‘Describing at Large Their True and Lively Figure, their several Names, Conditions, Kinds, Virtues (both Natural and Fanciful), Countries of their Species, their Love and Hatred to Humankind, and the wonderful work of Natural Selection in their Evolution, Preservation, and Destruction.

Interwoven with curious variety of Creative Narrations out of Academic Literatures, Scholars, Artists, Scientists, and Poets. Illustrated with diverse Graphics and Emblems both pleasant and profitable for Students of all Faculties and Professions.’

March Mammal Madness is a science outreach project that, over the course of several weeks in March, reaches hundreds of thousands of people in the United States every year. We combine four approaches to science outreach – gamification, social media platforms, community event(s), and creative products – to run a simulated tournament in which 64 animals compete to become the tournament champion. While the encounters between the animals are hypothetical, the outcomes rely on empirical evidence from the scientific literature. Players select their favored combatants beforehand, and during the tournament scientists translate the academic literature into gripping “play-by-play” narration on social media. To date ~1100 scholarly works, covering almost 400 taxa, have been transformed into science stories. March Mammal Madness is most typically used by high-school educators teaching life sciences, and we estimate that our materials reached ~1% of high-school students in the United States in 2019. Here we document the intentional design, public engagement, and magnitude of reach of the project. We further explain how human psychological and cognitive adaptations for shared experiences, social learning, narrative, and imagery contribute to the widespread use of March Mammal Madness.

Purpose: In spring of 2007, Arizona State University Libraries held a focus group of selected faculty to discover their perceptions and use of electronic books (e-books) in their research and teaching.

Methodology/approach: We employed the services of the Institute of Social Sciences Research to recruit and moderate the focus group. The following major themes were explored:
       1) Use of e-books as textbooks.
       2) Use of e-books for personal research.
       3) Comparison between e-books and print.
       4) Disciplinary differences in perceptions of e-books.
       5) Motivators for future use

Findings: Overall, the focus group revealed that faculty had generally unsatisfactory experiences in using e-books in their research and teaching due to the unreliability of access, lack of manipulability, and the steep learning curve of the various interfaces. However, most faculty agreed that e-books would be a very viable and useful alternative if these issues were resolved.

Research limitations/implications: The focus group consisted of only six faculty members and hence is not representative of faculty as a whole. A larger survey of a more diverse faculty population would greatly serve to clarify and expand upon our findings.

Practical implications: The implications for academic libraries include providing better outreach and training to faculty about the e-book platforms offered, provide better course support, and advocate to e-book vendors to consider faculty's teaching and research needs in their product development.

Originality/value of paper: To the best knowledge of the authors, this is the first published study of faculty opinions and use of e-books utilizing focus group methodology and offers detailed information that would be useful for academic libraries and e-book vendors for evidence-based decisions.

Videos are a useful and popular way to reach an audience — we all know videos that have gone viral online, garnering millions of views. However, the type of video that can compete with Old Spice commercials takes weeks to plan and produce, as well as a significant budget. Arizona State University (ASU) Libraries wanted to find a sustainable way to share videos that would require minimal staff time to create and produce.

With that goal in mind, “The Library Minute” was born. We initially envisioned a weekly newscast, but it has evolved into a successful and fun video series. Episodes have been featured in American Libraries Direct, as part of the ACRL Marketing Minute, received more than 74,000 views on YouTube and the Internet Archive, and have garnered complimentary e-mails from all over the world. Most importantly, they are a valuable marketing and outreach tool for the ASU Libraries and have increased our visibility to our students and other departments in the university.

‘Describing at Large Their True and Lively Figure, their several Names, Conditions, Kinds, Virtues (both Natural and Fanciful), Countries of their Species, their Love and Hatred to Humankind, and the wonderful work of Natural Selection in their Evolution, Preservation, and Destruction.

Interwoven with curious variety of Creative Narrations out of Academic Literatures, Scholars, Artists, Scientists, and Poets. Illustrated with diverse Graphics and Emblems both pleasant and profitable for Students of all Faculties and Professions.’

Arizona State University (ASU) is known for both enormous size and scale, as well as excellence in research and innovation. These attributes are embodied in the ideal of the “New American University.” ASU Library, as a partner in the New American University, has reorganized itself, completed a large-scale renovation of its main library building, and created interdisciplinary divisions of librarians and other professionals, backed up by subject “knowledge teams” that address specific research needs of faculty and students. As a result, the library has become involved in nontraditional projects across the university. This article is useful for libraries seeking to remain relevant and align themselves with institutional priorities.

With technology changing how documents (of all types and format) are created, shared, and used, library personnel make interpretations of copyright law daily. Very little research has been done on how library personnel understand copyright law and their role in interpreting it as part of their daily work, how comfortable they are with this task, what types of training they have received, or what types of training they believe they need.

To help fill this gap, librarians from California State University Chico, Portland Community College, and Arizona State University received a planning grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to conduct a survey on copyright education in the 13 states in the Western United States. Unlike previous related studies, we sought responses from all types of libraries, library workers, and especially traditionally underrepresented groups.

With the hypothesis that libraries in the Western U.S. have unique barriers to quality copyright education, we conducted a survey and focus groups with library personnel regarding their prior copyright education; the need for additional education; and what barriers they face in accessing that education.

This is our final report as submitted to IMLS, planning grant log number RE-246437-OLS-20