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…

Wise and careful selection of materials remains among the most important and enduring duties of the librarian--and also among the most difficult. The author has found this to be especially true in a specialized-subject library, where traditional collection development methods do not always yield good results. While collection development practices…

Macquarie University Library's planning for a new library coincided with a major renewal of the university's curriculum and research activity. This provided a significant opportunity to re-think the presentation of the library collections in the new environment. This article describes how strategic alignment with university goals and the framework…

This second part of an analysis of scientific and technical information (STI) services in Australia considers their development in the context of discipline formation in information management. The case studies used are the STI services from Part I. A case study protocol is used to consider the extent to which the development of the services may…

Citation analysis of a systematic sample of 27 historical and historiographic articles was used to study the citation patterns of secondary sources in the history of technology. These patterns are compared with previous citation studies in history and other humanities areas and with multi-disciplinary citation studies in the social sciences.…

Describes the conspectus collection evaluation process and its utility to smaller libraries, as demonstrated by the Library and Information Resources for the Northwest project. The discussion includes the costs of this method in staff time, the value of a completed conspectus, and problems with the methodology. (13 notes with references) (CLB)

This study uses the list of periodicals indexed by "Alternative Press Index" to examine the holdings rates of alternative press titles in the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member libraries. Results by subject clusters show low holdings rates. The impact on scholars, students, and library collections is discussed. (Author/LRW)

Argues that the internal organization of collection development and the nature of science and scholarship lead to inevitable gaps in collection development. The structural and intellectual causes of collection development gaps are analyzed, and a number of areas whose literatures are especially vulnerable to being ignored or overlooked by…

Describes the use of core journal network analysis and cocited journal mapping for studying the intellectual structure of scholarly fields and for evaluating journal collections to identify the most important titles in a discipline. Journals in the field of genetics are examined, and the use of spreadsheet software is explained. (31 references)…

Offers suggestions for developing a collection policy that promotes the integration of government documents into an academic library's overall collection management objectives. Steps described include selecting appropriate agencies, selecting appropriate levels of collection intensity, assigning intensity levels to agency materials, and adjusting…

Discusses consortium-based licensing as a means of meeting libraries' information resources needs. Topics include information needs, the need for more affordable information, requirements for libraries and for vendors, competition across disciplines, saving money, pricing and market practices, experiences at OhioLINK, and future possibilities.…

Examines the growing body of literature dealing with interdisciplinary academic research and discusses challenges that the erosion of subject-area boundaries presents to those selecting library materials. Reports on a case study that ascertained patterns of interdisciplinary research at Rutgers University's School of Communication, Information,…

Collection development for interdisciplinary areas is more complex than for traditionally well-defined disciplines, so new evaluation methods are needed. This article identifies variables in interdisciplinary fields and presents a model of their typical information components. Traditional use-centered and materials-centered evaluation methods…

Presents the first Canadian periodical price index, which covers foreign and domestic periodicals from 1989 to 1991. Prices by subject categories and by country of publication are presented, use of the price index for library collection planning and budget planning is discussed, and projected increases are described. (12 references) (LRW)

Describes a bibliometric study of the "Nigerian Journal of Microbiology" that was conducted to aid librarians in scientific journal selection decisions. Data are presented on authorship; forms of literature; ages of the literature; ranking of titles included in citations; geographic location of authors; and academic disciplines of…