Graduate work examples that use evidence to inform library and information practices.

“Libraries should not allow children to select books without parental involvement.”
A Reflection on Youth Access
LS505 - Collection Development, Duck

Being effective and beneficial to a community as an institution like a library, especially with so many moving parts, requires an evidence based approach to making decisions. In graduate school, many lectures and in class conversations are based in theory, but the professors here at SLIS have been very adamant about instilling evidence-based practices into our work. I feel that this is beneficial as a constant reminder that big ideas are important, but in order to make decisions that have the best chance of gaining any traction in the real world, we must have grounded information.

I came across two papers that were completed in LS505: Collection Development under the instruction of Tiffany Duck that illustrate the need for evidence-based practices in modern libraries. The first is a community analysis on the very community I reside and work. As basic as it may appear, the information is invaluable. Putting it together, I learned not only demographic breakdowns of my community such as age, race, socioeconomics, etc, but I also learned a lot about my library, such as materials circulated, program attendance, and patron feedback. Since I work at the Evanston Public Library, this analysis opened my eyes to a lot of why we provide certain programming to our community as well as areas where we might be failing our community. The second paper from LS505 is titled “Libraries should not allow children to select books without parental involvement.” This paper attempts to use published evidence to show that while parental involvement with one's own children is always encourage, restricting access on a policy level can be harmful to communities and our society as a whole.

The last choice of papers that shows evidence as a means of directing library practices is from LS568: Social and Technical Aspects of Cybersecurity and Terrorism with Dr. Laurie Bonnici. A case brief on the 2023 MOVEit date breach, this paper looks at a high profile hacking for ransom plot. While the evidence collected is from a case involving a private company, it is all about how user data can be compromised by well funded organizations or governments and used against not only the company, but the individual users. I relate this evidence to libraries. Patron checkout history is heavily protected in most states. If a hacking organization or worse, a government wanted to spy on this information, it would be very problematic for libraries and dangerous for individuals.