Practice Exam 1

Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, University of Rhode Island
Comprehensive Examination, November 12th, 2005.

Instructions:

Please do not write your name on any booklets. Instead, write the number assigned by your proctor on each blue booklet. You must answer ONE question from each section (I, II, and III) for a total of THREE questions. Please put the section number (I, II, or III) and the question number (1 or 2) for the question you answered on the outside of each blue booklet. You have four hours in which to complete the examination. You may leave whenever you complete the exam and you must give the booklets to the proctor before leaving the room.

PHILOSOPHY OR THEORY

1. URI-GSLIS educational outcome #12 states that graduates of our MLIS program will be able to "Manage library and information services effectively, applying the principles and practices of management to assure the highest quality of service to all." Choose one management theory and define how this theory will empower you and your library staff to apply "the principles and practices of management to assure the highest quality of service to all" for the library patrons or users for a library type of your choice (school, academic, public, or special).
   
2. Librarians have always been known for their ability to communicate and help their patrons, but sometimes, even librarians have problems communicating with colleagues in their own libraries. In a library or information center of your choice, describe a situation and a communication problem that might occur between professional colleagues and discuss how you would use a communication model or theory to help you solve the problem.

APPLICATIONS

1. The Magna Nimmus Library has always prided itself on a culture of planning, and surveys its user populations on a regular schedule. Recently, however, survey responses have plummeted - last year's survey got only a 32 percent response rate, and this year's a paltry 24 percent. "These results are meaningless," said assistant librarian Caddy Mordax; "we can't use them as the basis for policy. Too many people are left out."

   "So what should we do?" asked the head librarian, I. N. Ersha.

   "What if we supplement the survey results with content analysis of special interest blogs, websites, and listservs?" suggested Mordax. "There's a list for just about everything. We can lurk on them, analyze their information needs, and collate them with our known population groups."

   "Yeah, right," said Ersha. "And what about the ethical issues? Wouldn't that be a violation of confidentiality or something? We don't have time to figure it out this morning; you'd better write me a proposal."

   For a type of library you choose, outline the practical and ethical issues of using Internet content analysis for a supplement to, or substitute for, surveys with low response rates.
   
2. You have just been hired to assume the position of librarian in a library of your choice. You have surveyed the collection and noticed that it is not balanced in terms of an equal distribution of materials about various cultural groups. The community in which you will be serving is primarily homogeneous in terms of its racial and ethnic composition. What steps would you take to create a more balanced collection reflecting a variety of cultural perspectives and how would you inform the community of these changes? Be sure to identify the type of library and how you will revise your collection development policy to incorporate multi-cultural resources.

CURRENT ISSUES

1. In this fall's spate of hurricanes and floods, many libraries sustained severe damage. In some cases, unique materials were lost forever. Is it time to develop regional or national policies to safeguard rare and important information resources? What would such policies look like?

   As a consultant who has been asked to make recommendations for a coordinated regional preservation policy for a library consortium of your choice, please sketch your first draft. Consider the goals and objectives to be served by this policy, and what library or government agency should administer it. Address both technical issues (e.g., should rare materials be digitized or not?) and administrative issues (should local libraries have sole responsibility for decisions about the preservation of unique items?). Justify your recommendations.
   
2. In Google's rush to create a grand online catalog of books and resources, Google may have run afoul of the U.S. Copyright Law. Google's new search engine, "Google Print," would be in a better position if it limited its texts to works published prior to 1923. However, they have not limited the date of the works selected so far. Thus, the Author's Guild has filed a lawsuit against Google because they want a voice in what works will be included and how they will be used in the Google database. Google, on the other hand, says that they have no intention of making the full text available but would list titles, and if the copyright holder allows, will provide excerpts from texts. Any copyright holder would be free to opt out. "Google Print" would allow users to search for phrases and see snippets of text that contain those words and thus, would be digitizing complete works. Several libraries including the esteemed New York Public Library and Harvard University libraries are participating with Google in this digital initiative. In addition, Google allows paid advertising on the Google pages. Because of the Author's Guild lawsuit, however, Google has temporarily stopped scanning new texts into the database, but the existing texts and "Google Print" are still available online. Competition has begun by a group called "Open Content Alliance" including both the Author's Guild and Yahoo!, who are diligently working to obtain copyright permission prior to scanning texts. What roles should libraries play in creating and providing access to these databases of texts? Is it in the interest of libraries to participate with either Google or Yahoo! to make online reference sources as comprehensive as possible? What needs to be done to ensure compliance with the copyright law? What provisions will libraries need to make to provide access and assistance to patrons to enable them to search full texts online?