Marcia Mardis

• Florida State University

The Southeastern United States is hit by hurricanes frequently. To provide a quick response to these natural disasters and expedited recovery, state and federal agencies should be provided with information concerning the severity and extent of hurricane damage, specifically in terms of hurricane debris volume and locations. In this paper, we focuse...

Florida public librarians are impacted by at least one named storm a year and are statutorily designated as essential providers of emergency services. To understand how resiliency can be improved through the services of public libraries, we surveyed Florida’s public library directors about their public library systems’ preparedness for natural disa...

The research process of the CLASS II research agenda is detailed along with findings from the formal final report of the project. Findings are organized by using the shared foundations from the 2017 AASL National School Library Standards and include highlights from the aggregated research. A discussion of innovative future directions for school lib...

Public libraries are critical community facilities through which librarians support their communities before, during, and after natural disasters such as hurricanes. In their disaster responses, public librarians work to effectively restore library buildings, provide library materials, and, most critically, provide services that strengthen communit...

Public libraries are critical community facilities through which librarians support their communities before, during, and after natural disasters such as hurricanes. Through their disaster responses, public librarians work to effectively restore library buildings, provide library materials, and, most critically, strengthen community resiliency and...

Advanced manufacturing (AM) is a vital driver of the U.S. economy. AM is also crucial in building U.S. competitiveness by strengthening the scientific and engineering enterprise and providing transformative science and technology solutions. AM anchors rural economies across the country and is especially important to rural America, where it accounts...

In this National Science Foundation Advanced Technician Education program (NSF ATE) project, we aimed to explore factors that would strengthen the rural IT employee workforce and improve educational support related to broadband, telecommunications, and networks in rural settings. Using multiple methods to triangulate rural IT program curricula cont...

Reconceptualizing Libraries brings together cases and models developed by experts in the information and learning sciences to identify the potential for libraries to adapt and transform in the wake of new technologies for connected learning and discovery. Chapter authors explore the ways that the increased interest in the design research methods, d...

Information technology (IT) and computing are growing fields, offering far more job opportunities than applicants. Yet, little data are available to indicate how course content, employer needs, and additional learning opportunities work together the prepare graduates to enter the IT workforce. To understand the extent to which learners were prepare...

Guided by the question, "What are the implications of national educational evidence standards for school librarianship research?," prevailing U.S. evidence-driven educational policies are examined to identify implications for school librarianship research; promising methods to contribute to building this evidence base are explored; and finally, pro...

Mardis, M. A., Kimmel, S. C., & Pasquini, L. A. (2018). Building of Causality: A Future for School Librarianship Research and Practice. Knowledge Quest, 46(4), 20-27.

Over the years studies have been conducted to identify barriers to participation in clinical trials. Many researchers strive to discover evidence-based approaches for increasing participation of underrepresented groups to improve the generalizability of the study findings and to decrease health disparities. The Health Services Research Projects in...

In this visual presentation, I present a video that illustrates preliminary findings of a study of definitions of the word fun in the context of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) learning. I begin by illustrating fun's importance, lack of clear definitions, warrant for common understanding is important for among researc...

Purpose In response to recent calls for research relating to employers’ perceptions of the workplace readiness of new graduates in a variety of fields, the purpose of this paper is to report North Florida employers’ perceptions of information technology (IT) program graduates’ workplace readiness. These findings are relevant to stakeholders in gro...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze 86 information technology (IT) internship postings to discern the extent to which the intended outcomes matched professional standards for four-year IT programs. Design/methodology/approach The researchers text mined specified skills from 86 internship postings and compared them to the competencies o...

The United States has one of the highest levels of Internet penetration in the world, but still has 50 million Internet non-users, many beyond the glow of urban areas. A persistent level of non-adoption stems from adults' lack of perceived need or benefit. Florida's unique move to all digital instructional materials and required online testing and...

The purpose of this white paper is to report on the convening of the nation’s leading school library and educational researchers at the Causality: School Libraries and Student Success (CLASS) forum and to propose a national agenda to demonstrate the positive influences of effective school librarians and quality school libraries on student learning....

