Library staff developed a project to reclassify the Curriculum Materials Collection of a specialty library on the campus of a regional comprehensive university. Materials were reclassified from a custom classification system derived from those developed by Lois Belfield Watt in 1962 and Harlan Johnson in 1973, to the Dewey Decimal Classification.…

This article discusses the difficulties Kutztown University's Rohrbach Library- and many libraries- face when evaluating eBook collections, and the process used to overcome some of the obstacles to making meaningful comparisons. Two multidisciplinary eBook subscription packages, EBSCO and ProQuest, are the focus of this study. Data collected from…

This case study explores the strategies used to redistribute materials among available shelves in a curriculum materials center after deaccessioning and relocation projects. The librarian estimated imposed fill ratios based on collection segments which were then mapped onto a floor plan to efficiently shift materials. The estimated imposed fill…

Discovery of digital items by scholars and the public is highly dependent upon effective metadata to ensure inclusion and prioritization in search engines. Subject descriptions based on controlled vocabulary, such as Library of Congress subject headings (LCSH), are particularly useful to enhance discovery, but they may be expensive to provide. In…

Recently, a great deal of literature on patron-driven acquisition (PDA) has been published that addresses the implementation and results of PDA programs at academic libraries. However, despite widespread worries that PDA will lead to unbalanced collections, little attention has been paid to whether patrons' and librarians' purchasing differ…

Books are the most important medium of communication in the humanities, a major medium in the social sciences, and a central component of academic library collections. This study examined humanities and social sciences books that won prizes from ten leading United States disciplinary associations between 2000 and 2009. The study extends earlier…

The U.S. colleges and universities offering non-sectarian educational programs in Jewish Studies rely on the support of their academic libraries for research materials and library services. For college libraries which use Library of Congress Classification scheme, it is a common practice to integrate "studies" resources into their…

"University Futures, Library Futures: Aligning library strategies with institutional directions" establishes a new framework for understanding the fit between emerging library service paradigms and university types. It examined the impact of increased institutional differentiation in universities on the organization of academic libraries…

During the last decade, research has become increasingly important to the profession of librarianship. Seven library schools now have doctoral programs, foundation grants have stimulated and supported scores of major projects, and the research method has been recognized as an accepted technique for solving library problems. The increasing volume…