The role of public libraries is changing in response to a multitude of influences and trends. The exponential growth of technology as the primary method of information access, funding challenges, changing demographics, and other mitigating factors have forced public libraries to become more than book repositories. Community library leaders and…

Through a critical phenomenological approach, this study captured the lived experiences of directors in the Ohio Private Academic Libraries (OPAL) consortium and their responses to dual pandemics, the COVID-19 pandemic and the pandemic of racism. Individual qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten OPAL directors to examine…

This article will highlight key points in the process of collaboration, creation, and assessment of a digital collection intended to be used initially as a classroom tool, in addition to being a model of digital scholarship that can be used for research from anywhere in the world. This project originated from a class assignment for a course in…

This article features Columbus Metropolitan Library (CML), winner of the Gale/"Library Journal" Library of the Year Award 2010. CML, comprised of an operations center and 21 branches, serves the 847,376 people who inhabit a large portion of Franklin County in central Ohio. It is an independent library with its own taxing district. CML…

The days when marketing was thought to be posters and fliers is over. In today's world, marketing is at the core of every transaction, from checkout and customer interaction to story times and buildings themselves. A brand is a promise one makes to his or her customer, and a promise that is unified, consistent, and believable can help ensure that…

Based on the findings of a recent three-year study by Dominican University's Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, the authors can confirm what many librarians have long suspected: students who take part in their local library's summer reading program significantly improve their reading skills. This article describes the results of…

Worthington, Ohio, has deep library roots. A library has been part of its history since the planning by settlers before the city's birth in 1803. Among the treasures brought by James Kilbourne and the Scioto Company from Connecticut to the new, planned community they built was a collection of books for their new subscription library. The books…

The Kent Free Library (Ohio) evolved from the Great Atlantic and Western Railroad Reading Room of 1875, into a municipal Carnegie library, and then grew to be a medium-sized public school district library, in the city of Kent, Ohio. Its original building has been enlarged through three separate expansion campaigns, in order to have space to house…

This study focuses on library programs and services geared towards infants and toddlers, ages birth to three years old. The population chosen for this descriptive survey was Ohio's public libraries. Sampling from among the institutions was accomplished using a stratified disproportionate technique, with the libraries grouped into strata by size:…

In 1980 a survey was conducted of 600 hospital libraries within the Kentucky-Ohio-Michigan Regional Medical Library (KOMRML) Network (Region V of the National Library of Medicine's RML Program) in order to gather managerial information on library users; facilities; holdings; procedures; services; administration; personnel; budget; expenditures;…

The purpose of this study is to look at how the academic library systems office (i.e., an entity or group of entities within a library whose purpose is to oversee the hardware and software systems functions within its electronic automated processes and services for the use of the staff and public) in Ohio has evolved to become a library-wide…

Part of a series of needs assessment studies conducted at the Kent State School of Library Science, this study reports the results of a survey concerning library employment opportunities in Ohio for individuals with graduate degrees in library science. The three main objectives of the study were: (1) to estimate the number of professional and…

This document is a guide to hospital library resources in the Northeastern Ohio Regional Medical Program (NEORMP). This information is intended to provide a data base for establishment of a network of hospital libraries linked to the major resource libraries in the region. Data collected in a survey of the 73 hospitals involved in the NEORMP cover…

Academic libraries in Ohio were surveyed to determine the existence and content of training in customer service offered to library employees in the circulation and reference departments. Surveys were mailed to 127 libraries, and achieved a return rate of 68% (n=87). The survey contained questions about customer service training for both new and…

Developed to promote excellence in Ohio's school libraries, this document is designed to: (1) provide a rationale for integration of the school library into the total education program; (2) delineate the dimensions of service of a dynamic K-12 library program; (3) identify essential components of an effective K-12 library program; (4) provide a…