Jenny S. Bossaller

University of Missouri | Mizzou · School of Information Science and Learning Technologies

This content analysis of wellness-related library programs and programming materials seeks to discover the perception of larger bodies within library health programming. Fatphobia or sizeism is prevalent in the wellness industry and within healthcare. Libraries are trusted resources for health information. Informed by the fields of fat studies, we...

Because of awe's properties as a knowledge emotion, awe elicitors can increase awareness of knowledge gaps, boost scientific interest, and promote inquiry. However, the relationship between awe and exploratory behavior, such as information seeking, remains unclear. Using a multi‐method approach, this study asked how and to what extent awe fosters i...

This article provides an overview of the recorded history of information associations, focusing especially on the Association for Information Science and Technology. Discussions with the archivists of three other professional associations about their beginnings, services, and funding provide the framework. While there are firm legal guidelines for...

This poster problematizes selected presentations and outcomes of an IFLA satellite conference on the history of professional organizations of librarians and information scientists. Representatives from organizations, including ASIST and library associations around the world from four continents (Europe, North America, Asia, Africa) will meet at the...

Interest in the intersection of health research and education and LIS research and education has perhaps never been higher. 2023 opened with a special issue of Library Quarterly on the topic of “Libraries Confronting Pandemic Disinformation,” and on February 2, 2023, Reference Services Review published “Libraries advancing health equity: a literatu...

Co-sponsored by the Information Policy and Information Ethics special interest groups (SIGs), this proposal is for a pair of traditional 90-minute speaker panels, facilitated by the respective SIG convenors and supporting interlocutors, which will address the contested nature of the public in policy and implications for educators, including the ALI...

Public librarians across the United States found themselves in different political environments that challenged their ability to serve their communities, to provide the information that was needed, and to fight disinformation regarding the pandemic. Researchers at the University of Missouri examined how and what librarians communicated to the publi...

In the ALISE 2020 Strategic Planning Survey, members were asked about their participation in ALISE Special Interest Groups (SIG). The survey results highlighted some important challenges, as approximately two-thirds of membership reported not being actively involved in SIGs, citing a lack of awareness of SIGs as an impediment to participation (Hirs...

This paper engages in a critical review of information literacy practices as manifest through materials shared publicly on the ACRL Sandbox. Focusing primarily on the frames “Authority is Contested and Constructed,” and “Scholarship as Conversation,” we analyze lesson plans shared on the ACRL Sandbox that address those frames, including the positio...

During the COVID‐19 pandemic of 2020–2021, public library leaders across the United States were forced to make decisions quickly that affected the services and resources they were able to provide. However, the health information they had to make decisions on was imperfect and constantly changing. Interviews with 23 public library managers and direc...

The COVID-19 pandemic propelled organizations to adopt virtual work settings around the world, and libraries were no exception. This article presents findings of interviews with leaders from eight public library systems about their transition to virtual work settings during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings include changes in librarians’ teams an...

This paper presents findings from an interview study of research data managers in academic data archives. Our study examined policies and professional autonomy with a focus on dilemmas encountered in everyday work by data managers. We found that dilemmas arose at every stage of the research data lifecycle, and legacy data presents particularly vexi...

Opioid use disorder (OUD) is a medical condition that has evolved into a serious and deadly epidemic in the United States. Both medical and psychological interventions are called for to end this growing epidemic, but too few health care professionals are trained to treat OUD. One proven model of training physicians and cross-disciplinary teams in t...

Describing fiction is notoriously problematic. One aspect of this is the designation “genre” which can mean different things to different communities involved in the book trade, such as publishers/authors, readers, and information professionals. Using sources created by all three (i.e., ProQuest and New York Times Book Review, Library of Congress b...

Subject headings and genre terms are notoriously difficult to apply, yet are important for fiction. The current project functions as a proof of concept, using a text-mining methodology to identify affective information (emotion and tone) about fiction titles from professional book reviews as a potential first step in automating the subject analysis...

Research data is an asset. Researchers may be required to provide access to their data by scientific funders or academic journals and deposit their data in archives. Managers of archives are guided by principles, policies, and the law when curating and providing access to data. Practices around data storage and access, however, are not always cut a...

Spiteri and Pecoskie (2018) proposed a taxonomy of terms to describe emotion and tone in novels. We tested those terms against 5,144 full‐text book reviews from the New York Times Book Review to discover whether the proposed terms were used in published reviews to describe books, and of those terms used, which were most used. The objective of this...

This article describes a faculty response to two challenges of online education: diversity engagement and professional socialization. Reviewing the literature, we develop a rubric to help assess the potential of new assignments for meeting these challenges. Using that rubric, we assess several assignments and projects that students evaluated positi...

