In spring 2020, the California State University System and its 23 campuses became the first in the United States to commit to a year of remote instruction due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Remote instruction separated the system's librarians from their users, whose needs were especially great within the system's ethnically, economically, and…

Vignettes, brief descriptions of fictional characters and situations, serve as a tool to study people's lives, perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes about specific situations. Although not widely used in library and information science (LIS) research, vignettes can depersonalize responses to controversial situations or behavioral responses related…

Peer learning dynamics have proven powerful in collegiate contexts. These dynamics should be leveraged at the undergraduate level in academic libraries for reference provision and basic information literacy instruction. Drawing on the literature of peer learning, documented examples of peer reference and instruction in academic libraries, and…

Many of our reference interactions are face-to-face at a desk or in our offices. Unfortunately, not all of our students are on campus. Whether a non-traditional student or a traditional undergraduate, more of our patrons are attending online classes or attending satellite campuses with no librarians on site. It's difficult to reach these students,…

As part of a focused, methodical, and evaluative approach to emerging technologies, QR codes are one of many new technologies being used by the UC Irvine Libraries. QR codes provide simple connections between print and virtual resources. In summer 2010, a small task force began to investigate how QR codes could be used to provide information and…

The Science Cafe is a national movement that attempts to foster community dialog and inquiry on scientific topics in informal venues such as coffee houses, bookstores, restaurants and bars. The California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, Robert E. Kennedy Library staff have taken the Science Cafe model out of bars and cafes and into…