The data landscape study at Virginia Tech addresses the changing modes of faculty scholarship and supports the development of a user-centric data infrastructure, management, and curation system. The study investigates faculty researchers' current practices in organizing, describing, and preserving data and the emerging needs for services and…

In the five years following implementation of a chat reference service at James Madison University (JMU), the service proved very popular but was not closely assessed for quality of service. Using grounded theory and qualitative data analysis techniques, a comprehensive assessment effort was begun in earnest and is in progress. Preliminary results…

This article describes the fundamental challenges to data curation, how these challenges may be compounded for smaller institutions, and how data management is an essential and manageable component of data curation. Data curation is often discussed within the confines of large research universities. As a result, master's and baccalaureate…

Circulation data from the Virginia Tech Libraries were analyzed to determine the extent of continuity or change between the author's study of the use of subject collections in 1982 and the present. Book circulation has declined, largely due to much less use by undergraduates. The overall profile of subject use has changed in ways traceable to…

Because the staffing formula mandated by Virginia's State Council of Higher Education yielded unrealistically low numbers of library personnel for the larger institutions and for multi-campus community colleges, the Subcommittee on Staffing of the Library Advisory Committee was charged with developing a more suitable formula. This report contains…

This report describes an online minicomputer-based system, one combining library inventory control with catalog access, that was implemented at Virginia Tech's main library in order to meet the demands of increased circulation activity and rising staff costs. Following overviews of the institutional environment, the systems development department,…

The data presented on the activities of 74 academic libraries in Virginia have been compiled by the Council of Higher Education, primarily from the Higher Education General Information Surveys ("College and University Libraries" and "Financial Statistics for Institutions of Higher Education for Fiscal Year Ending 1980"). The…

This report is a response to House Joint Resolution No. 32 of the 1986 General Assembly of Virginia that directed the Council of Higher Education to conduct a study of the academic library facility needs in Virginia's public system of higher education. In preparing its response to the resolution, the council incorporated much of the report of a…