Faculty Spotlight - Spring 2022
Professor Hermina Anghelescu
Anghelescu served as co-editor for a special-themed issue of the IFLA Journal, Libraries and Covid-19: Opportunities for Innovation (Vol. 48, No. 1, March 1, 2022).The editorial discusses the challenges faced by the sudden closure of libraries worldwide and their immediate transition to virtual services. It also discusses libraries’ reconsidering their interaction with remote users while remaining relevant for their research. The post COVID-19 pandemic reopening represented a moment of introspection and new approaches in library operations. All of the articles in this special issue capture examples of professional journeys in different contexts – not only the journey of researching around a specific topic, but also journeys that illustrate how the library profession evolved in the initial two years of the pandemic.
Professor Stephen Bajjaly
Bajjaly co-authored the article, "The Importance of Soft Skills to LIS Education," that appears in UTP Journals' latest issue of the Journal of Education for Library and Information Science with Dr. Laura Saunders, division director of the School of Library and Information Science at Simmons University. This article, which focuses on LIS faculty, is one of five that the pair have published (or are in the publication pipeline) concerning the teaching of soft skills in varying academic disciplines.
Saunders, L., Bajjaly, S. (2021) the Importance of Soft Skills to LIS Education. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 63(2), 187-215. [https://utpjournals.press/doi/abs/10.3138/jelis-2020-0053]
Bajjaly, S. T., & Saunders, L. (2021). Soft Skills Teaching by Top-Ranked US Nursing Faculty. Journal of Nursing Education, 60(8), 437-443. [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34346814/]
Saunders, L. & Bajjaly, S. (2021) Direct instruction of inter- and intrapersonal skills for business education, Journal of Education for Business, DOI: 10.1080/08832323.2021.1997884 [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08832323.2021.1997884?journalCode=vjeb20]
Assistant Professor Timothy Bowman
Bowman co-presented a session on equity and inclusion at Wayne State’s Office for Teaching and Learning’s Brown Bag Series: Career Competencies in the Classroom.
The virtual series focuses on the National Association of Colleges and Employers standards and how to apply them in the classroom.
Associate Professor Deborah Charbonneau
Charbonneau had an article published in the Journal of the Medical Library Association on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health reference services. This article was based on a national survey of health sciences librarians conducted with colleague Emily Vardell, assistant professor of the School of Library and Information Management at Emporia State University. The results of the survey characterize the evolving nature and scope of academic health sciences reference work during the COVID-19 pandemic. They report the most frequently received reference topics and factors impacting reference work during the pandemic.
Charbonneau, D.H. and Vardell, E. (2022). The impact of COVID-19 on reference services: A national survey of academic health sciences librarians. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 110(1), 56–62.
The (free) full-text article is available online:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8830370/
Assistant Professor Christine D’Arpa
D'Arpa was invited to contribute to Faculty Impact, a newsletter from the Office of Wayne State University Provost Mark Kornbluh. Read D'Arpa's article, Elevating diverse voices with library science here.
D'Arpa also published the following:
Lenstra, N., Oguz, F., D'Arpa, C., Wilson, L.S. (2022). Exercising at the Library: Small and Rural Public Libraries in the Lives of Older Adults, Library Quarterly, 92:1. DOI: 10.1086/717232
D’Arpa, C. (2021). Sharing the Science of Agricultural Practice: Information Transfer via the Annual Reports of the United States Department of Agriculture, 1862–1868, Journal of Agricultural & Food Information, DOI: 10.1080/10496505.2021.2010563
Lenstra, N., & D’Arpa, C. (2021). Reimagining public library programming during a pandemic. IFLA Journal. https://doi.org/10.1177/03400352211023076
Associate Professor Xiangmin Zhang
Zhang published the following articles from an ongoing collaboration with colleagues in Thailand. Their research focuses on user experience issues with IoT devices and AI-enabled assistants.
Debajyoti Pal , Vajirasak Vanijja, Xiangmin Zhang, & Himanshu Thapliyal (2021). Exploring the Antecedents of Consumer Electronics IoT Devices Purchase Decision: A Mixed Methods Study. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONSUMER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 67, NO. 4, 305-318. Impact factor: 2.74
Debajyoti Pal, MOHAMMAD DAWOOD BABAKERKHELL, & X. Zhang (2021). Exploring the Determinants of Users' Continuance Usage Intention of Smart Voice Assistants. IEEE Access, Vol. 9, DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3132399 Impact factor: 3.367