Welcoming autistic students to academic libraries through innovative space utilization

“If the library can serve as a safe and welcoming place for these students, it will help contribute to their ultimate college success.” (Anderson, 2018). Certain characteristics of autism spectrum disorder can make it challenging for autistic college students to make use of academic libraries. High levels of sensory stimulation and the need to understand and comply with neurotypical social norms can make library spaces feel unwelcoming and difficult to use. West Chester University Libraries decided to develop a dedicated space for our growing cohort of autistic students to study. This article will discuss the reasons why autistic students may find academic libraries challenging as well as the considerations and process of developing a separate space for autistic students within a library.

In the PaLRaP Spotlight: Susan Williams

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Academic Library Video Services: Charting a Post-COVID Course

The vast majority of academic libraries offer streaming video services to support teaching and research, and demand for this already popular format from faculty and students increased when libraries closed their physical locations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite its popularity, many users are unfamiliar with copyright and terms of use for video content. Use of streaming video is further complicated by its availability on a variety of platforms using different licensing models. This case study shows how the Penn State University Libraries (PSUL) helped librarians, faculty, and students navigate access to video content for remote instruction during the pandemic. The examples of training library staff, educating faculty and students, and streamlining internal processes can be adapted by all academic libraries to provide greater access to video content. Demand for streaming video will continue even when libraries return to full in-person operations, so these approaches will continue to be relevant.

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Noteworthy: News Briefs from PA Libraries

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It’s Not Where You Start or Where You Finish - It’s How You Get There

A career in librarianship may start in a library science master’s program, but the path to and/or between career opportunities builds and shifts with time. This commentary discusses the career paths followed by two librarians who each attended the same master’s program and are currently both health science librarians at the same institution. While these similarities exist, the unique journeys each followed have helped to shape their approaches to their current jobs, roles within their careers, and their approaches to librarianship. From library school and first jobs, to current positions, this piece discusses how every step along the way has had a lasting impact on the authors’ careers.

An Uphill Battle: Academic Librarians and the Barriers to Scholarship

Some academic librarians within Pennsylvania and across the United States have been granted faculty status by their institutions. With this status comes the expectation that librarians will contribute scholarship to their discipline. However, with many librarians holding only a master’s degree, there is the likelihood that they lack the requisite skills to engage in research. On top of this, multiple studies have shown that librarians feel they lack the time to pursue scholarship on top of their typical job duties. This commentary discusses how these barriers create stress for librarians, hurts their scholarly pursuits, and how the current culture in academia may play a role in it.

Collecting Pennsylvania Political Twitter Data

During the two most recent elections we have seen the importance of social media, and Twitter in particular, for political discourse. This paper describes the effort of an academic library to collect election-related Twitter data from Pennsylvania-specific organizational accounts and hashtags for 2018 and 2020 in the run-up and aftermath of both election cycles. Because of its importance to understanding contemporary politics and its historic value, libraries need to consider the opportunity to collect and make this data accessible to Pennsylvanians.

Negotiating Open Access Journal Agreements: An Academic Library Case Study

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented an opportunity for academic libraries to advance open access (OA) to scholarly articles. Awareness among faculty on the importance of OA has increased significantly during the pandemic, as colleges and universities struggle financially and seek sustainable access to high-quality scholarly journals. Consortia have played an important role in establishing negotiation principles on OA journal agreements. While the number of OA agreements is increasing, case studies involving individual libraries are still limited. This paper reviews existing literature on publisher negotiation principles related to OA journal negotiations and reflects on recent cases at an academic library in Pennsylvania, in order to identify best practices in OA journal negotiations. It provides recommendations on roles, relationships, and processes, as well as essential terms of OA journal agreements. This study’s findings are most relevant to large academic libraries that are interested in negotiating with scholarly journal publishers independently or through consortia.

In the PaLRaP Spotlight: Michael Lear

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