Marilyn Ochoa

Assessing the Value of Embedded Librarians in an Online Graduate Educational Technology Course

The increase in online programs has been accompanied by the need for library instruction and support for online students. Students enrolled in off-campus programs have to be able to successfully access and use digital library resources to complete course requirements. An embedded librarian project in an online graduate educational technology course resulted in several benefits for students. The results of pre- and postassessment questionnaires, discussion forum feedback, and an instructor interview indicated that embedded librarians can greatly help students in their online assignments. Further research and recommendations for the implementation and assessment of embedded librarian projects are discussed.

Program-Integrated Information Literacy Instruction for Online Graduate Students

Academic librarians often provide information literacy support for specific courses or topics in the form of research guides, one-shot training sessions, library orientations, or by embedding library content into online courses. Less frequently, they provide continuous program-level support on-campus or online. This paper highlights the value of sustained involvement of librarians at the program level to provide information literacy in an online environment. The description of implementation, research results, and strategies for sustainability will be useful to other online programs engaged in equipping online graduate students with essential information literacy skills to succeed in their academic endeavors.

Metasearching : An annotated bibliography

ABSTRACT This is a selective annotated bibliography of journal articles and electronic resources relating to metasearching and metasearch tools. This bibliography is intended as a guide to the resources available to assist librarians and other information professionals interested in implementing or enhancing their metasearch projects. In addition to reviewing the major topics addressed in the publications, each annotation summarizes the important conclusions reached by the authors of the works. doi:10.1300/J136v12n03_11

Digital library of the Caribbean: a user‐centric model for technology development in collaborative digitization projects

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe the technological approach used by the Digital Library of the Caribbean project to build an international collaborative library across many separate institutions with varying degrees of expertise, technological abilities, and motivations.Design methodology/approach – A freely‐distributed digitization toolkit was developed to assist with tracking and digitization of the distributed resources. In addition, on‐site training was provided for most partners and was open for anyone in the area to attend. The strong emphasis on branding and presenting the same data within differently branded interfaces in the web presence encouraged greater participation of international partners.Findings – Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC), a joint project of the University of Florida, University of Virgin Islands and Florida International University in partnership with institutions in the Caribbean and circum‐Caribbean, serves as the access point for scholars, students an...

Non-Commercial Digital Newspaper Libraries: Considering Usability

With the advent of the Internet there is now a growing expectation on the part of researchers to be able to have more immediate and functional access to newspaper archives and collections. In recent years newspaper digitization has moved to the forefront of efforts to provide this increased access to both historical and current newspapers. This article offers a brief overview of the unique challenges associated with creating non-commercial digital newspaper libraries and provides a preliminary look at the efficacy of these tools for the end user. The article focuses on a case study of usability testing done on the University of Floridas Florida Digital Newspaper Library (FDNL) and the National Digital Newspaper Project (NDNP)/Library of Congress Chronicling America digital newspaper collection. Additionally, it details a survey focused on gathering data regarding usability testing at other digital newspaper initiatives. Preliminary results from the small sample group surveyed indicate that for a variety of reasons testing is often underemphasized.