The June 2023 issue of Information Technology and Libraries (ITAL) was published last month.
Later this summer, ITAL is moving to a new provider. Other than the journal’s URLs, nothing is changing. Now and in the future, https://italjournal.org/ will get you to the journal’s front page. If you would like to receive an email when the September 2023 issue is published at our new location, create a user account by going to our current user registration page. Make sure you check the “Yes, I would like to be notified of new publications and announcements” box near the bottom of the sign-up page. When the September issue is available, you will be among the first to know. For more details about what will, and will not, change as a result of this move, please see the March 2023 Letter from the Editors.
This issue includes the next in our ongoing Public Libraries Leading the Way series, “Community-Driven Programming: Offering Coding and Robotics Classes in Your Library” by Mary Carrier. This column highlights the author’s experience creating a coding club for kids and teens at the Schenectady, New York, Mohawk Valley Library System.
Peer-reviewed articles in this issue are:
In 2021, alongside seven colleges at the University of Idaho campus, the University of Idaho Library received an eGlass system (https://eglass.io) with funding from the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Grant to expand faculty’s capacity to create instructional videos. The eGlass is a transparent glass whiteboard that allows instructors to write, draw, and annotate. It comes with a built-in camera that can capture instructors’ facial expressions and gestures while facing their remote students and allow better engagement. The eGlass is suitable for creating asynchronous instructional videos for flipped classrooms and integrating Zoom for synchronous online classes. This article details the eGlass equipment setup, studio space optimization, outreach efforts and initiatives, usage examples of early adopters, lessons learned during the first year of the eGlass deployment, and future considerations.
Technology Integration in Storytime Programs: Provider Perspectives / Maria Cahill, Erin Ingram, and Soohyung Joo
Technology use is widespread in the lives of children and families, and parents and caregivers express concern about children’s safety and development in relation to technology use. Children’s librarians have a unique role to play in guiding the technology use of children and families, yet little is known about how public library programs facilitate children’s digital literacy. This study sought to uncover librarians’ purposes for using technology in programs with young children as well as the supporting factors and barriers they encountered in attempting to do so. Findings reveal 10 purposes for integrating technology into public library storytime programs and 15 factors across four dimensions that facilitate and/or inhibit its inclusion. If librarians are to embrace the media mentor role with confidence and the necessary knowledge and skills required of the task, much greater attention should be devoted to the responsibility and more support in the way of professional development and resources is necessary.
A Tale of Two Tools: Comparing LibKey Discovery to Quicklinks in Primo VE / Jill K. Locascio and Dejah Rubel
Consistent delivery of full-text content has been a challenge for libraries since the development of online databases. Library systems have attempted to meet this challenge, but link resolvers and early direct linking tools often fell short of patron expectations. In the last several years, a new generation of direct linking tools has appeared, two of which will be discussed in this article: Third Iron’s LibKey Discovery and Quicklinks by Ex Libris, a Clarivate company. The way we configured our discovery interface, a resource cannot receive both the LibKey and Quicklinks PDF links. These two direct linking tools were chosen because they were both relatively new to the market in April 2021 when this analysis took place and they can both be integrated into Primo VE, the library discovery system of choice at the authors’ home institutions of SUNY College of Optometry and Ferris State University. Through analysis of the frequency of direct links, link success rate, and number of clicks, this study may help determine which product is most likely to meet your patrons’ needs.
Contributing to the Journal
We invite all readers to contribute to the journal. If you are involved in any aspect of libraries—we consider this an inclusive scope, including cultural memory institutions such as museums, archives, and more—we welcome submissions for peer-reviewed articles or communications. Information Technology and Libraries is proud to be diamond open access — that is, it is free to read for all, charges no article processing fees to authors or their institutions, and content is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Want to know more? See our Call for Submissions. If you have questions or wish to bounce ideas off the editor and assistant editor, please contact either of us at the email addresses below.
If you have questions or want to learn more about publishing with ITAL, please contact either the journal’s Editor (Ken Varnum, varnum@umich.edu) or Assistant Editor (Marisha Kelly, marisha.librarian@gmail.com).
