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AI chatbots have recently received great attention due to the advancement of large language models, such as OpenAI's GPT series and Google's Gemini, which have shown excellent performance and applicability. Therefore, many academic libraries endeavor to integrate AI chatbots into their services. The University of Oklahoma (OU) Libraries started an AI chatbot project in 2017, ahead of most other academic libraries, and developed an original AI chatbot. In July 2019, OU Libraries launched an AI chatbot service using Ivy.ai, which utilized cutting-edge technology at the time. The chatbot service, launched before COVID-19, continued to operate even when the OU Libraries was closed due to the pandemic and remained operational until recently, providing valuable log data recording interactions between users and AI chatbots over the past few years. This study used mixed methods to investigates (a) how the AI chatbot has been implemented at the OU Libraries, (b) the usage patterns of OU Libraries’ AI chatbot, and (c) how users of OU Libraries’ AI chatbot evaluate its performance by exploring the important factors influencing users’ chatbot evaluation and questions the chatbot was unable to provide answers. The study provides practical recommendations for institutions planning to implement AI chatbots, and also lays the foundation for future research on AI chatbot technology to improve library services.

Introduction: Professional development is an important aspect of working practices for academic librarians. In the past decades the academic library has been subjected to an enormous range of technological and cultural advancements that have constantly required its staff to develop their professional knowledge and understanding. One of the most recent revolutions has been the advent of social media. This advent of a new technology can provide challenges and opportunities but to fully understand these we need to analyse the relationship between social media and various context in more depth. Method: This inductive grounded theory study was iteratively conducted in three different academic libraries in England. At each location an analysis of the social media in use both organisationally and individually was made, and a purposefully selected number of actors was interviewed to gain a deeper understanding of their ideas about social media, CPD and the potential to learn from social media. Findings: The findings demonstrate that the managerial view of CPD is not necessarily compatible with the perception, or needs, of practitioners in relation to their professional development. To increase understanding of this domain, the study analysed the underlying factors related to both social media use and perception, and participation in and perception of professional development. This has led to the discovery of a theory that can be summarised as Continuous Professional Adaptation is learning that occurs as a consequence of professional awareness and preparedness through the use of informal networks. Outcome: The grounded theory presented in this document demonstrates a need to expand the dialogue on professional development in academic libraries, in both an academic and practical context, based on the advent of social media. Formal development in the shape of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is still regarded as the most relevant method of developing human resources due to the prevalence of a managerial approach to professional development. Conclusion: Increasingly academics and practitioners require more than the formal approach to professional development which can be classed as increasingly being irrelevant due to practical limitations of delivery time and mode and speed of changes occurring. This research contributes to that dialogue, providing a unique approach by incorporating social media with professional development.

This study applies the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) framework for eScience professionals to data service positions in academic libraries. Understanding the KSAs needed to provide data services is of crucial concern. The current study looks at KSAs of data professionals working in the United States academic libraries. An exploratory sequential mixed method design was adopted to discover the KSAs. The study was divided into two phases, a qualitative content analysis of 260 job advertisements for data professionals for Phase 1, and distribution of a self-administered online survey to data professionals working in academic libraries research data services (RDS) for Phase 2. The discovery of the KSAs from the content analysis of 260 job ads and the survey results from 167 data professionals were analyzed separately, and then Spearman rank order correlation was conducted in order to triangulate the data and compare results. The results from the study provide evidence on what hiring managers seek through job advertisements in terms of KSAs and which KSAs data professionals find to be important for working in RDS. The Spearman rank order correlation found strong agreement between job advertisement KSAs and data professionals perceptions of the KSAs.

Scholarly and scientific communication has a long history, while the Open Access (OA) movement began to take part in this communication with the emergence of Internet in the late 1960s and the web that emerged in mid-1990s. OA is beneficial for sharing knowledge because the OA movement demands scholarly literature freely available on the internet and it is free of most licensing restriction copyright. OA will close the barrier of access to knowledge. The OA movement in Indonesia may be considered slow. So far, only 33 academic libraries have registered their repositories with OpenDOAR, which is still small compared to the total number of HE institutions in Indonesia. Those 33 OARs vary in the stages of development. Some have already had large size of contents, while others are still developing. Using Weiner’s theory of organizational readiness for change, this mixed method investigates the readiness of academic librarians for Open Access Repository implementation. The results show that academic librarians in Indonesia are somewhat familiar with OA and OAR. However, their understanding of OA is still limited to the technical nature of it. They also know the benefits of OA in relation to scholarly communication and are ready to implement OAR, but the implementation was mostly based on the goal of achieving a specific rank in the world-class university ranking and Webometrics. They implemented Open Access Repositories with limited technological infrastructure, skills, and limited knowledge of OA.

