Criss Library Faculty Books and Monographs

Books and monographs by Criss Library faculty members are collected here.

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Criss Library Year in Review: 2023-2024

Dr. C.C. and Mable L. Criss Library

In the booklet you will find stand out events, publications and presentations, and usage stats about the past year. It was an incredible school year and we are so excited to share 2024-2025 with you!
Serving Hispanic, Latine, and Latinx Students in Academic Libraries

Sommer Browning Ed. and Isabel Soto-Luna Ed.

Serving Hispanic, Latine, and Latinx Students in Academic Libraries is a collection of essays written by library workers that highlights academic library practices, programs, and services that support Hispanic, Latine, and Latinx students. As of 2020, there were over 500 federally designated Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) in the United States and Puerto Rico with another 300 designated as “emerging”. But this is only part of the picture; there are many more institutions of higher education with large Latinx populations that do not have this designation. This book seeks to bring attention to the important and exciting work being done in the libraries of these community colleges and research-centered institutions. With chapters on information literacy, special collections, collection management, critical pedagogy, and many others, this is an essential book for library workers searching for new programs and fresh ways to support their Hispanic and Latine students.
Teaching Research Data Management

Julia Bauder, Omer Farooq, Jason A. Heppler, and K. M. Ehrig-Page

Editor: Julia Bauder

Chapter: Creating Capacity for Research Data Services at Regional Universities: A Case Study authored by Omer Farooq, Jason A. Heppler, and Kate M. Ehrig-Page of the University of Nebraska at Omaha
Armed with this guide's strategies and concrete examples, subject librarians, data services librarians, and scholarly communication librarians will be inspired to roll up their sleeves and get involved with teaching research data management competencies to students and faculty.

The usefulness of research data management skills bridges numerous activities, from data-driven scholarship and open research by faculty to documentation for grant reporting. And undergrads need a solid foundation in data management for future academic success. This collection gathers practitioners from a broad range of academic libraries to describe their services and instruction around research data. You will learn about such topics as
- integrating research data management into information literacy instruction;
- threshold concepts for novice learners of data management;
- four key competencies that are entry points for library-faculty collaboration in data instruction;
- an 8-step plan for outreach to faculty and grad students in engineering and the sciences;
- using RStudio to teach data management, data visualization, and research reproducibility;
- expanding data management instruction with adaptable modules for remote learning;
- designing a data management workshop series;
- developing a research guide on data types, open data repositories, and data storage;
- creating a data management plan assignment for STEM undergraduates; and
- data management training to ensure compliance with grant requirements.
Embracing Change: Alternative to Traditional Research Writing Assignments

Silke Higgins and Ngoc-Yen Tran

Chapter: What fascinates you? Infographics as research-based inquiry for artists by T.M. Owens (University of Nebraska at Omaha) and C.H. Voorhees.

The pedagogical value and real-life applicability of traditional research writing assignments has been investigated since at least the 1990s, and the increase in adoption of alternative assignments could be an indication that students are questioning their long-term benefits. Traditional research writing assignments do not always align with the goals and outcomes that students set for their education.

Embracing Change: Alternatives to Traditional Research Writing Assignments collects existing alternative assignments from librarians and classroom instructors and examines their benefits and drawbacks, impact on various student populations, and the support needed to make them successful. In two parts—Analog-Driven Assignments and Technology-Driven Assignments—authors offer a wealth of insight into the theory and practice of utilizing alternative assignments. Case studies detail the development of assignments, their implementation, lessons learned, and assessment, and provide examples and reference materials for incorporating or refining your own alternative assignments. Projects covered include:
- how students engage with writing gray literature
- producing a local voting guide
- creating museum-level exhibit labels
- composing and printing original poems using a letterpress
- developing finding aids
- writing a children’s book
- creating infographics and lightning talk videos
- learning digital literacy using podcasts
- a variety of digital humanities projects
Embracing Change is a testament to the power of interdisciplinary collaboration, highlights the value of alternative assignments, and provides librarians and educators with practical guidance for creating, implementing, and supporting alternatives to research writing assignments.
The Complete Guide to Institutional Repositories

Stephen Craig Finlay

This authoritative text will be a trusted reference for library directors implementing new IR programs or overseeing a maturing program, current professionals who find themselves with added IR responsibilities, and new librarians entering the job market.

