A Review of: Rogers, E., & Carrier, H. S. (2017). A qualitative investigation of patrons’ experiences with academic library research consultations. Reference Services Review, 45(1), 18–37. https://doi.org/10.1108/RSR-04-2016-0029 Abstract  Objective – To examine the experiences of patrons with one-on-one reference consultation services.  Design – Qualitative analysis of open-ended interviews.  Setting – Academic library at a public university in the Southern United States.  Subjects – Students who attended a consultation with a reference librarian.  Methods – All students who attended a reference consultation with a librarian were invited to participate in an interview. Open-ended interviews were conducted after informed consent was collected. Interviewers were provided with prompts to help participants discuss their experiences but were not intended to guide the conversation. The interviews were recorded and then transcribed line-by-line. The transcripts were then analyzed using a conventional, inductive model of content analysis. Transcripts were first analyzed in an initial phase to identify basic themes, and then further examined in an advanced analysis in light of these themes.  Main Results – 10 students agreed to participate for a response rate of 38%.  Most participants became aware of the reference consultation service by receiving library instruction as part of their course or through word-of-mouth recommendations from peers or faculty. No participants were aware of consultations through library marketing efforts or the library website. The major theme that emerged from the analysis was that patrons chose a reference consultation because it allowed them one-on-one attention from the librarian and because of the librarian’s perceived subject expertise. The primary problems participants identified with the service were that it was not adequately marketed to the students and that students were not aware of the service. Participants intended to use the skills and information gathered from the consultation to continue their independent research and they also largely intended to use librarian’s services as they continue working on their projects.   Conclusion – The authors found that the reference consultation is a valuable service for academic libraries and that consultation with a librarian in their office provides unique perceived benefits to the patrons compared to a traditional reference desk interaction. Further research is suggested to determine the value of consultations for distance or online students, to ensure that reference consultations services are sustainable, and to further examine student’s emotive reactions to the consultation experience.

A Review of: Dominguez, G. (2016). Beyond gate counts: Seating studies and observations to assess library space usage. New Library World, 117(5/6), 321-328. https://doi.org/10.1108/NLW-08-2015-0058 Abstract Objective – To propose a new method to assess library space usage and the physical library user experience utilizing multiple data collection techniques. Design – Seating usage studies, surveys, and observation. Setting – Large university in the southern United States. Subjects – Students who physically use the library spaces. Methods – The researcher performed seating sweeps three times a day for one week at time, using a counter to get an accurate headcount of each area of the library. The number of users was recorded on paper and then transferred to Excel. A survey for library patrons was created using Typeform and distributed through both email and in-person. In addition, the researcher created a photo diary to document how students were using the space, particularly creative and flexible uses of the library space. These photos were collected to be shared with library administration. The researcher conducted the study twice, once at each main campus library. Main Results – The initial seating sweeps at one location showed an average of 57 to 85 users engaging in active study, and 57% of users engaged in individual study vs. group study. The sweeping study at the second campus location found that floors designated as quiet floors were the most overcrowded. The researcher found that overall, the actual library use surpassed expected library use. The survey results indicated patron concerns about the lack of available seating, noise policies, uncomfortable furniture, and technology issues such as power outlets and Wi-Fi connectivity. Conclusion – The researcher found that utilizing surveys in addition to observational data provided a more complete picture of the user experience. Photographs also provided depth and texture to the observational data. Based on the findings the librarians and administration plan to upgrade furniture and technology options, as well as make changes to the noise policy.

A Review of: Budd, J. (2017). Faculty publications and citations: a longitudinal examination. College & Research Libraries, 78(1), 80–89. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.78.1.80 Abstract Objective – To study the publishing output and citation activity of faculty at research universities. Design – Bibliometric and citation analysis. Setting – Academic citation databases. Subjects – Institutions in the United States that are members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). Methods – This study builds on three previous studies conducted by the author looking at faculty publication productivity, which were conducted for three different time periods beginning in 1991. For the present study, the author searched Scopus by institution to collect the total number of publications and citations for the faculty of more than 100 Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member universities, covering the years 2011 to 2013. The author acquired the total number of faculty at each institution from the ARL website. The faculty number from the ARL website and publication and citation data from Scopus were used to calculate the per capita publication and citation numbers for each institution. The author calculated the total mean number of publications and the mean number of per capita publications per university. Chi tests were used to compare the means for statistical significance.  Main Results – The number of both total and per capita publications for each institution went up over the course of all three studies. The mean number of total publications per university for 1991 to 1993, the first time period studied, was 4,595.8; for the time period of the current study, 2011 to 2013, the mean was 9,662.0. For per capita publications, the mean for 1991 to 1993 was 3.56 and the mean for the present study was 5.96. Based on chi-square tests, the results were found to be statistically significant. Conclusions – The study found that the number of total publications increased significantly over time, exceeding the author’s statistical expectations based on previous work.

A Review of: Elsayed, A. M., & Saleh, E. I. (2018). Research data management and sharing among researchers in Arab universities: An exploratory study. IFLA Journal, 44(4), 281–299. https://doi.org/10.1177/0340035218785196 Abstract Objective – To investigate researchers’ practices and attitudes regarding research data management and data sharing. Design – Email survey. Setting – Universities in Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. Subjects – Surveys were sent to 4,086 academic faculty researchers. Methods – The survey was emailed to faculty at three Arab universities, targeting faculty in the life sciences and engineering. The survey was created using Google Docs and remained open for five months. Participants were asked basic demographic questions, questions regarding their research data and metadata practices, and questions regarding their data sharing practices. Main Results – The authors received 337 responses, for a response rate of 8%. The results showed that 48.4% of respondents had a data management plan and that 97% were responsible for preserving their own data. Most respondents stored their research data on their personal storage devices. The authors found that 64.4% of respondents reported sharing their research data. Respondents most frequently shared their data by publishing in a data research journal, sharing through academic social networks such as ResearchGate, and providing data upon request to peers. Only 5.1% of respondents shared data through an open data repository.  Of those who did not share data, data privacy and confidentiality were the most common reasons cited. Of the respondents who did share their data, contributing to scientific progress and increased citation and visibility were the primary reasons for doing so. A total of 59.6% of respondents stated that they needed more training in research data management from their universities. Conclusion – The authors conclude that researchers at Arab universities are still primarily responsible for their own data and that data management planning is still a new concept to most researchers. For the most part, the researchers had a positive attitude toward data sharing, although depositing data in open repositories is still not a widespread practice. The authors conclude that in order to encourage strong data management practices and open data sharing among Arab university researchers, more training and institutional support is needed.

Objective -To investigate the current state of research data services (RDS) in European academic libraries by determining the types of RDS being currently implemented and planned by these institutions. Design -Email survey.Setting -European academic research libraries.