This study describes interviews with rural and urban public librarians from three continents. The interviews sought to bring a greater understanding of current practices, limitations, and efforts to expand access to electronic materials through libraries, focusing on the local context. Basing questions on previous literature, we sought insight from...

Much of library design is practical, out of necessity. Librarians contend with myriad changes in how space is utilized due to technologies and expectations of its users. In ‘the age of distraction,’ the library might still offer a sole space of respite for many users. This paper describes studies from architecture and interior design that may help...

Aspects of storytelling may be leveraged to foster greater motivation in student research projects. Recognizing this possibility, the following mixed‐method pilot study explores the effects of reading creative nonfiction on student inquiry within an information literacy (IL) course to spark interest in their topic. Participants reported time‐on‐tas...

Video game users have shown strong interests in having subject metadata to find games. However, creating and maintaining subject metadata is costly and difficult. This study explores the utility of an automated approach for generating subject metadata for video games, focusing on plot and narrative. By comparing two methods to analyze the reviews—q...

With the view of scholarly and professional publishing as a staple of educating global information professionals, this interactive engagement session (IES) will bring together an international team of five educators/former and current LIS journal editors to reflect on the highs and lows of engaging Masters students in the process of scholarly commu...

Researchers in developing countries are more likely to publish in predatory journals (Xia et al., 2015). This study investigates the understanding that research scientists in Ghana, a developing country, have about predatory journals and their publishing practices. Using a mixed methods approach, research scientists within one cluster of research o...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to build upon the studies of journalism from an LIS perspective by exploring and differentiating the purposive behavior of newspaper reporters from their serendipitous encounters with information that lead to new story ideas. This paper also provides a path toward pedagogical improvements in training the modern...

How do readers describe multicultural fiction works? While in library and information science (LIS) we have the language of appeal factorsand genre trendsto describe works of fiction, these linguistic choices may not be used by readers to describe their own responses and reactions to works that provide cultural affirmation of one’s own culture or e...

Qualitative secondary analysis (QSA) is a method that has been used in other disciplines and debated from epistemological and ethical perspectives. It has rarely been explicitly used or discussed in information science. This paper explains value of the method for information science research, discussing its benefits and challenges and analyzing our...

This article presents findings from a survey and interviews with public librarians about intellectual property (IP) in makerspaces. The libraries had a variety of different makerspaces, including high-tech (3D printers and software), low-tech (Legos and craft supplies), and production spaces. Results found that librarians tend to show patrons where...

Scientific work is time‐consuming and expensive. However, after data has been collected and reports have been written, science becomes an information problem. There are thousands of journals and funding agencies across specialized disciplines with different requirements for data transparency. Science‐focused domains substantiate research findings t...

This article describes the results of a systematic review of peer‐reviewed, published research articles about discovery layers, user‐friendly interfaces or systems that provide single‐search box access to library content. Focusing on articles in LISTA published 2009–2013, a set of 80 articles was coded for community of users, journal type, research...

Public libraries depend on public support for their existence. This essay asks, What can and should public librarians do to contribute to civic education? It discusses librarianship, politics and neutrality, and funding. It looks to public statements of librarians in the immediate aftermath of the election, then turns back to what librarians were d...

Library directors are part of the infrastructure of information management, but how well do they manage their institutional knowledge for succession planning? Our study looked at strategies to ease managerial transitions between libraries, focusing on knowledge management, communities of practice, and mentorship. Our survey found that succession pl...

This article explores cognitively just, reliable subject access to indigenous knowledge through knowledge organization systems (KOSs). Cognitive justice requires that indigenous people be able to access materials in a way that respects their worldview, yet dominant KOSs are based on positivist, Western approaches that are fundamentally incompatible...

What did librarians prior to the LBR think aboutcensorship in libraries? This poster presents lists andbibliographies as representations of professionalethics in conflict, reflecting an ingrained sense ofobligation to protect the public, and a growing sensethat censorship is undesirable or wrong.Que pensaient les bibliothécaires, avant laDéclaratio...

How should libraries classify indigenous or traditional knowledge? This paper presents an argument against universal access and in favor of working with the people who produce the knowledge. Adopting the perspective that reliable subject access to indigenous knowledge is a moral imperative for libraries and other knowledge institutions, this paper...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to use the sociology of time to understand how time is perceived by academic librarians who provide reference and information service (RIS). Design/methodology/approach This study is a qualitative secondary analysis (QSA) of two phenomenological studies about the experience of RIS in academic libraries. The aut...

This article presents a study of activity that occurred in public libraries during early implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Data were collected through telephone interviews, using open-ended questions, with 72 public library employees between November 2013 and February 2014. The article is not a comprehensive or statistical study; rat...