The Institutional Repository (IR) has become standard to the academic library in the past decade. In fact, some 5,000 are listed in open access directories. However, IR operations are anything but standard. You are not alone in your challenges, whether it’s discovery of born-digital content or policies for deposit and withdrawal. This resource gathers expertise to offer a comprehensive guide on contemporary institutional repository management. Readers will sharpen their understanding of such key IR topics as
- managing complexity task-by-task using a detailed breakdown of IR projects;
- six crucial elements every deposit policy should address;
- using the SHERPA RoMEO database to quickly locate publisher policies;
- policy development, community outreach, and open source software testing, illuminated through case studies;
- metadata basics for the non-cataloger;
- authority control for electronic theses, dissertations, and grey literature;
- workflow suggestions for small and mid-sized institutions;
- showcasing undergraduates’ work with student peer-reviewed journals, photography, or theater performances;
- promoting faculty engagement with awards and recognition; and
- copyright fundamentals all staff who interact with the IR should know.
The 360 Librarian: A Framework for Integrating Mindfulness, Emotional Intelligence, and Critical Reflection in the Workplace

Tammi Owens and Carol A. Daul-Elhindi

Whether you are just beginning your career or are a seasoned professional, navigating the academic library workplace comes with inherent challenges. You have to understand the official and unofficial mission of the library and the organization of which it is a part, maneuver within the political landscape, mesh with colleagues’ personalities and roles, and learn how to do your job well.

The 360 Librarian defines a framework for practicing librarianship with critical reflection, mindfulness, and emotional intelligence. It can help you become more purposeful in your daily interactions with students, faculty, and staff, and create pathways to authentic engagement. An engaged library practice consists of continual give-and-take, careful assessment of yourself and others, and full-circle situational awareness. The 360 framework details five steps:
1. Mindful Practice
2. Emotional Awareness
3. Engaged Communication
4. Empathetic Reflection and Action
5. Reassurance
Each step includes practical activities for your mind, body, and spirit to enhance and practice each skill, as well as case studies and practical essays from librarians and educators in universities around the country. The tools in The 360 Librarian can help you acknowledge what is happening in the moment, respond with empathy and compassion, engage in positive practices to engender change, and fully honor your commitment to your students, your colleagues, and to the profession.
Teaching Reference Today: New Directions, Novel Approaches

Lisa A. Ellis, Carol A. Daul-Elhindi, and Tammi M. Owens

Editor: Lisa A. Ellis

Chapter, Reference 360: A Holistic Approach to Reference Instruction, co-authored by Tammi Owens, UNO faculty member.

Reference and Information Services, if it may still be referred to by this term, is an evolving outreach service in libraries. This is not only due to Google and the Internet, but also other technological advances afford users online access to a plethora of content, free and proprietary. This evolution has also caused a shift in the theories and practices (especially, core functions and values) of reference and information services as library schools seek greater alignment with practitioners and libraries on the forefront of these changes.

As academics and practitioners work together to educate library students on the kinds of changes happening in reference and information services, they are rethinking their curriculum and assignments to incorporate real-world challenges adaptive to user needs. Likewise, libraries may work through their regional library consortia to plan professional development workshops or training sessions to teach new skills and methods of approach required for such changing services.

Here’s a tool for library school instructors, library students, professional development instructors, and current librarians poised to change, which specifically addresses the pedagogy of reference and information services in flux. It will help answer questions such as:
- How may we better educate a new and current generation of reference and information service professionals, given the challenges they will likely encounter?
- What kinds of assignments could be devised to better promote active learning in a transformative field like reference and information services?
- What new approaches or theories could be applied to assist library professionals in meeting the informational needs of users?
A Companion to Custer and the Little Bighorn Campaign

Brad D. Lookingbill, Douglas Seefeldt, and Jason A. Heppler

Editor: Brad D. Lookingbill

Chapter, A National Monument, co-authored by Jason Heppler, UNO faculty member
- An accessible and authoritative overview of the scholarship that has shaped our understanding of one of the most iconic battles in the history of the American West
- Combines contributions from an array of respected scholars, historians, and battlefield scientists
- Outlines the political and cultural conditions that laid the foundation for the Centennial Campaign and examines how George Armstrong Custer became its figurehead
- Provides a detailed analysis of the battle maneuverings at Little Bighorn, paying special attention to Indian testimony from the battlefield
- Concludes with a section examining how the Battle of Little Bighorn has been mythologized and its pervading influence on American culture
Educational Programs: Innovative Practices for Archives and Special Collections

Kate Theimer, Amy Schindler, and Jennie Davy

Editor: Kate Theimer

Chapter 5, Student Curators in the Archives: Class-Curated Exhibits in Academic Special Collections, co-authored by Amy Schindler, UNO faculty member.

Educational Programs: Innovative Practices for Archives and Special Collections explores how archivists and special collections librarians in organizations of different sizes and types have approached the challenges in creating effective educational programs to prepare the next generation of researchers and advocates for archives.
Outreach: Innovative Practices for Archives and Special Collections

Kate Theimer and Amy Schindler

Editor: Kate Theimer

Chapter 4, Staying Connected: Digitizing the Carl “Pappy” Fehr Choral Music Collection, authored by Amy Schindler, UNO faculty member.

