This paper reports on student perspectives on access to online information resources when conducting an initial search for a school project. Through thematic analysis and user vignettes based on data from 175 students in elementary through graduate school, this paper explores how students determine whether they have access to online information resources, the barriers and enablers they attend to when pursuing access, and the characteristics that influence this process. Results reveal that resource previews, university and library branding, and the word download are generally viewed as enablers of access, while payment cues, learned heuristics around brands and formats, and the need to take extra steps to obtain the full text were barriers that often prevent students from trying to get access even when resources were available to them. Potential influences on individual capacity are also revealed, including experience in high- or low-availability information environments, ability to manage the complex cognitive load of determining access alongside other types of point-of-selection evaluation, a variety of dispositions related to information seeking, and situational factors related to the importance of the information need to the individual. While library staff work diligently to make online resources available, this does not automatically result in students’ ability to access those resources. This paper provides evidence to better equip library professionals for constructing their online information systems, collaborating with information providers about their online information systems, and teaching students about converting availability to access.

Assessing content use and reuse is a considerable challenge for gallery, library, archives, museum, and repository (GLAMR) digital library practitioners. While a number of digital object content use studies focus on quantitative approaches to assessment, including digital object downloads, views, and visits, little research has investigated the ways in which digital repository materials are utilized and repurposed. The Digital Content Reuse Assessment Framework Toolkit, or D-CRAFT, addresses some of these gaps by providing assessment methods, ethical considerations and guidelines, tutorials, and "how to" templates to assist practitioners in understanding how digital objects are used and reused by various audiences. The toolkit enhances and advances the typical digital library use assessment approaches. As such, this paper argues that D-CRAFT can play a critical role in assisting GLAMR digital library practitioners in reuse assessment data collection.

This paper explores the challenges of achieving General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance in library management systems (LMSes) by integrating our novel TeMDA framework into BISIS. BISIS is an LMS used in more than 60 libraries in Serbia. We employed a case study conducted in collaboration between the selected BISIS and TeMDA developers, all authors of this paper. We maintained and presented a detailed development diary to provide insights for other developers seeking GDPR compliance in LMSes. The study provides a practical solution for LMSes to ensure GDPR compliance with minimal effort. The description of the development process, accompanied by listings, tables, and diagrams, can assist LMS developers in determining whether the proposed approach is suitable for them. To the best of our knowledge, this paper presents the first detailed case study on integrating a GDPR compliance framework into an LMS.

Current metadata creation for web archives is time consuming and costly due to reliance on human effort. This paper explores the use of GPT-4o for metadata generation within the Web Archive Singapore, focusing on scalability, efficiency, and cost effectiveness. We processed 112 Web ARChive (WARC) files using data reduction techniques, achieving a notable 99.9% reduction in metadata generation costs. By prompt engineering, we generated titles and abstracts, which were evaluated both intrinsically using Levenshtein distance and BERTScore, and extrinsically with human cataloguers using McNemar’s test. Results indicate that while our method offers significant cost savings and efficiency gains, human curated metadata maintains an edge in quality. The study identifies key challenges including content inaccuracies, hallucinations, and translation issues, suggesting that large language models (LLMs) should serve as complements rather than replacements for human cataloguers. Future work will focus on refining prompts, improving content filtering, and addressing privacy concerns through experimentation with smaller models. This research advances the integration of LLMs in web archiving, offering valuable insights into their current capabilities and outlining directions for future enhancements. The code is available at https://github.com/masamune-prog/warc2summary for further development and use by institutions facing similar challenges.

This paper presents a case study about opportunities for libraries to elevate reporting on their organization's financial status, transactions, and available funds using data visualization, specifically with Power BI, based on work at University of Oregon Libraries. The Power BI dashboard aggregates data from the university’s financial system and integrated library system to provide a consolidated view, and to tell the library's story in a more engaging way. The author proposes using this type of business intelligence technology to provide a transformative impact on financial operations of libraries.

The British Library is a flagship library that plays a pivotal role in the UK learning and research infrastructure, in addition to being a central conduit for international library linkages. However, in late October 2023, this premier institution was the subject of a cyberattack that has left it crippled. The Rhysida group perpetrated this catastrophic ransomware attack. Underfunding and threat identification are explored as potential weaknesses resulting in deficiencies in the British Library’s online security systems. To help prevent further such assaults in libraries, this Commentary also details what is known about the attack and how such breaches might be prevented in the future.

This column presents a case study exploring innovative approaches to digital librarianship within a distance learning Higher Education institution based in the UK. Key initiatives included asynchronous information literacy instruction, Python scripts for auditing course materials for broken links and copyright compliance, and management of physical extracts via a digital content store. It examines the challenges of building an online library service, balancing learner-centric practice with efficiency and cost-effectiveness. The study analyses the work done and presents future initiatives, offering insights and sharing practices for solo or small team librarians navigating the evolving landscape of both distance and face-to-face education.

The Europeana digital library features cultural heritage collections from over 3,000 European institutions described in 37 languages. However, most textual metadata describe the records in a single language, the data providers’ language. Improving Europeana’s multilingual accessibility presents challenges due to the unique characteristics of cultural heritage metadata, often expressed in short phrases and using in-domain terminology. This work presents the EuropeanaTranslate project’s approach and results, aimed at translating Europeana metadata records from 23 EU languages into English. Machine Translation engines were trained on a cleaned selection of bilingual and synthetic data from Europeana, including multilingual vocabularies and relevant cultural heritage repositories. Automatic translations were evaluated through standard metrics and human assessments by linguists and domain cultural heritage experts. The results showed significant improvements when compared to the generic engines used before the in-domain training as well as the eTranslation service for most languages. The EuropeanaTranslate engines have translated over 29 million metadata records on Europeana.eu. Additionally, the MT engines and training datasets are publicly available via the European Language Grid Catalogue and the ELRC-SHARE repository.

This essay reviews the design and deployment of a critical generative AI and information literacy assignment along with its inspirations for instructional librarians in American colleges today.

The editors of Information Technology and Libraries provide an update on Editorial Board activities and summarize the content of the March 2024 issue.