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Librarianship is constantly confronted with unexpected and quickly evolving sociotechnical challenges, yet the documents that define the core professional competencies for librarians are infrequently updated. Based upon survey responses collected from 383 working librarians located in the United States, we describe a set of gaps between current competency guidelines and current library realities with regard to practice, management, communication, career development, relations, and personal attributes. We argue that professional library organizations, educators, and policymakers could formulate more relevant and impactful core competency documents by deliberately integrating the on-the-ground insights of librarians’ lived experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As librarians consider ways to engage students in research, particularly those who identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), it's increasingly apparent that the transactional nature of the one-shot instructional model is inadequate for fostering thoughtful and critical discussions about information literacy and the scholarly publishing cycle. The one-shot also amplifies librarians' attendant anxieties related to quantitative data collection and capitalistic work expectations. Additionally, socially constructed ideas around time, along with narrow epistemic perspectives that center Western thought, stanch librarians' abilities to critically teach students about the research process. Incorporating autoethnography to exemplify the concepts discussed in the paper, the authors argue for a slow, relational approach that deprioritizes widget-like technical training in favor of student and librarian reflection, redresses epistemic injustices in scholarly research, and, most importantly, celebrates multiple epistemologies and expertise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This piece examines the parallels between one-shot library instruction and one-off equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) workshops. Library and Information Science/Studies (LIS) as a field problematically frames both information literacy and EDI as add-ons or afterthoughts to the work of library and information workers. This framing tells on itself when the field/profession turns to one-shots, one-off EDI workshops, or other band aid solutions to larger systemic and structural issues. Without actually "solving" anything, these types of neoliberal solutions become part of what enables and extends white supremacy's hold on LIS (Hudson, 2017; Leung & López-McKnight, 2021). What are we hoping to accomplish with the one-shot? What are we hoping to accomplish toward and with information literacy and EDI? In other words, what's the point of information literacy and EDI? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented wherein the author discusses various reports within the issue on topics, including the one-shot library instruction model, relationality and care between library instructors and students, and the essential condition for institutional reciprocity of care in education.

Many academic libraries have implemented personal librarian programs, seeking to improve relationships with students and reduce library anxiety. This pilot study, in which a personal librarian was assigned to sections of a general education course, aimed to expand upon the personal librarianship literature by assessing whether a personal librarian influences student academic outcomes and information literacy confidence. Results from the pilot suggest that the presence of and engagement with the personal librarian had minimal and not statistically significant effect on academic outcomes, but engagement with the personal librarian somewhat correlated with growth in information literacy confidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important component of the academic health librarian role is the establishment of interventions to support the development of student skills in evidence-based practice. It is important for practicing librarians to evaluate their activities to determine effectiveness and to inform decision making and best practice in librarianship. A series of six online modules was developed for a core first-year Bachelor of Nursing unit. Modules were subsequently investigated for impact on student learning of evidence-based practice by determining any correlation between students' completion of the modules and their academic performance. The level of students' interest and engagement was also examined through a survey about their experiences of and attitudes toward the modules. A positive correlation was found between module completion and attainment of higher grades by students. Feedback from the survey indicated that students engaged positively with the modules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet. So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd, Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to declining numbers of qualified applicants nationwide for librarian positions in academic libraries, the University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries, in collaboration with the University's Graduate Teacher Program, has developed a fellowship program that encourages graduate students with advanced subject or language expertise to consider careers in academic librarianship. In spring 2005, the libraries paired the first Provost's Fellows with library faculty mentors. This article details the program and collaboration between the libraries and the Graduate Teacher Program and issues a call for similar programs to be established at other academic libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data on the collection size, shelving, and usage of oversize books in the general library collection was requested using an e-mail survey targeted at fifty U.S. liberal arts college libraries. Typical size of oversize collections ranged from a few hundred to almost 200,000 volumes, with a median collection size of 6,359 and median percentage oversize of 1.6 percent. When the percentage circulation within the oversize collection was compared with the percentage circulation within the general collection, statistically significantly lower circulation was evident for oversize volumes (one-sided P=0.02), with a surprisingly small median difference of 3 percent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the manner by which librarians and graduate students from universities throughout the United States decide to enter the field of sci-tech librarianship. Factors relevant in this decision; Influence of a sci-tech background on job performance; Perceived expectations about sci-tech librarianship and their outcomes.

Editorial. Discusses the need for a paradigm in librarianship that recognizes and pays attention to the context of information as well as its contents. Behavioral and attitudinal norms prohibiting librarians from bestowing appropriate attention to content; Importance of context.