As the need for digital content increases almost daily, preserving this content for university libraries, especially in the least developed and developing nations, becomes a challenge, resulting in the loss of this data. Even though most of these libraries are automated and adopt one digital preservation strategy or the other, library users need…

Academic, government, and corporate librarians organize and leverage internal resources and content through institutional repositories and library catalogs. Getting more value and usage from the content they license is a key goal. However, the ever-growing amount of content and shifting user demands for new materials or features has made the…

When it comes to helping others learn, there is a simple piece of advice that is often recommended to educators: Show! Don't tell. While appealing to the visual learning style of an audience is always a good idea, there is a growing expectation for more than just static images. They want video, which can deliver more dynamic presentations with…

School librarians and educators have specific copyright questions that are often glossed over in larger books on the subject. Now, thanks to best-selling copyright authority Carrie Russell, there's a resource just for them, offering clear guidance for providing materials to students while carefully observing copyright law. Using whimsical…

The author, a digital access architect in the information systems department of the Orange County Library System in Florida, was given the challenge of creating a library mobile app around the 2009 holiday season. At that time, Sheri Chambers, digital content manager in the information systems department, and Debbie Moss, assistant director of the…

In winter 2009, Barnard College began the process of adopting Drupal 7 as its content management system. The move included Barnard Library's Zine Collection website, an information resource dedicated to the library's special collection of do-it-yourself (DIY) publications by women. Recently, as a Barnard Zine intern, the author had the challenging…

The Notable Children's Videos, Recordings, and Great Interactive Software for Kids lists are compiled annually by committees of the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA). This article presents the lists for 2010 that were released in January during the ALA Midwinter Meeting in…

Changes presented by cloud computing--shared computing services, applications, and storage available to end users via the Internet--have the potential to seriously alter how libraries provide services, not only remotely, but also within the physical library, specifically concerning challenges facing the typical desktop computing experience.…

In this case study the authors describe Pepperdine University Libraries' migration to OCLC's WorldShare Management Services. They elaborate on the rationale for the decision, review some of the challenges and lessons encountered along the way, and briefly discuss some effects of the new system on our libraries. The focus is on technical services…

The purpose of this report is twofold: first, to introduce the field of digital forensics to professionals in the cultural heritage sector; and second, to explore some particular points of convergence between the interests of those charged with collecting and maintaining born-digital cultural heritage materials and those charged with collecting…

When improving a web presence, today's libraries have a choice: using a free Web 2.0 application, opting for open source, buying a product, or building a web application. This article discusses how to make an informed decision for one's library. The authors stress that deciding whether to use a free Web 2.0 application, to choose open source, to…

This paper takes a look at how one academic health sciences librarian brought mediated literature searching to the distance RN to BSN nursing students. It takes a look at why Adobe Connect was the webinar software that was selected to deliver online instruction to the students. The article explains how students participated in a pre-class survey…

This article details the development of the Library Instruction Wiki (http://instructionwiki.org): an effort to develop a web-based, knowledge-sharing resource. Though some library instruction is specific to a given institution or class, much of what instruction librarians teach is similar. Library instructors have repeatedly expressed the desire…

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to share the experiences and challenges faced by the Open University Library (OUL) in using screen capture software to develop online literature search tutorials. Design/methodology/approach: A summary of information literacy support at the OUL is provided as background information to explain the decision to…

During the 1890s, the library media specialty was established through "a School Library Section as an integral part of the National Education Association" (Cole 90). In the ensuing decades, this role has expanded and changed; it demands a balancing act between the more traditional roles surrounding books and reading, and the newer expectations and…