1998 Final Exams Questions

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April 10, 1998

ANSWER THREE OF THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS, ALLOWING UP TO 60 MINUTES FOR EACH. ANSWER EACH IN A SEPARATE EXAM BOOKLET WITH THE QUESTION'S NUMBER ON THE SUBJECT LINE OF THE EXAM BOOKLET. DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME ON THE EXAM BOOKLET ITSELF.

1. Strategic planning is a process that helps us make key decisions and use resources for maximum benefit. The purpose of strategic planning is not to decide what should be done in the future but to decide what should be done now to make desired things happen in an uncertain future. From the perspective of a library or information agency type of your choice, discuss the process of planning and the content of the resulting plan that will develop or enhance services you think will be the most critical in the next three to five years.

2. Discuss why it is important that libraries, of all types, provide their clients with quality access to the Internet. From the perspective of a library or information agency type of your choice, identify and describe important problems and opportunities that the Internet will present to such libraries over the next few years.

3. Discuss the significant issues related to intellectual freedom, censorship, and privacy as regards the provision of information services to clients. What guidance is available from the professional community on these issues?

4. How have information resources (print and digital) changed over the last twenty years or so and what impact have these changes had on the library's delivery of information to their clients?

5. Libraries and information agencies continue to undergo significant changes. Identify three changes that you consider to be significant and discuss the implications of these changes on the roles, responsibilities, and activities of the information professional.

July 17, 1998

ANSWER THREE OF THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS, EACH IN A SEPARATE EXAM BOOKLET. PLACE THE QUESTION'S NUMBER ON THE SUBJECT LINE OF THE EXAM BOOKLET. DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME ON THE EXAM BOOKLET ITSELF.

1. There is little doubt that the emergence of the Internet and World Wide Web is transforming how libraries meet the information needs of their clients. From a library perspective of your choice (public, academic, school, etc.), describe in some detail how the emergence of the Internet and WWW has affected user expectations, the provision of information services, and library policy issues.

2. One way of viewing the work and responsibilities of management is to do so by considering the 5 management functions: planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling. From the perspective of a type of library or information agency describe what each function entails and describe the current issues affecting each function and the ways in which these issues are being addressed.

3. Several information-related professional associations have developed codes of ethics (e.g., American Library Assn., American Society for Information Science, Medical Library Assn., American Assn. of Law Libraries, etc.). First, describe several important purposes (uses) of codes of ethics. Second, identify and describe four important ethical issues that face the information professions at the end of the 20th century.

4. From the perspective of a library type of your choice (school, public, academic, special), identify an important group of people that such libraries serve (e.g., K-3, high school students, managers, adult women, undergraduate students, university faculty, physicians, etc.). Describe important information needs of the group that you have identified, and discuss what this type of library needs to do over the next decade or so to ensure that it effectively serves the information needs of the identified group.

5. Effective information retrieval in computer-based systems depends on the design of the system (e.g., capabilities of search engines, input processes such as indexing, etc,), as well as on the knowledge and skills of the searcher. Discuss the factors that have been shown to contribute to the effectiveness of retrieval in computer-based systems using specific examples where appropriate to support your discussion.

November 20, 1998

ANSWER THREE OF THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS, ALLOWING UP TO 60 MINUITES FOR EACH. ANSWER EACH ONE IN A SEPARTE EXAM BOOKLET WITH THE QUESTION'S NUMBER ON THE SUBJECT LINE OF THE EXAM BOOKLET. DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME ON THE EXAM BOOKLET ITSELF.

1. An act of the Kentucky General Assembly requires that "each local school district and school shall utilize the latest available filtering technology to ensure that sexually explicit material is not made available to students" and requires that school districts use an auditing procedure to determine if such material is being accessed. This flies in the face of ALA's support for free and open access for all including students. What arguments have been made for and against filtering the Internet? Compare and contrast public library and school library responses to this issue.

2. You have been given the task of developing an "outcomes assessment" mechanism that will provide you information on the effectiveness of your agency. From the perspective of a type of library or information agency, identify the outcomes that you would include as the best indicators of effectiveness. Then describe how you would involve your internal and external constituencies in the process and how you would utilize the results in improving services.

3. Diversity is a pressing issue in our profession, evident in the about 10% LIS graduates from minority groups to serve the US population of which 26% are from minority groups. The ALA has taken initial steps in its Spectrum Initiatives to provide scholarships for minority recruitment and has launched a major endowment campaign to build permanent scholarship funds for this purpose. Yet, it is imperative that individual libraries make serious efforts to retain the minority recruits. Discuss what specific strategies you would use in your library or information agency (of the type of your choice) to assist in minority recruitment and retention.

4. Although not new to the profession "outsourcing" has received considerable attention in recent years in the library and management literatures. Explain what is meant by "outsourcing;" provide examples of outsourcing in libraries and information centers; set forth arguments for outsourcing; and state whether or not you believe outsourcing is a good or bad idea for libraries and information centers developing the argument for the position you take.

5. Using uncontrolled vocabulary (e.g., free text, natural language, keyword) is a popular choice of users when searching electronic documents. Identify the problems that may arise in the use of uncontrolled vocabulary and discuss what the user can do to minimize the disadvantages of searching using uncontrolled vocabulary.