items from ISU Digital Collections or Special Collections. If they are not already aware of these features, can they find them?

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Paris Belongs to Them: Friendship, Empowerment, and Good Times in Celine and Julie Go Boating

2013-02-25 , Coffey, Daniel , Coffey, Daniel , Reference and Instruction , University Library

Celine and Julie Go Boating has enough material packed into its four hours to fuel any number of critical monographs and probably a few dissertations as well.* It’s part of the movie’s charm, though, and a self-referential nod to its own exploration of the qualities of magic, that it never feels heavy, stuffed, dense, or impenetrable. For almost 40 years the movie has remained open-armed, lighthearted, and glad to have you watch it. It’s even saved a seat for you on the sofa (literally).

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Using an Interdisciplinary Approach to Teach Undergraduates Communication and Information Literacy Skills

2010 , Dinkelman, Andrea L. , Aune, Jeanine E. , Nonnecke, Gail R. , University Library , English , Horticulture

For successful and productive careers, undergraduate students need effective communication and critical thinking skills; information literacy is a substantial component in the development of these skills. Students often perceive communication courses as distinct and separate from their chosen discipline. Faculty from the Departments of English and Horticulture and the library at Iowa State University collaborated in a foundation communication course (English 250). The course incorporates five components—finding information sources; evaluating information sources; and preparing an annotated bibliography, a research paper, and a research poster—all within the context of horticulture. The objective of the collaboration was to integrate communication and information literacy concepts into English 250 and relate these concepts to the students’ discipline of horticulture. Assessment data and focus group discussions strongly validate students’ appreciation for an interdisciplinary approach to teaching communication and information literacy skills within the discipline.

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2018 Homepage Usability Summary

2018-10-01 , Anderson, Linda , Anderson, Linda , University Library

A new home page design for the ISU Library website was implemented in August 2017. This redesign was influenced by an X’s and O’s study conducted to find out which elements of the home page were deemed important and not important by study volunteers. Recommendations were to make “Floor and tier maps,” “Reserve a Library Space,” and “Hours” (display today’s hours) more visually noticeable. Although Research & Course Guides were one of the most circled items in the study, three commenters asked for a section listing information by major, so while it seems to be desired, it may not be recognizable.

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Information flows and topic modeling in corporate governance

2020-06-19 , Anderson, Marc , Kushkowski, Jeffrey , Anderson, Marc , White, Robert , Shrader, Charles , Management , University Library

Purpose – Multiple disciplines such as finance, management and economics have contributed to governance research over time. However, the full intellectual structure of the governance “field” including the exchange of knowledge across disciplines and the large variety of governance topics remains to be uncovered. To appreciate the breadth of corporate governance research, it is necessary to understand the disciplinary sources from which the research stems. This manuscript focuses on the interdisciplinary underpinnings of corporate governance research.

Design/methodology/approach – This paper employs bibliometric analysis to trace the evolution of corporate governance using articles included in the ISI Web of Science database between 1990 and 2015. Journals included in these categories encompass a full range of business disciplines and provide evidence of the multi-disciplinary nature of corporate governance. It also uncovers the topics treated by disciplines under the governance umbrella using a machine learning method called latent Dirichtlet allocation (LDA).

Findings – Corporate governance research deals with a number of strategy-related topics. Unlike strategy topics that reside in a single discipline, corporate governance crosses disciplinary boundaries and includes contributions from accounting, finance, economics, law and management. Our analysis shows that over 80% of corporate governance articles come from outside the field of management. Our LDA solution indicates that the major topics in governance research include corporate governance theory, control of family firms, executive compensation and audit committees.

Originality/value – The results illustrate that corporate governance is far more interdisciplinary than previously thought. This is an important insight for corporate governance academics and may lead to collaborative research. More importantly, this research illustrates the usefulness of LDA for investigating interdisciplinary fields. This method is easily transferable to other interdisciplinary fields and it provides a powerful alternative to existing bibliometric methods. We suggest a number of topic areas within library and information science where this method may be applied, including collection development, support for interdisciplinary faculty and basic research into emerging interdisciplinary areas.

