PurposeFollowing is an overview of the open and affordable textbooks (OAT) program, strategies for outreach, as well as discuss approaches that faculty awardees have taken to designing their courses. This paper aims to address a couple issues such as the effectiveness of open educational resources (OER) resources, the process of creating OER resources and how faculty and instructors have updated their courses and adjusted their pedagogy.Design/methodology/approachThis paper describes five cases where the faculty adopted open pedagogy. They include a general chemistry course, psychiatry clerkship, microbiology lab, a medical Spanish course and a radiology elective in a medical school.FindingsThe use of open pedagogy promotes two things: up-to-date resources and practical experience. Since the creation of the Rutgers OAT program, faculty and instructors have been rethinking how they teach their courses. Students enjoy the content more and faculty loves the increase in engagement. As the program continues to grow, the creativity fostered by open pedagogy improves education for everyone involved.Originality/valueThe paper offers a general overview of an effective open and affordable program at a public research university. It demonstrated the effectiveness of the program while also offering examples of novel course materials for interested librarians and faculty. It opens the possibility from just finding resources to creating them and how they improve education.

Purpose The paper aims to critically examine the bibliographic utility as a roadmap to increase library consortia and provide an insight into a new library consortia strategy that integrates librarians into a system of sharing both resources and knowledge. Design/methodology/approach This study adopted a literature review approach with a focus on bibliographic utility as a necessary prerequisite for effective library consortia, which is a paradigm shift from the concept of individual ownership to a collective access of distributed network resources and knowledge. Findings The reviewed literature indicated that significant bibliographic utilities and integrated library systems are factors that shaped and developed consortia activities in libraries. Originality/value The bibliographic utility has limited literature, and a few published scholarly studies have combined bibliographic utility and library consortia as strategies to share resources and knowledge

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to share the experiences and to highlight lessons learned from the establishment of the institutional repository (IR) while collaborating in a state-wide initiative to showcase the scholarly output of New Jersey researchers.Design/methodology/approachThe authors discuss how they used the case study method to collaborate with multiple stakeholders from across their university to establish an IR to support the University’s vision plan.FindingsThe authors found through strong relationship building and consistent outreach that they could launch a successful IR while enhancing the scholarly profile of their university faculty.Originality/valueThe authors contend that they have not exceeded the up to 20% overlap is okay according to Emerald’s originality policy.

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the adoption of marketing techniques in academic libraries in Ghana, and how they are applied in the promotion of their services to patrons.Design/methodology/approachAdopting the qualitative research approach, a total of 21 professional and para-professional library staff from three private universities participated in the study. The main data collection instrument was the use of semi-structured interviews. Data gathered was analysed, discussed and presented thematically.FindingsThe findings revealed that the study's participants are fully aware of the benefits of inculcating marketing activities into their daily routines and were making efforts at making their users aware of their products and services with the use of various strategies including the deployment of social media tools. Some of the challenges that were discovered to hinder the success of marketing in the libraries were lack of funds, lack of knowledge of marketing techniques by staff and a lack of marketing policy to guide marketing in the libraries.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of this study imply that, even though carried on a few academic libraries, the same can apply to most academic libraries as the characteristics are generally the same.Practical implicationsTo boost marketing initiatives in the selected university libraries, the following recommendations informed by the findings of the study are made: creation of marketing policies, increase use of social networking sites for marketing, organization of seminars and workshops on marketing, diversifying sources of funding for libraries and conducting user surveys.Social implicationsThe implementation of the recommendations has the potential to increase the level of interactions between academic libraries and their patrons as well as impact positively on the information-seeking behaviour of library patrons.Originality/valueApart from the application of works of other scholars, which have been duly cited and acknowledged, the entirety of this study or research output is the result of the handiworks of the researchers. Again, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work has not been a production of existing research nor is earlier published in any journal.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify a light and scalable augmented reality (AR) solution to enhance library collections. Design/methodology/approach The author first did research to identify the major obstacle in creating a scalable AR solution. Next, she explored possible workaround methods and successfully developed two prototypes that make the current Web-based AR work with ISBN barcode. Findings Libraries have adopted AR technology in recent years mainly by developing mobile applications for specific education or navigation programs. Yet a straight-forward AR solution to enhance a library's collection has not been seen. One of the obstacles lies in finding a scalable and painless solution to associate special AR objects with physical books. At title level, books already have their unique identifier – the ISBN number. Unfortunately, marker-based AR technology only accept two-dimensional (2-D) objects, not the one-dimensional (1-D) EAN barcode (or ISBN barcode) used by books, as markers for technical reasons. In this paper, the author shares her development of two prototypes to make the Web-based AR work with the ISBN barcode. With the prototypes, a user can simply scan the ISBN barcode on a book to retrieve related AR content. Research limitations/implications This paper mainly researched and experimented with Web-based AR technologies in the attempt to identify a solution that is as platform-neutral as possible, and as user-friendly as possible. Practical implications The light and platform-neutral AR prototypes discussed in this paper have the benefits of minimum cost on both the development side and the experience side. A library does not need to put any additional marker on any book to implement the AR. A user does not need to install any additional applications in his/her smartphone to experience the AR. The prototypes show a promising future where physical collections inside libraries can become more interactive and attractive by blurring the line of reality and virtuality. Social implications The paper can help initiate the discussion on applying Web-based AR technologies to library collections.

