Christopher Brown-Syed

LIS Student Learning Styles and Web-Based Instruction Methods

Abstract This article looks at learning styles of library and information science (LIS) students. Felder and Solomons “Index of Learning Styles” was administered to 108 LIS students between 2001 and 2002. These results were analyzed with respect to results from learning style assessments administered in the 1980s. Learning style preferences were compared between students in traditional and distance education courses. Teaching suggestions are offered for maximizing LIS student learning in Web-based instruction.

Did I Say That? Thoughts on Self Plagiarism

Self-plagiarism is quoting yourself without citing the work you are quoting. In a student context, submitting substantially the same paper to two different courses could be considered a case of self-plagiarism. Most colleges and universities specify that it is not acceptable to submit the same essay or project for two different courses without obtaining approval from both instructors. This is good training for the scholarly publishing world, wherein journals can and do reject papers that contain substantial blocks of text that the author has taken from previous work without proper attribution. How is this a security issue? Self-plagiarism, and extensive self-citation, may both speak to the veracity of an article’s contents, and the ability to deliver information of known quality can be seen as falling within the broader definition of data integrity. The issue may also be viewed as an intellectual property concern. Parents often find themselves telling children the same old anecdotes. The same sort of thing happens to lecturers and to writers. The consequences can be more serious, if one sees rejection by a journal as more significant than derision from one’s offspring. Is there agreement about what is acceptable? A search of Google Scholar turned up about 38,000 mentions of the phrase.1 The titles of a few of the top entries will serve as illustrations. Collberg and Kobourov call our attention to self plagiarism in computer science, in a 2005 issue of the Communications of the ACM .2 A decade earlier, writing in the same venue, Pamela Samuelson of the Pittsburgh law school compares it with the “fair use” doctrine.3 In 2003, Collberg, Kobourov, and others from Arizona had described a Web spider that crawled around the Internet, collecting and analyzing writing in computer science in hopes of finding instances of self-plagiarism.4 Fittingly, that conference presentation is cited in their 2005 Article. It is also discussed on a University of Arizona Web page, wherein the tool itself can be downloaded.5 It is written in Java, and the version described compares plain-text files, so word processing documents must be converted before analysis. Most scholarly works begin with introductions and statements of the overall research problem, explaining what an article will explore. Next, there is usually a literature review, discussing previous work done in the field. If the field is fairly small, obviously, that list of citations might not vary much

Library and Information Studies and Open-source Intelligence

Librarians, archivists, library technicians, and computing professionals involved in the day-to-day running of libraries and other information centers are adept at searching databases and securing facilities and media. In many cases, in addition to responding quickly and accurately to patron queries, they produce lengthy research reports, providing important background information for decision makers. Adding to their profound knowledge of their own collections, they become particularly adept at locating information that is publicly available and assessing the trustworthiness of a variety of information sources, known to the intelligence community as “open source,” as opposed to “classified” materials. The sort of intelligence gained from their analysis is known as open-source intelligence, or OSINT. The notion that library and information studies (LIS) practitioners might become more involved in intelligence analysis presents not only an additional career path for LIS graduates but an interesting twist on the notion of “library and archival security.” Traditionally, we have been concerned with the security of repositories themselves and the well-being of their staffs. However, those facilities sometimes engage in investigations for government and corporate purposes, and further research might well involve studies of those activities. Though librarians may be subject specialists with high degrees of domain knowledge, the overall methods and perspectives of library and information science lead to an habitual way of looking at published material, whether in print, digital, or other media. That approach is necessarily versatile and applicable in a variety of situations. The intelligence community, which herein is taken to mean both those concerned with national security and those in the corporate sphere, have recently expressed a growing need for more trained analysts. To a number of educators and practitioners within the library world and the intelligence community, the notion that librarians might make good OSINT analysts appears to be worth pursuing. In making the transition from expert searcher and researcher to analyst, librarians should have a solid basis upon which to build. Organizations such as the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Government Communications Headquarters in the United Kingdom have been hiring MLIS graduates in supportive library and information science positions for some time. Private sector corporations, nonprofits, and political

The Journey Out and In: Security and Privacy in Local Library Automation Systems

Abstract The automation of library processes involves by its very nature the collection of information about patrons and the materials they use. As well, because online transaction processing (OLTP) depends upon the identification of workstations and time-stamping of transactions, information about staff productivity is also present in the system. While such information is of use in collections management and for error detection and correction, its collection raises security concerns. As well, beginning in the 1980s, local library automation systems came to be linked within consortia and eventually, across the Internet. This retrospective look at local library automation summarizes developments in connectivity occurring during the 1980s and 1990s, and suggests additional concerns associated with the open computing environment of the present day.

Keeping Tabs: The Potential of Tablet Computers during Crises

Could tablet computers assist libraries, archives, museums, and similar institutions during crisis situations? Why would tablet-sized computers be improvements over smart phones or PDAs? The launch of the Apple iPad has triggered a renewed interest in tablet computers in emergency medical circles. Writing in Emergency Physicians Monthly,1 Nicholas Genes has suggested that tablet computers offer the right combination of portability, readability, and storage capacity to become truly useful tools in emergency medical situations. “In short,” says Genes, “I think the iPad can liberate doctors from the desk-based tyranny of [medical] information systems and the shortcomings of the paper chart.” Genes admits that past experiments with tablets have fallen short but sees the iPad as the first of a new generation of more navigable and higher-capacity tools. Portable medical references for hand-held devices have been available for more than a decade, an example being Ovid at Hand, a current awareness product, and drug compendia such as a version of the Physician’s Desktop Reference, designed for the Palm platform. More recently, resources such as the EMRA Antibiotic Guide and similar reference materials have been ported to the iPhone.2 However, PDAs and smart phones have the drawback of small screens. Though they are perfectly adequate for texting, telephony, global positioning systems, and similar applications, reading complicated procedure manuals on a telephone’s relatively small screen might prove frustrating and ineffective during a major crisis. Since the 1985 Dalhousie University Law School fire,3 the value of laptop computers during the critical first 72 hours or so of disaster recovery has been recognized, as noted in this journal. During that crisis, early versions of laptops donated by RadioShack were used in the triage process to assist in the rapid identification and treatment of fireand water-damaged books. However, laptops need to be placed on tables—or laps. PDAs, such as the Psion Organiser, have also been used as portable inventory devices in libraries and have assisted in the rapid identification and recovery of stolen materials on at least one occasion.4

Dusty, Tweedy, Bespectacled Nuisances

Years ago, while working on a project to automate an archival collection, I was somewhat surprised to hear a fellow practitioner use the phrase in the title to describe members of his profession.The reason archives have trouble obtaining funds, he suggested, was because archivists were perceived as ‘‘dusty, tweedy, bespectacled nuisances.’’ If I omit his name at this point, it is only due to a failing memory, not through any desire to rob him of the credit of discovery. The characterization is particularly amusing, since, at the time, those working on the project were mainly in their twenties, and while perhaps tattered, hardly tweedy. Beyond remembering that he worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and was involved in their stock-shot library during the early 1980s, I am at a loss to recall his name. Despite efforts of agencies like the American Library Association, the perception persists. In a 1997 study of librarians in detective novels, written for Education Libraries, Charles Barnard Sands and I were amused to find adjectives like ‘‘officious,’’ or ‘‘quirky’’ applied to descriptions of our fictional colleagues. One of the reasons for this perception, among members of the public, and among researchers, may be that the reasons for security in libraries and archives are not always apparent. Many university students, for instance, may attribute ‘‘no eating’’ signs caprice, or to the