SEO is often thought of as a purely commercial endeavor: companies and other for-profit websites use keywords strategically, make use of headings and meta tags, and build inbound links in order to increase search engine positions and generate more revenue. But in the world of academia, scholars are also recognizing a need to implement some […]
Academic Librarianship
How Four Databases Index Articles (Part 2)
This is the second part of an article about database indexing practices. View part one Finally, the ERIC database serves a very different user group, so it features a fundamentally different indexing scheme. ERIC is the largest database of educational literature, so it focuses on issues in education research and policy instead of library and […]
An Investigation into the Indexing Practices of Four Databases: Part One
After reading a paper by Gloria Leckie titled “Desperately Seeking Citations,” I assigned it three keyword terms I thought were representative of the subject matter. These terms were “information seeking behavior-undergraduates,” “scholarly research” and “academic libraries-role.” [1] After comparing these to four databases, LISTA, LISA, Library Lit and ERIC, results showed five very different systems […]
John Stuart Mill on Intellectual Freedom: His Thoughts Applied to Today’s Information Landscape
In his essay On Liberty, published in 1859, philosopher John Stuart Mill makes a strong case for the necessity of intellectual freedom in society, outlining four points that would have a profound effect on librarianship. He argued that any and all opinions that are not heard may in fact contain truth; that the “collision of […]
The Information-Seeking Behavior of Today’s Latin American Researchers
The article “Researching Latin America: A Survey of How the Next Generation Is Doing Its Research” by Potts and Mazurkiewicz in Latin American Research Review investigates the information-seeking behavior of a very specific population: advanced-level university students belonging to the Latin American Studies Association (LASA). In particular, the article examines how these students conducted their […]
Harper Collins’ 26 Checkout Policy Challenges Traditional Role of the Library
Harper Collins recently released a new library ebook policy in which the licenses to its content expire after 26 uses, forcing libraries to purchase them again. This represents a very dangerous trend affecting the very role of the library, and underscores a need for library and information science professionals to take a stand against competing […]