Joshua Finnell

What do LIS students in the United States know about liaison duties

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze job advertisements in United States academic libraries in order to determine the prevalence of jobs that contain a liaison component. It also aims to report on a survey of current library science graduate students to assess their level of understanding of what liaison work entails and what type of preparation they have had for such work in their LIS program.Design/methodology/approach – The study includes an analysis of 313 academic library job advertisements. It also uses a 12 question survey, which was distributed to 52 library school listservs throughout the USA. The survey announcements resulted in 516 responses from library school students nationwide.Findings – Of the jobs surveyed more than a quarter specifically mentioned liaison activities. The survey showed that few respondents have been exposed to a discussion of liaison work in their classrooms. Those who have demonstrated greater awareness of what constitutes liaison work demonstrate greater se...

Invisible Markings and Conservation Treatment: An Exploratory Study

The purpose of this exploratory study is to determine whether the common conservation technique of washing results in distortion or elimination of microstamps on various types of paper. The study concludes that the common practice of immersing pages in water to help remove dirt and lessen stains could distort security stamps applied to certain types of paper. The significance of the study is to create awareness among special collections or rare book departments of the need to reapply a security stamp for certain types of paper after conservation treatment and to recommend further research in this area.

Missionary activity in the Victorian era: a selective bibliography

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify unique Victorian-Era collections of British and American missionary activity, which provide an introduction to the breadth and depth of primary sources in the field of missiology. Design/methodology/approach – This article provides a list of physical archives, digital repositories, microfilm collections and subscription databases with relevance to missionary activity in the Victorian Era. Collections were purposefully selected based on denominational importance or historical relevance. The bibliography consists of collections from both the USA and Great Britain. Findings – Through grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the digital availability of Victorian Era missionary materials has increased significantly over the past decade. Originality/value – This bibliography includes archival collections housed or hosted in the USA and Great Britain. The annotations describe the scope and uniqueness of each archive, and will be of interest to scholars interested in the field of missiology.

Baptists in Burma: collaboratively mapping missionary archives

Purpose – The purpose of this case study is to discuss and analyze the process of developing and sustaining a multi-institutional digital humanities projects across several institutions. Design/methodology/approach – This case study will provide an overview of a multi-institutional digital humanities project from the planning phase to implementation. In particular, this case study will discuss identifying institutional partners, collaborating with a design, designing for curricular integration and best practices for sustaining a project of this size and scope. Findings – Sustainable collaboration develops slowly over time. Communication and consensus-building are key components to completing and sustaining a multi-institutional digital project. Scalable design is a crucial step in planning for project expansion. Originality/value – Though many journal articles articulate “best practices” for collaboration among geographically dispersed institutions, very few case studies discuss “best practices” within th...