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Iowa State University Library Assessment Plan: Fiscal Year 2020 Report

2020-09-30 , Davis, Greg , Anderson, Linda , Vega García, Susan , University Library

The Iowa State University Library Assessment Plan was developed over the course of 2017, and adopted in October of 2017. The plan provides a framework for efforts related to the creation, assembly, and analysis of library data and information. The assessment plan and supporting information related to it can be found on the Iowa State Library Assessment Website.

The assessment plan is aligned with the library’s five-year strategic plan (2015-2020) and is intended to support strategic decision-making in the library. The assessment plan’s guiding principles are:

• Data-driven: Strive to stay objective, impartial, and grounded in research and analysis.
• Impactful: Focus on the usefulness and impact of library services on users and recommend library process changes based on expertise and findings.
• Productive: Produce and promote innovative, creative, user-friendly, trustworthy, and timely products.
• Efficient: Re-purpose assessment data to support the ongoing review of library operations and tell the Library's story.
• Integrated: Help all ISUL units tell their stories and promote their services. Find and present relevant data in the most valid and effective ways.
• Open: Advance library communication and evidence-based librarianship by sharing and promoting work with the ISUL community.


At the heart of the Iowa State University Library Assessment Plan is a strategy map (Figure 1). A strategy map is a diagram that is used to document the primary strategic objectives being pursued by an organization. The strategy map provides a logic model for the strategy of the organization.

A well-designed strategy map provides a condensed (one side of one piece of paper) view of an organization’s strategic objectives. By providing a simple visual representation of the organization’s most important strategic objectives, the strategy map is useful as a tool to enable discussions within the library related to those objectives, and consideration of measured progress towards those objectives.

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Article Indexes & Databases Page Usability Study, Spring 2018

2018-04-01 , Anderson, Linda , Anderson, Linda , University Library

In June 2017, the Article Indexes & Databases (AID) link on the library website was changed from the AID pages developed in-house to the Libguides A-Z list. Also in June 2017 and also affecting article searches, Quick Search was switched to the new Primo interface. In August 2017, a new home page design was implemented.

Tasks in the interview script were written to explore volunteers’ usual methods of searching for articles, which could include using Quick Search, Google Scholar, going directly to a specific database, or using the AID page to get to a known database. Only one participant reported used the AID page to search for a new database as part of their usual routine.

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Critical Views of Leadership and the Academic Library

2018-01-01 , Brundy, Curtis , Collections and Technical Services , University Library

Critical leadership studies (CLS) is a recent branch of leadership studies that examines assumptions and issues with mainstream approaches to leadership development and research. This paper reviews three areas of criticism from CLS. First, leadership is a poorly defined and ambiguous concept. Second, mainstream approaches to leadership can be harmful to followers. And third, there is little evidence demonstrating that leadership development is effective. Next, a recent attempt at library leadership development, the Nexus Project, is examined against the three CLS leadership criticisms. And finally, suggestions from the CLS literature are offered on how to pursue organizational improvements outside the context and shadow of leadership.

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What's in a name? Decolonizing North American Indigenous Peoples subject headings in Iowa

2020-06-24 , Dieckman, Christopher , Wintermute, Harriet , Teal, Wesley , Wintermute, Harriet , Collections and Technical Services , University Library

Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) for North American Indigenous Peoples (NAIP) do not always reflect the preferred names of thosebeing described. Often, cataloging and metadata professionals are constrained by names imposed during colonization.

For example, the Meskwaki people in Iowa are classified as Fox Indians --Iowa in our library catalogs. LCSHhas established Fox Indians heading which is used for (UF) Meskwaki and other variant headings.[1] Decades of scholarship analyze library subject metadata and problematic representations of peoples and cultures. But while many authors identified issues with these library headings, few solutions have been implemented. According to a 2017 OCLCsurvey, libraries were more likely to have planned changes to metadata in library catalogs than to have implemented changes