Outreach: Innovative Practices for Archives and Special Collections explores how archives of different sizes and types are reaching out to new potential users and increasing awareness of programs and collections. The book features twelve case studies that demonstrate ideas that can be transferred into many other settings. Some of the practices described in the case studies rely primarily on technology and the Web to interact with the public, while others are centered on face-to-face activities.
Continuing Education for Librarians: Essays on Career Improvement Through Classes, Workshops, Conferences and More

Carol Smallwood, Kerol Harrod, Vera Gubnitskaia, and Heidi Blackburn

Editors: Carol Smallwood, Kerol Harrod and Vera Gubnitskaia.

Chapter 13: Traveling Abroad for Professional Development, co-authored by Heidi Blackburn, UNO faculty member.

It is an exciting time to be a librarian. Advances in technology have let libraries expand far beyond walls and lead the way in information delivery, while transforming the physical library into a place where customers can connect to information in new ways. It is also a challenging time to be a librarian. With continual change as the new normal, staying current can seem overwhelming. Even as they face budget shortfalls and staff reductions, librarians are tasked with finding the time and resources to keep abreast of rapid changes. This book offers a cornucopia of practical advice about how to acquire new skills (and formal and informal credentials) through all stages of a career. The 27 essays cover formal and online education, conferences, fellowships, workshops, networking, teaching, mentoring, balancing personal with professional lives, and money matters--and are filled with practical, honest and real-world advice.
The Rubyist Historian: Ruby Fundamentals for Humanities Scholars

Jason A. Heppler

In late 2010 I wrote a post on how I learned code. I was, simultaneously, enrolled in ENGL4/878: Electronic Text with Professor Stephen Ramsay, where part of the course was about learning the Ruby programming language and how we could apply programming to humanistic data. The course, it turns out, was a sort of pivot moment for me. Although I had always been something of a computer geek, programming was something I had not touched since high school. But after the course I became captured by the power that programming can offer humanities scholars. In an age of Big Data, from Google Books to ever-growing cultural heritage digitized by libraries, museums, and centers, we have at our hands a vast array of material that can be manipulated, queried, browsed, and visualized through computational methods. When the course was finished, I decided to write a series of blog posts for others who might be interested in applying Ruby to humanistic questions. The result was the seven write-ups below.

The original post promised that the series would be released as an electronic book. At the time I wrote the series I was running WordPress and the plugin Anthologize had recently been released. Shortly after, however, I switched blog platforms to Jekyll and, as other projects demanded my attention, I never got around to pushing the material into a format beyond my blog posts.
Information Literacy Through the Streets of Hollywood

Gerald T. Burke, Carol Anne Germain, Alysia Starkey, and Heidi Blackburn

Editors: Gerald T. Burke and Carol Anne Germain

Lesson Plan, "We Didn't Start the Fire in the Library – Teaching Information Literacy with MTV," co-authored by Heidi Blackburn, UNO faculty member.

As teachers and librarians we appreciate and eagerly embrace instructional techniques and devices that engage students in the learning process.

From our experience, we have observed that students are very receptive to visual media in instructional activities. Since we teach Information Literacy courses, we know that many of these resources contain excellent examples, and we utilize these to instruct students in the fundamentals of Information Literacy.

This book strives to provide librarians and other teachers with resources and ideas to better educate our students in Information Literacy using visual media. In this publication, we discuss the use of these resources for both in- and out-of class assignments following the information literacy guidelines set forth by ACRL.

Instructors of elementary and secondary education will also find these useful since the core of the competencies overlap with the Information Literacy standards created by the American Association of School Librarians. In addition, teachers of subject-oriented courses that fulfill Information Literacy requirements will also find these resources valuable.
The Plains Political Tradition: Essays on South Dakota Political Tradition

Jon Lauck, John E. Miller, Donald Simmons, and Jason A. Heppler

Editors: Jon Lauck, John E Miller, Donald C Simmons, Jr

Chapter, The American Indian movement and South Dakota politics, authored by Jason Heppler, UNO faculty member

First impressions of the political landscape in South Dakota tend towards an assumption of hard-line conservatism, and yet such a conclusion barely scratches the surface of what constitutes political tradition in the Mount Rushmore State. Editors Jon K. Lauck, John E. Miller, and Donald C. Simmons, Jr., have drawn together twelve essays on disparate topics in order to consider the state's underlying political culture. Each essay addresses an aspect of history, politics, or art, subtly exposing the contradictory nature of South Dakotans and elucidating the many elements that comprise the larger political tradition. Scholars from around the country consider topics such as war and peace, literature, environmentalism, the American Indian Movement, left-wing and liberal politics, immigration, and defeat. With each essay, the discussion builds upon itself, allowing the reader to develop a fuller sense of where South Dakota fits into the growing study of political culture in modern society.
The Frugal Librarian: Thriving in Tough Economic Times

Carol Smallwood, Heidi Blackburn, and Erin Davis

Editor: Carol Smallwood

Chapter 32: We're All in This Together: Solutions for Creative Staffing, co-authored by Heidi Blackburn, UNO faculty member.

