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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.
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.
This case study describes the copyright challenges faced by instructional designers at Arizona State Universities and the strategies implemented by an embedded scholarly communication librarian to address them.
Increasing library involvement in journal hosting and publishing is an important topic for serialists. This installment of “The Balance Point” column presents articles that offer descriptions and analyses of the current state of ideas and activities related to libraries as publishers. Featured authors discuss the publishing and journal hosting tasks libraries can perform, programs and activities related to journal hosting, titles hosted, challenges, next steps and the benefits or drawbacks foreseen in the current paths of the libraries they represent.