Author(s): Goodson, Kymberly | Abstract: The paper describes a case study in which staff at the UC San Diego Library used the Library’s 3D printing technology to develop unique solutions to a variety of facilities-related challenges.

Purpose Facebook is a social networking media that has a big share in sharing information. Therefore, the college library that aims to meet the needs of the civitas academic information utilize this social media. This study aims to determine the level of user satisfaction of Facebook library Universitas Airlangga. Design/methodology/approach The method used is descriptive quantitative approach. The research location is at Universitas Airlangga Library Surabaya, Indonesia. The sampling technique is purposive, using the criteria of the academic community of Universitas Airlangga who become an active member or visit the Facebook of social network Facebook owned library at least three times in the past one month. The number of samples in this study were 220 respondents. Findings The results of this study indicate that the level of user satisfaction on the Facebook library shows the highest is as surveillance and the level of subsequent satisfaction in a row is as social relationship, individual identity and diversion entertainment. The biggest motive utilizing the Facebook library is to search for information about the library. Practical implications In the era of booming social media Facebook for teenagers who are the largest users of college libraries, utilizing Facebook social networking media in the library is considered effective. Originality/value This area is has been rarely researched by researchers in Indonesia.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to summarise a number of presentations at Day 1 of the Internet Librarian International conference, London, UK (16 October 2018). This was the 20th conference in the series, and the three key themes included were the next-gen library and librarian; understanding users, usage and user experience; and inclusion and inspiration: libraries making a difference.Design/methodology/approachThis paper reports from the viewpoint of a first-time attendee of the conference. This summarises the main issues raised by each presentation and draws out the key learning points for practical situations.FindingsThe conference covered a variety of practical ways in which libraries can use technology to support users and make decisions about services. These include developing interactive physical spaces which include augmented reality; introducing “chat-bots” to support users; using new techniques to analyse data; and piloting new ways to engage users (such as coding clubs). A key theme was how we use and harness data in a way that is ethical, effective and relevant to library services.Originality/valueThis conference focussed on practical examples of how library and information services across sectors and countries are innovating in a period of huge change. The conference gave delegates numerous useful ideas and examples of best practice and demonstrated the strength of the profession in adapting to new technologies and developments.

PurposeThis study aims to demonstrate how librarians in Zimbabwe are promoting library and information services in a digital environment.Design/methodology/approachAn online questionnaire administered using SurveyMonkey was used to gather data from the participants who comprised 14 academic, one public, three school and three special librarians.FindingsThe study confirms that there is competition for the attention of the citizens who have social media, television, social life, work, family life, education, and so on before them. Despite the challenges being faced, librarians in the country are prepared to promote their services and are therefore using a number of strategies to promote the use of library and information services.Originality/valuePromoting library and information services is important considering the waning reading culture in Zimbabwe. The paper recommends possible ways of promoting reading culture in the digital age through the use of library and information services.