Fewer employees, shorter hours, diminished collection budgets, reduced programs and services all at a time of record library usage. Don t fret and fritter away scarce resources. Be frugal! In this book, library expert Smallwood persuasively demonstrates that the necessity of doing business differently can be positive. Presenting creative and resourceful solutions to universal concerns from dozens of librarians, representing a wide variety of institutions, this collection helps overtaxed library professionals

* Find supplementary funding sources, including grants
* Save money by sharing resources, using tiered staffing for technical services, and implementing green IT
* Tap into grassroots movements to save neighborhood libraries
* Preserve and enhance important library functions like programming, outreach, and staff development, despite a tight budget

Partnering, sharing, innovating these are the watchwords for contemporary librarians in tough economic times, and this book offers plenty of ideas that can be implemented immediately.
A Different Kind of Web: New Connections Between Archives and Our Users

Kate Theimer and Amy Schindler

Editor: Kate Theimer

Case Study, "A New Look for Old Information: Creating a Wiki to Share Campus History," authored by Amy Schindler, UNO faculty member.

Come explore how archives are using the web to reach and interact with users, old and new, as well as serve their own management needs.

Thirteen case studies illustrate archival practitioners' own experiences in creating blogs, wikis, and interactive websites, and contributing to sites such as Flickr, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Second Life. The themes in these case studies are framed by longer analytical essays that reflect on the larger implications of social media for archives -- the "different kind of web" archivists are forming with their users. Learn how social media are changing how archivists conduct outreach, how the concept of authority is adapting and evolving, and the opportunities social media present for enhancing and streamlining traditional archival processes.

In addition, a series of short essays present the viewpoints of some of the primary users -- historians, educators, students, and genealogists. The volume concludes with a group of reflections on the larger implications of social media for archives, including the impact of Web 2.0 on diversity in the archival profession and the archival record.

This book is for practitioners looking for reports on real-world implementations of social media tools; students in archives and history programs interested in implementation and management issues, and the broader theoretical and systemic issues raised by the use of social media; and historians, history faculty, professionals in related fields, such as libraries and museums, and those who study the use of the web will find an encapsulation of the current approach of the archival profession.
A Brief History of Afghanistan

Shaista Wahab and Barry Youngerman

Co-authored by Shaista Wahab, UNO faculty member.

Afghanistan has long been considered a remote and uninviting country to all but its closest neighbors. This lightly populated agricultural and pastoral nation has guarded its independence in the age of European imperialism thanks in large part to its limited perceived value. Political isolation reinforced by a conservative tribal culture kept most of the cultural and economic changes of the modern world at bay. Slowly, however, modern ways and values began to penetrate into the capital city of Kabul.

A Brief History of Afghanistan, Second Edition examines this country's isolation and how it found itself involved in 30 years of war and anarchy. This updated resource provides extensive background information so readers can understand the issues and make informed judgments of their own.
Strategies for Regenerating the Library and Information Profession

Jana Varlejs, Graham Walton, Heidi Blackburn, Alysia Starkey, and Kate Wise

Editors: Jana Varlejs and Graham Walton

Chapter, Generational Tug-of-War – Playing Nice Between Millennials and Baby Boomers in a Multi-Generational Staff, co-authored by Heidi Blackburn, UNO faculty member.

This volume comprises papers prepared for the 8th World Conference on Continuing Professional Development (Bologna, Italy, 18-20 August 2009). Within the broad theme of creating a positive work environment for a multi-generational workforce in library and information organizations, the conference addresses managing between and across generations, mentoring and coaching, attracting people to the profession and developing a new generation of leaders, re-skilling and transferability of skills, succession planning and passing on knowledge.
Beginner's Dari (with audio CD)

Shaista Wahab

Dari, one of the official languages of Afghanistan, is the primary language of Kabul, the nation's capital. This book introduces the language in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step format.

The first part teaches one how to read, write, and pronounce each of the 32 letters of the Dari alphabet. Subsequent sections cover basic grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. The writing, syntax, and grammar sections all feature exercises that help reinforce the material presented in the lessons. The final section focuses on words and phrases of particular interest to those traveling where Dari is spoken. The audio CD feature complements each of the sections by allowing the reader to hear and practice the language as spoken.