College & Research Libraries vol. 79, no. 4 (May 2018) 602 College & Research Libraries May 2018 As might be expected, the contributions here vary widely in content and presenta- tion, but several are quite excellent and each has something to teach.—Michael Ryan, New York Historical Society Museum and Library Undergraduate Research and the Academic Librarian: Case Studies and Best Practices. Merinda Kaye Hensley and Stephanie Davis-Kahl, eds. Chicago, Ill.: Association of College and Research Libraries, 2017. 348p. $65.00 (ISBN 978-083898908-1). In this new volume, the editors’ “hope is that with this collection of case studies, librarians come away with not only a better understanding of what under- graduate research entails but also with a clear vision of the potential connections and contributions they can make to support undergraduate research” (xxiv). The book contains 25 short case studies on topics having to do with undergraduate research in various forms. Each chapter contains the following sections: Introduction, Background, Partnerships, Reflection, Assessment, Rec- ommendations/Best Practices, and Conclusion. The reader will discover that many of the studies in this book describe ways for librarians to better focus their time and efforts to avoid duplication. One such project took place at Virginia Tech, where librarians created an Advanced Research Skills Certificate program designed for undergraduate students conducting focused research. To their surprise, a large number of students signed up for the program to prepare themselves for graduate school. Despite the fact that students receive no course credit for participating in the program, it has met with such success that librarians are look- ing at ways to scale the program, including creating a version for honors students. Honors students themselves are the focus of several other chapters in the book. One example is from Berkeley College. Librarians there developed an Honors Thesis Project Curriculum, which is implemented each year with a new cohort of students. The curriculum is thorough and detailed, beginning with topic selection, continuing through the research process, and finishing with the writing of the paper itself. Librar- ians created an expansive LibGuide to walk the students through the curriculum, which includes video tutorials, quizzes, and a badge system. Students are also assigned a personal librarian, with whom they are required to meet at least twice, but students also contacted their librarians via e-mail, phone, and even Skype with additional questions. Multiple chapters discuss support of undergraduate research journals, such as at the New College of Florida, where students doing an independent study were inspired to start a research journal of their own. Involvement in the project increased as word spread across campus, and the project eventually became a full-fledged course. The course was cotaught by a biostatistics professor and a librarian and focused on laying the groundwork for the journal’s launch. The course has continued in different forms along with the journal. At some institutions, student research was approached with a festive air and competitive spirit, such as at Kennesaw State University. The library there insti- tuted an Undergraduate Research Award in conjunction with the Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research. The winner of the award receives $500 in addition to being published in the journal. Applicants submit both a research article for publication and an essay about the research process, which gives librarians and others an inside look at their progress. doi:10.5860/crl.79.4.602 https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.79.4.602 Book Reviews 603 Although the word “collaboration” is not used in the title of this book, it very well could be. Each of the 25 case studies relied heavily on cross-campus collaborations for their work. This shows “the importance of finding campus partners, and of nurturing and positive and productive relationship across diverse campus units. These partner- ships benefit the departments and personnel involved, and most important, they are essential in enhancing the experience of undergraduate students” (61). Interestingly, none of the libraries appeared to do any collaboration with groups beyond campus for these projects, which leads one to wonder what sorts of advantages could be obtained from taking that approach. The main flaw of this book is that it suffers from a lack of organization. The case studies are not grouped in any way, so if the reader were, for example, interested in projects related to digital repositories, they would want to read chapters 11, 13, 18, and 22; but there is no clear way to identify these without reading the entire book. Some chapter titles help with this, while others are vaguer. The lack of an index doesn’t help in this pursuit. While there would be many ways to categorize these case studies, it might be difficult, given that most of the studies could be placed in multiple catego- ries. Given this difficulty, an alternative method for organization would have been a short summary of each chapter so the reader could easily identify topics and desire to read or implement. The case studies do cover a wide range of schools, including two in Canada. There are a large number of case studies from public research universities. Combined, the schools included in this volume have around 650,000 students enrolled, and thus provide many ideas for ways for librarians to support undergraduate research. The ideas come from all across the library, involving every department imaginable, so are applicable to any librarian interested in supporting undergraduate research in creative and deeper ways.—Ruth Szpunar, DePauw University _GoBack _GoBack _GoBack _GoBack