Women majoring in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields are few in number. This research will be conducted in an effort to understand the use of academic library resources and services by undergraduate women in the STEM fields. Data collection methods consisted of three focus groups and five interviews with undergraduate women in the STEM fields, and three focus groups and two interviews with academic librarians and library staff familiar with library resources and services in each of the STEM fields conducted at a Research I University in the USA. Grounded theory principles provided a basis for the analysis of the collected conversations. The findings from this study indicate that the academic library is providing support to undergraduate women in STEM because they depend on and use the physical space. However, the undergraduate women in STEM want more support from faculty and staff in their departments. A collaborative effort is need from the undergraduate women in STEM, faculty and staff and the librarians in order to provide the support that is needed.

This study explored how undergraduate library student workers at an urban, 4-year public institution perceived their work experiences in an academic library as contributing to their social and academic integration in college. Tinto's (1993) model on student departure formed the basis for this study where academic and social integration work together to influence institutional commitments ultimately leading to the decision to remain or leave the college. Undergraduate library student workers from various library departments were interviewed and it is from these interviews that a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of an academic library's effect on undergraduate library student workers was gained. The study revealed that the undergraduate library student workers perceived experiencing many socially integrative and academically integrative experiences which they would not have had were they not employed in an academic library. After the data are discussed, the theoretical implications, policy implications, and suggestions for further research are offered.

This case study of the Ohio Private College Libraries (OPAL) consortium, 1998-2007, explored how OPAL participants interpreted the concept of organizational agility through the collaborative leadership activities of structuring and agenda setting. As a complete insider, I combined the qualitative research strategies of personal journaling, participant observation, document analysis, and participant interviews in a process of heuristic inquiry to discover why OPAL had not expanded its agenda beyond its shared integrated library system (ILS). OPAL was formed by OHIONET so that small college libraries could afford a high-quality ILS for the purposes of library management, resource sharing, and related activities. Research findings showed that participants shared leadership power through decision-making on structure and a complementary agenda to shape OPAL incrementally from an informal roundtable to a formal hierarchy of large committees. The consortium participants also transformed from a group eager to add many shared services to a group focused intensely on the ILS as one clear and strongly supported group purpose. Their shared decisions about structuring had the leadership effect of a close interpretation of the OPAL mission statement in the context of a complex library environment. I concluded that OPAL demonstrated organizational agility primarily through changes in structure that sharpened participant focus on the processes of sharing the ILS. Implications of the research were as follows: (a) Although well-organized, strongly supported, and agile, OPAL remained temporary, given its dependence on voluntary member support in an environment of unpredictable change. The lifespan of OPAL depended on sustaining participants’ agreement that the OPAL collaboration was providing their local libraries with unique and high priority advantages that justified ongoing investment of local funds and human resources. The broader and very advantageous environment was an important factor in members’ shared decisions about supporting OPAL. (b) The process of OPAL structuring demonstrated the characteristics of organizational leadership for agility identified by previous researchers. (c) The use of the process of structuring as an OPAL shared leadership activity differed from findings of researchers of social services consortia, in which structure was established early in consortium formation as a platform for other shared leadership strategies.

An academic library's quality has traditionally been determined by the size of its collections, expenditures, and operating budget. However, recent calls have suggested improving the evaluation of an academic library's quality by assessing its impact on student outcomes. This study tests a new model of academic library impact that takes into account the relationships between undergraduates' academic library experiences and critical thinking suggested by extant research. The conceptual framework was derived from four sets of literature: (1) literature on the relationship between undergraduates' library activities and critical thinking, (2) literature on undergraduates' library activities, (3) literature on background characteristics and college experiences that are related to undergraduates' critical thinking, and (4) literature on college impact theories and models. The two measures of critical thinking were self-reports on the College Student Experiences Questionnaire (CSEQ) and objective scores on the Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP) critical thinking test. These instruments were part of data obtained from the National Study of Student Learning (NSSL), a longitudinal, multi-institutional study sponsored by the National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning and Assessment (NCTLA). Only data from the 1,046 undergraduates who participated in all waves of the data collection were included in the secondary analyses. Results of regression analyses indicated that academic library experiences during the freshman and sophomore years were not related to either subjective or objective estimates of their critical thinking. Freshman and junior year academic library experiences were related to self-reported gains in critical thinking on the CSEQ during the junior year. While there was a relationship between self-reported critical thinking and academic library experiences, the significance levels were low. In addition to academic library experiences, other variables were related to self-reported critical thinking. Outcomes attributed to peer interactions, writing term papers, active learning and engaged writing activities were directly and indirectly related to self-reported critical thinking. Student-faculty interactions were indirectly related to self-reported critical thinking. Although this study provides evidence of a relationship between academic library experiences and self-reported critical thinking, future research is needed to explore the nature of undergraduates' library use and its relationship with other cognitive educational outcomes.

The primary purpose of this study was to determine if book reviews are useful and significant indicators of potential circulation. Major book reviewing sources were studied to determine if some were more useful than others in selecting books which circulate.