This paper frames the serials crisis as a loss of control over libraries’ collections and development budgets. While libraries have always had to contend with budget constraints, for many the rising cost of serials has become prohibitive, impeding on scholarship itself as librarians are forced to cut journal subscriptions. Open Access (OA) journals...

Scientists around the world benefit from sharing scientific data, lab notes, and preliminary papers, as well as traditional, formal scientific papers. Institutional repositories (IR) are open spaces for scientists to deposit their work. Doing so could potentially spark new collaborations, allowing scientists and scholars to build cross-institutiona...

In 2013, the Missouri State Library was restructured due to the election of a new Secretary of State. This article evaluates the library’s restructuring using interviews and an analysis of internal and external public records. Presented as a case study, changes to the library are examined in terms of change management and bureaucratic organization....

American law is unique among Western nations in its protection of hate speech (defined as speech against groups of people). Limits to any legal speech are viewed as potential encroach- ments on First Amendment rights. The profession of librarianship has formally embraced and defended a strict interpretation of the First Amendment in The Freedom to...

This panel will showcase current information ethics, information policy, and library and information science (LIS) education projects from around the world to compare and contrast the current state of LIS research in the global information community. The juxtaposition of selected international projects will highlight the roles that national and int...

eTextbooks are both texts and tools. They provide opportunities for textbook companies to expand their services. Some large textbook companies are offering extensive educational technology products and services along with texts. These etexts, integrated into the Learning Management System (LMS), give instructors opportunities to use integrated asse...

Many online publications offer space for the public to comment on articles. These sections are a window to see readers’ reactions to the article and the subject matter. This paper provides an analysis of comment sections from readers on articles about vaccination. The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate reactions to authority, which leads to rec...

This paper reports on Kenyan university women’s relation of two concepts: knowledge and wisdom. Their uses of these terms suggest a need to reconsider traditional knowledge (TK) in librarians’ practice in information literacy programs as a means to reduce the disjuncture between the dominant educational practices and wisdom, or TK.Cette communicati...

This paper utilizes Reader Response theory and Erving Goffman's analysis of behavior and conversations in public places in order to frame a discussion about the nature of community reading programs. Each reader necessarily brings his or her own experiences to a book. Can inviting an entire community to read the same book break down barriers, or do...

An examination of students’ and practitioners’ attitudes towards, and uses of, various reference sources. Students found print sources to be educational, but use of print is waning. Many practitioners said learning specific sources was best done on the job, and felt new hires were better prepared to use online sources.La communication propose un ex...

Purpose This study aims to provide insight on the meaning of communication overload as experienced by modern academic librarians. Communication is the essence of reference librarianship, and a practically endless array of synchronous and asynchronous communication tools (ICTs) are available to facilitate communication. Design/methodology/approach...

This article describes a multi-method research project examining the use of various freely available online collections and projects, such as Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive, and Creative Commons-licensed ebooks, by public libraries. This research begins with the questions: what are libraries doing with freely available materials? Are there...

This paper examines students' and practitioners' attitudes toward, and uses of, various reference sources. It was precipitated by questioning the best outcomes of the basic reference class in Library Science programs, specifically asking what types of sources LIS students should be versed in as they enter the workforce-print or online? This researc...

Sidney Ditzion's Arsenals of a Democratic Culture traces the cultural foundations of American libraries, noting that post-colonial advocates saw libraries as a means to advance science and learning, prevent crime, and help raise the poor to higher social standing through diligent self-education while at the same time serving to a keep the rich mora...

Key documents guiding U.S. library service, including Reference and User Service Association (RUSA) guidelines and the American Library Association (ALA) Code of Ethics and Bill of Rights, focus on equitable public library service. By viewing literacy practices as an increasingly crucial realm of the social structure, librarians, policy makers, soc...

Research on service-learning has focused mainly on student outcomes. However, this study addresses the transformative change that three faculty members from different disciplines experienced during a semester-long fellowship on service-learning as a pedagogical method. Through their personal reflections, the authors show how service-learning and th...

This article describes an “on-the-road” usability study and explains the study's methodological challenges, solutions, and recommendations. The study concerned a library-consortium website, which is a communication and educational tool for librarians who are physically dispersed throughout the state, and an intranet for remote users. Rather than tr...

Informational works are “about” something, and with subject classification and indexing, finding an appropriate informational work is relatively easy. Finding a “good” work of fiction is less so. Factors beyond subject influence the appropriateness and appeal of a work of fiction for any particular seeker. In the past 100 years, many fiction classi...

One of a librarian's more difficult jobs may be helping patrons in an elusive search for a "good book." A variety of online sources are now available to help readers and librarians in their search, but the descriptive capabilities of the resources vary widely. Library and information science (LIS) literature has suggested many schemes and access po...