This Pressbook is written to help librarians create and guide instruction in the academic library realm.

The purpose of this tutorial (along with the “Advanced Keyword Searching, Part I” tutorial) is to help the student master comprehensive, keyword searching. Performing a truly comprehensive, keyword search is more difficult than performing a similarly thorough, subject heading search. We hope that this tutorial will make the steps involved in this complex process easier to understand and master.

This toolkit is designed to inform the academic librarian about book clubs hosted in an academic library. The toolkit guides academic librarians through building meaningful and effective book clubs at their institutions through an overview of extant literature, the results of a cross-institutional survey, a case-study, and through a series of best practices. It provides the academic librarian with language about the vision and value of such a program.

This text introduces copyright, publishing formats, note-taking formats, citation styles, source evaluation, library organization, library resources and services, and effective search practices using online databases and Internet search engines.

A perfect introduction to the exploding field of Data Science for the curious, first-time student. The author brings his trademark conversational tone to the important pillars of the discipline: exploratory data analysis, choices for structuring data, causality, machine learning principles, and introductory Python programming using open-source Jupyter Notebooks. This engaging read will allow any dedicated learner to build the skills necessary to contribute to the Data Science revolution, regardless of background.

The book offers a blend of theory and practice in guiding readers to apply design thinking principles to solving some of our world’s biggest problems. At the same time, readers are encouraged to become aware of new and emerging technologies that make prototyping and applying solutions a reality.

An instructional text that seeks to untangle the social complexities and ethical dilemmas of online data and information. DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP will educate readers on the economics of the Internet and the means by which political bad actors exploit its platforms to pervert the public discourse.

This collection brings together scholarship and pedagogy from multiple perspectives and disciplines, offering nuanced and complex perspectives on Information Literacy in the second decade of the 21st century. Taking as a starting point the concerns that prompted the Association of Research Libraries (ACRL) to review the Information Literacy Standards for Higher Education and develop the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education (2015), the chapters in this collection consider six frameworks that place students in the role of both consumer and producer of information within today's collaborative information environments. Contributors respond directly or indirectly to the work of the ACRL, providing a bridge between past/current knowledge and the future and advancing the notion that faculty, librarians, administrators, and external stakeholders share responsibility and accountability for the teaching, learning, and research of Information Literacy.

Good researchers have a host of tools at their disposal that make navigating today’s complex information ecosystem much more manageable. Gaining the knowledge, abilities, and self-reflection necessary to be a good researcher helps not only in academic settings, but is invaluable in any career, and throughout one’s life. The Information Literacy User’s Guide will start you on this route to success.The Information Literacy User’s Guide is based on two current models in information literacy: The 2011 version of The Seven Pillars Model, developed by the Society of College, National and University Libraries in the United Kingdom and the conception of information literacy as a metaliteracy, a model developed by one of this book’s authors in conjunction with Thomas Mackey, Dean of the Center for Distance Learning at SUNY Empire State College. These core foundations ensure that the material will be relevant to today’s students.The Information Literacy User’s Guide introduces students to critical concepts of information literacy as defined for the information-infused and technology-rich environment in which they find themselves. This book helps students examine their roles as information creators and sharers and enables them to more effectively deploy related skills. This textbook includes relatable case studies and scenarios, many hands-on exercises, and interactive quizzes.

Students need to understand systems and the systems concept, and they need to understand the role of ICT in enabling systems. Students will learn the characteristics of good systems (e.g., intuitive, likable, error-resistant, fast, flexible, and the like). Knowing the characteristics of good systems will permit students to demand well designed systems and to suggest how existing systems should be changed. Students need to understand the affordances, directions, and limits of hardware, software, and networks in both personal and organizational dimensions. They also need to appreciate that, as technical capabilities change and new ones arise, more opportunities to apply ICT for efficiency, effectiveness, and innovation are afforded. They need to understand the process for developing and implementing new or improved systems and the activities of IS professionals in this process.

This book is written as an introductory text, meant for those with little or no experience with computers or information systems. While sometimes the descriptions can get a little bit technical, every effort has been made to convey the information essential to understanding a topic while not getting bogged down in detailed terminology or esoteric discussions.

This book acknowledges our changing information landscape, covering key concepts in information literacy to support a research process with intention. We start by critically examining the online environment many of us already engage with every day, looking at algorithms, the attention economy, information disorder and cynicism, information hygiene, and fact-checking. We then move into an exploration of information source types, meaningful research topics, keyword choices, effective search strategies, library resources, Web search considerations, the ethical use of information, and citation.

This book explores the history, present, and future of library science, both in theory and in practice. It examines the place of the librarian as arbiter of information access in a constantly-changing and modernizing global community.

With raised awareness and accessibility laws emerging around the world, understanding what inclusive access to the Web means is becoming necessary knowledge for anyone who produces digital content. Much of the current information on Web accessibility requires some technical understanding, and may be difficult to consume for the average person. The instruction here will “interpret” the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1), to make it easier to understand for a general audience. You will have an opportunity to experience barriers firsthand, then experience that content with the barriers removed, developing a practical understanding of web accessibility.

Learn about learning analytics tools, resources, processes, and workflows currently available at the University of Minnesota.

The aim of this practical guide is to introduce learning analytics to educators in higher education. To this end, we define learning analytics, provide some background to how learning analytics work, explore successful learning analytics implementations, and present findings from an exploratory study of perceptions of the users of learning analytics—educators, students, and advisors—of common metrics and visualizations from learning management system analytic tools at an Ontario university to provide a practical guide to learning analytics.

The Little Book of Semaphores is a free (in both senses of the word) textbook that introduces the principles of synchronization for concurrent programming.In most computer science curricula, synchronization is a module in an Operating Systems class. OS textbooks present a standard set of problems with a standard set of solutions, but most students don't get a good understanding of the material or the ability to solve similar problems.The approach of this book is to identify patterns that are useful for a variety of synchronization problems and then show how they can be assembled into solutions. After each problem, the book offers a hint before showing a solution, giving students a better chance of discovering solutions on their own.The book covers the classical problems, including "Readers-writers," "Producer-consumer", and "Dining Philosophers." In addition, it collects a number of not-so-classical problems, some written by the author and some by other teachers and textbook writers. Readers are invited to create and submit new problems.

Exploring the pathways offered by the intersection of the digital and the humanities, Making Sense of Digital Humanities seeks to support students and faculty engaging with the complex ways digital humanities enhances our understanding of modern society.

We intend this book to act as a guide writ large for would-be champions of OER, that anyone—called to action by the example set by our chapter authors—might serve as guides themselves. The following chapters tap into the deep experience of practitioners who represent a meaningful cross section of higher education institutions in North America. It is our hope that the examples and discussions presented by our authors will facilitate connections among practitioners, foster the development of best practices for OER adoption and creation, and more importantly, lay a foundation for novel, educational excellence.

A short online tutorial to introduce readers to research best-practices in the humanities and social sciences.