The June 2025 issue of the open-access journal Information Technology and Libraries (ITAL) is now available. This issue contains the following peer-reviewed articles:
“Leveraging Innovative Technologies for Improved Library Practices in the Digital Era: The Nigerian Perspective” (Rebecca Chidimma Ojobor, Victoria N. Okafor, and Richard N Ugwuanyi) highlights the challenges and opportunities of libraries in a developing country.
“Simplifying and Enhancing Access to Full-Text Articles with LibKey Discovery” (Jessie London, Barbara McArthur, Kimberly Vardeman, and Cynthia L. Henry) discusses the implementation of LibKey in a discovery environment and how users responded.
“Irrelevant Discovery Layers? An Evidence-based Evaluation of Three Common Library Search Tools” (Ruth Szpunar, Eric Bradley, Erin Gabrielson, and Catherine Pellegrino) compares search results from a discovery layer with a central index, a subscription interdisciplinary index and abstract database, and a freely accessible academic web search engine.
“Weaving the Threads of Bibliographic Ontologies: Application of a Reference Ontology to Advance Semantic Interoperability” (Helena Patrício, Pedro Nogueira Ramos, and Maria Inês Cordeiro) shows how a Reference Ontology could allow the integration of different ontologies without imposing a common central one to overcome limitations of mapping techniques.
“Web Archives Metadata Generation with GPT-4o: Challenges and Insights” (Ashwin Nair, Abigail Huang YongPing, Zhen Rong Goh, and Tianrui Liu) explores how GPT-4o was used to generate metadata for Web Archives (WARC) files.
“Prospects of Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) for Academic Library Search and Retrieval” (Ravi Varma Kumar Bevara, Brady D. Lund, Nishith Reddy Mannuru, Sai Pranathi Karedla, Yara Mohammed, Sai Tulasi Kolapudi, and Aashrith Mannuru) examines the integration of Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) systems within academic library environments.
This issue also has our regular contributed columns:
- From the Field: “Starting up a Digital Preservation (Pilot) Program” (Kimberly Hoffman) describes how Hamilton College started a project to pilot Archivematica, a digital preservation platform.
- ITAL &…: “Learning, Listening, and Leading: A Systems Librarian’s First Year” (Amber Wu) reflects on the experience of starting as a Systems Librarian after that position was vacant for an extended time.
- Public Libraries Leading the Way: “Ready Year One: Lessons Learned During Our First Year in Virtual Reality” (Dalton Bennett) chronicles the first year of establishing a Virtual Reality (VR) program at the Paul Sawyier Public Library in Frankfort, Kentucky.