National emphases on STEM learning and digital textbooks have highlighted the importance of high quality digital instructional materials. Because teachers often lack the time and expertise to find, assess, and organize multimedia, school librarians can support STEM learning by providing media-rich, current, curriculum-linked library collections. To...

National emphases on STEM learning and digital textbooks have highlighted the importance of high quality digital instructional materials. Because teachers often lack the time and expertise to find, assess, and organize multimedia, school librarians can support STEM learning by providing media-rich, current, curriculum-linked library collections. To...

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which academic researchers consider the relationship between broadband access and children’s information seeking in the United States. Because broadband has been cited as an essential element of contemporary learning, this study sought to identify gaps in the attention given to the rol...

Cooperative inquiry, a form of qualitative research used in community building, has not often been applied in educational contexts. Through the lens of formative leadership theory, the researchers studied the abilities of three new school librarians trained in cooperative inquiry and leadership to engage in collaborative problem solving for technol...

The skills that individuals need to compete in the knowledge economy place the emphasis on improving science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in general and information technology (IT) education in particular. Understanding the underlying use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in all aspects of life sets th...

Supporting the Infrastructure Needs of 21st Century School Library Programs, also known as the Pennsylvania School Library Project, was a one-year project conducted in Pennsylvania to better identify and understand what stakeholders-teachers, administrators, parents, school and community leaders, and education associations-expect from school librar...

A fifth of US children live in rural areas with limited access to the informal learning opportunities available to their metropolitan counterparts. High-speed broadband internet access can be an important vehicle for delivering opportunities at home and outside of the classroom. In an attempt to explore what current data say about children's broadb...

The textbook is the single most defining source of content in US public schools. In the current economic climate, however, school administrators are looking for ways to control rising textbook expenditures by shifting to digital textbooks. In this chapter, we explore a range of digital textbook formats and applications and weigh their potential ben...

As school districts across the United States increasingly question the need for trained librarians, this collection of research-based evidence helps make the case for a state-licensed librarian in every school. While serving on the AASL legislation committee, Mirah Dow recognized the urgent need to utilize research-based evidence to prove school li...

Demands for the Internet in administrative, instructional, and learning tasks in schools are rising. Because adequate bandwidth in schools supports the home-school learning continuum, links to civic and governmental organizations, and situations in which home connectivity is scarce, reconsiderations in investments in connectivity supply and support...

Scholars in library and information science are under increasing pressure to seek external funding for research. The National Science Foundation (NSF), which is often the source of this funding, considers proposed projects based on the criteria of “Intellectual Merit” and “Broader Impacts.” However, these merit review criteria have been criticized...

Digital content can benefit K-12 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teaching and learning, but it is not widely integrated. Many school librarians are not sure how to build upon their expertise to share and link digital learning resources in their roles as resource providers and instructional collaborators. This poster will pr...

The National Science Digital Library was a decade-long National Science Foundation initiative that was designed not only to enhance access to high quality science, technology, engineering, and mathematics teaching and learning resources but also to create a diverse community of digital library developers who would work together to continually impro...

A series of studies of rural Florida community anchor institutions have concluded that existing national measurement practices for broadband penetration, adoption, and impact are often poorly defined, confusing, or inadequate to inform decisions about community broadband deployment and adoption. As a result, local broadband initiatives may be hinde...

In an effort to address the lack of empirical knowledge about the school librarians' role in technology, the Institute for Museum and Library Services funded Project Leadership-in-Action (LIA) to study leadership practices of school librarians. This current grant project includes a survey of the technology integration practices of school librarians...

Objective - Conferences are essential opportunities for professional development and for learning about research. This study analyses papers presented in the Research Forum track of the International Association of School Librarians (IASL) conferences to determine whether the amount of school library research reporting increased or decreased over t...

In 2008, the United States' Institute for Museum and Library Services funded Project Leadership-in-Action (LIA) that included surveys of the technology integration practices of teacher librarian leaders with National Board Certification. Preliminary 2009 survey results suggested that the 295 respondents worked in well-resourced libraries with perso...

