Ane Landøy

Culture and Competencies: A Multi-Country Examination of Reference Service Competencies

Abstract Reference librarians have the opportunity to interact with patrons and colleagues of many different backgrounds, languages, and cultures as a result of our increasingly interconnected and peripatetic world. In order to provide the best possible service to these varied communities, reference librarians should understand some of the culture differences that exist across countries, and in particular, the differences in the way that reference services are conceived and delivered in different countries. This study explores some of these differences in reference services by surveying current practitioners in thirteen countries to find out which competencies they believe are most important for academic reference librarians right now, and in the near future. The results of this study highlight some important commonalities and differences, and could help reference librarians to manage and meet the expectations of their international patrons, and perhaps help them to prepare for an international job experience of their own. Academic reference librarians may be interested to see the extent to which their counterparts in other countries face similar challenges and expectations with regard to delivering reference services. Teaching faculty in library science programs will be interested to understand reference competencies and expectations in other countries, especially as they teach greater numbers of international students or consider collaborating with international colleagues. In addition, an international understanding is important in developing students who can compete in a global job market.

The More they Tried it the Less they Liked it: Norwegian and Romanian Student’s Response to Electronic Course Material

In this paper we will present and compare survey findings from Romania and Norway taken from the “Multinational study on students’ preferences regarding print versus electronic resources for course readings”. This study was conducted in April 2015 and surveyed undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students of various subjects at different universities. The aim was to investigate students’ format preferences when engaging with academic readings and what factors impact their preferences and behaviors. The comparative study will show whether students’ reading format preferences vary or remain consistent across multi-national student populations. We also make comparisons with results from an earlier study of Romanian and Norwegian students’ attitudes towards using academic libraries. In particular, we look at the reasons given for preferring course readings in either electronic or print format, and we discuss what this could mean for collection development policies.

New public management and libraries: a success story or just an excuse for cost reduction

Purpose From the 1980s – in some parts of Europe from the 1990s – onward, the new public management (NPM) has been emerging in public organizations including libraries. Since then, there has been a need to develop strategies, to plan budgets and to implement cost and activity accounting as well as benchmarking to compare the library’s processes, costs and activities with those of other libraries. One basic idea of the NPM was to make a transition from focusing on how institutions function to product orientation, to improve the quality of library services, to develop output orientation and to act market and consumer oriented. There also was a need to change from bureaucratic and hierarchically acting organizations to a more modern flexible and lean form of management. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach The aim of this paper is in the first part to describe the basic ideas of NPM, their realization in libraries and how libraries have to handle constantly reduced budgets and the risk of being closed down (especially in the “age of austerity”); the second part will show how the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) Library has managed to improve its services with the NPM approach. Findings Many libraries are faced with serious financial cutbacks on the one hand and with emergent needs to (re)invest in neglected public infrastructure on the other hand. At the same time, they have to develop modern digital library services. Thus there is a need for efficiency, which is put in action via major budget cutbacks. Also many libraries have been closed down since the implementation of NPM ideas. Originality/value In this paper, the NPM tools used in the restructuring of the UEF are described and the outcome of this modern management is shown.

Managing and Managers of Academic Libraries

This paper looks at attitudes about leadership and decision making among leaders in academic libraries in Norway and Romania. Two different surveys were conducted, containing similar questions, and the results were compared. The surveys uncovered demographics – “who are the leaders?” as well. One of the findings that concerns the status of the library leaders is that in Romania they are considered academics, and this is also mirrored in their backgrounds. For Norway, the recruitment to a leader position in the academic library comes through the ranks, so to speak – most academic library leaders have already worked in the library before they become leaders. This background is different from the Romanian situation. To what extent it also has implications for attitudes about leadership remains to be seen, or whether the differences that can be observed in the attitudes between the academic library leaders in the two countries can be explained otherwise.

Information Professionals and Copyright Literacy: A Multinational Study

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present findings from a multinational survey on copyright literacy of specialists from libraries and other cultural institutions. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on a multinational survey of copyright literacy competencies of Library and Information Science (LIS) professionals and those who work in the cultural heritage sector (archives and museums), conducted in 13 countries, namely Bulgaria (BG), Croatia (CR), Finland (FI), France (FR), Hungary (HU), Lithuania (LT), Mexico (MX), Norway (NO), Portugal (PT), Romania (RO), Turkey (TR), UK and USA in the period July 2013-March 2015. An online survey instrument was developed in order to collect data from professionals regarding their familiarity with, knowledge and awareness of, and opinions on copyright-related issues. Findings Findings of this study highlight gaps in existing knowledge of copyright, and information about the level of copyright literacy of LIS and cultural sector professionals. Also attitudes toward copyright learning content in academic education and continuing professional development training programs are investigated. Originality/value This study aimed to address a gap in the literature by encompassing specialists from the cultural institutions in an international comparative context. The paper offers guidance for further understanding of copyright in a wider framework of digital and information literacy; and for the implementation of copyright policy, and the establishment of copyright advisor positions in cultural institutions. The recommendations support a revision of academic and continuing education programs learning curriculum and methods.

Using statistics for quality management in the library

Selected papers presented at the 2nd Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries. Proceedings of the International Conference on QQML 2010 p. 97-102, World Scientific Publishing, 2012.

Information Literacy Across the University and Workplace Reality

This paper reveals the results of the “Information Literacy across the university and workplace reality” survey. This study revealed which are the most needed information skills for the faculty at the workplace. The questionnaire was addressed to Masters students from two universities in Romania and Moldova, who have a job or have their own business. The results of this study will be taken into account in the improvement of the discipline of Information Literacy and Project Management. The survey targeted a pool of 66 individuals from Transilvania University from Brasov and 53 individuals from the Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova. This study utilized the questionnaire survey method as a research tool, using SurveyMonkey online.

Libraries as a Support of Informed Citizens – The Balancing Act Between Library’s Good Quality and Austerity Measures

In a time of rapidly expanding information possibilities, including “fake news”, libraries as guardians of the quality of information have become even more important. In our era, however, it is the guardians of confirmed information themselves and information literate citizens that must be enabled to decide what facts to rely on. At the same time, new public management (NPM) is changing the way libraries, both public and academic, are allowed to act in their local communities. The effect of the “age of austerity” with libraries being closed due to an ongoing economic crisis must also be taken into account. The changing circumstances call for new leadership, new competences and new tasks in libraries. In this paper the authors will present results of European studies on changes in libraries as a result of implementing NPM. While it is evident that the environment and the libraries are changing, it is, however, not clear that the changes are going in only one direction, or how they actually will be impacting the need for more information literate citizens.

Moldovan and Norwegian PhD-Students’ Information Needs

In order to achieve comparability of standards and quality in European higher education there is a need for evaluation and comparisons. This holds true also for the PhD, the third cycle in the educational system. In this paper the authors compare information needs as articulated by a group of Norwegian and Moldovan PhD-students. The objective of the study was to find data to harmonize online PhD Information Literacy Tutorials in Norway and Moldova. The end result will be to develop a new PhD tutorial for Moldova, based on the Norwegian resource «PhD on track», while taking into account the differences, difficulties and barriers in accessing, collecting, using and communicating research information for PhD students in the two countries.

A Research Based Framework for Developing Information Literacy Projects

This paper presents a model for the evaluation of users’ needs adapted to the conditions of a developing country that has access to traditional literature and great potential for exploiting available sources on Internet, but does not yet have documentary or bibliographic database access.