Digital video is a growing and important presence in student learning. This paper reports the results of a survey of American educators in Michigan (n = 426) conducted in spring 2008. The survey included questions about educators’ attitudes toward the streaming and downloadable video services available to them in their schools. The survey results s...

In this study, the researcher used a data set that contained science-related questions from the Internet Public Library's Kidspace Ask A Question email reference form. The data showed that the majority of the questions were asked by middle school students in the United States who were preparing for science fair. A closer inspection of the question...

Prior to the mid-1970s, policy simply meant planning. Over time, policy studies have shifted from predominantly empirical approaches to more diverse methods emanating from postmodern and critical perspectives. More recently, the themes of equity, school choice, and social background (rather than meritocracy) have mixed with current discourses of ce...

One area in many library and information science (LIS) education programs consistently occupies the far end of the prestige spectrum: school librarianship. As Evelyn Daniel wrote in the Reader in Library and Information Services, “School librarianship [is] frequently regarded as a low status and alien activity by both the education and library prof...

Preservice school library media specialists will implement the AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner in their new roles. Drafted in 2007, the Standards reflect principles which school library media specialist must impart to learners to prepare them to be knowledge consumers, producers, and communicators in global environments. Because many ne...

Educational digital libraries are sources of innovative teaching resources in schools. All too often, digital library developers create collections of resources in the absence of rigorous examinations of educator and learner needs. The literature surrounding teacher development suggests that teachers have very specific information needs relating to...

Despite their decade of deployment, educational digital libraries have not achieved sustained use in elementary and secondary schools in the United States. Barriers to accessing the Internet and computers have been widely targeted by myriad initiatives, but efforts aimed at bridging this first-level “digital divide” have not led to increased use of...

In many ways, science classrooms and school library media centers are parallel universes struggling with their own reform issues and with documenting their own positive impacts. As the trend toward data-driven decisions grows in the school setting, it is increasingly important for every component of the learning environment to have demonstrable eff...

If strong school library media centers (SLMCs) positively impact middle school student reading achievement, as measured on standardized tests, are they also beneficial for middle school science achievement? To answer this question, the researcher built upon the statistical analyses used in previous school library impact studies with qualitative mea...

Digital libraries (DLs) are currently in place or being developed for a variety of educational applications. These resources offer support for instructional innovation, traditional curricula, and equitable access to learning resources. Yet, the carrot of instructional innovation is often overwhelmed by the stick of conflicting educational policy pr...

Research on student and teacher information literacy from the US is reviewed in relation to the issues needed to ensure that digital libraries will be able to adequately meet the needs of education. Student use of Internet for research while increasingly common is not efficient or critical. Teacher skills in information literacy instruction are cri...

Too often, search engines don't see and directories can overlook clearinghouses, digital libraries, full-text databases, and learning objects. In contrast, the hidden Web is rich with these high quality and cutting-edge learning materials. By integrating resources from the hidden Web into the classroom, educators extend their instruction in new and...

Currently, the World Wide Web contains an estimated 7.4 million sites (OCLC, 2001). Yet even the most experienced searcher, using the most robust search engines, can access only about 16% of these pages (Dahn, 2001). The other 84% of the publicly available information on the Web is referred to as the "hidden,""invisible," or "deep" Web. This digest...

“To catalyze and support continual improvements in the quality of scien ce, mathematics, engineering, and technology (SMET) education, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has established the National Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Education Digital Library (NSDL) program. The resulting digital library, a network of learning env...

School library media specialists can use professional periodicals to stay aware of new resources for their collections and to learn strategies to enhance their media centers' roles in schools. In order to begin to characterize how school library media specialists in the United States can use articles in recommended school library media publications...

The ERAMS program is composed of a network of sampling stations throughout the United States plus an associated radioanalytical and assessment support group. These components provide a capability to evaluate environmental consequences from both normal ambient concentrations of radiation and time dependent changes as measured by the samples. The pro...

Science achievement has come under increased policy scrutiny in the United States with the impending debut of yearly science testing for Grades 3-8 in 2007. Given that prior research has demonstrated a correlation between reading achievement and strong school library programs, the researcher designed a mixed-method study to investigate if a similar...

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Eastern Michigan University, 2005. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-139).