This article describes the process and role frontline access and public service staff play in needs assessment and evaluation of user services, specifically in understanding the voice of the customer. Information includes how the University of Arizona Libraries have incorporated daily data collection into the strategic planning process, resources…

This article presents an interview with Karen Glover of Georgia Tech, a key person behind the planning of the Access Services Conference held last fall, and now going into its second year. Glover started working in libraries as a part-time library assistant at her local public library during her high school years. She later became a Circulation…

Kids ask the darndest questions. And sometimes they ask them in the darndest places, including online information systems that were not designed to answer them. There is a reason for this continuing phenomenon, and an important lesson in it for school library media specialists and other educators. To understand the phenomenon at hand, imagine an…

To make sure the details of Guantanamo endure, Mark P. Denbeaux and some colleagues are creating a Guantanamo Bay Detention Center archive. It will be a repository of the records and first-person accounts of hundreds of defense lawyers who have worked on detainee cases. With the fate of many detainees still in limbo--the Obama administration is…

In the information-rich, rapidly changing 21st-century, educators are faced with unprecedented challenges. While new technologies have brought the people of the planet closer together, they have also brought them into contact with an overwhelming array of information sources. The Library of Congress is positioned to help educators respond to these…

Describes a study undertaken to determine the effect of teacher-utilization of media center resources in teaching upon student use of media center materials. The methodology and findings of the study are reviewed, a set of conclusions is presented, and sources for further study of experimental research are provided. (JL)

Federal legislation now requires the deposit of some taxpayer-funded research in "open-access" repositories--that is, sites where scholarship and research are made freely available over the Internet. The institutions whose faculty produce the research have begun to see the benefit of open-access publication as well. From the perspective of faculty…

This report, based on visits to Vietnamese libraries and archives between 1987 and 1997, examines the largely unexplored corpus of Vietnamese textual resources in research institutions and libraries there and elsewhere, the associated problems of bibliographic control, and issues of preservation. The following topics are addressed: the history of…

This report focuses on practices related to the selection and presentation of commercially available electronic resources. As part of the Digital Library Federation's Collection Practices Initiative, the report also shares the goal of identifying and propagating practices that support the growth of sustainable and scalable collections. It looks in…

This revised manual for committee members of the Association of Research Libraries' (ACRL) Bibliographic Instruction Section (BIS) is a guide to the organization, procedures, bylaws, and membership of the committee. Following an introduction and suggested ways to get involved with BIS, three sections describe the structure of the BIS, its…

The University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) Libraries initiated its spin on digital libraries as a partner in a W. M. Keck Foundation grant awarded to the university in 1997. The overall grant ($2,250,000) supported a variety of earth science-related projects at UNR. The UNR Libraries's portion ($450,000) funded establishment of the W. M. Keck Earth…

This document proposes a model of the decision making process required of research libraries when they embark on digital conversion projects. A series of questions are offered that focus on facilitating the decision making process for library managers. Questions of what and how to digitize are placed in the larger framework of collection building…

This set of minutes from a semiannual meeting of the Association of Research Libraries includes two presentations: "Some Reflections on User Needs and the Information Transfer Process," a talk on government publications and the public's right to know by Joseph Morehead, and "A Commentary on the NCLIS Public Sector/Private Sector…

Describes the activities of each unit of the Department of Education's Educational Information Resources Division, including ERIC; Research Libraries Branch; Information Technology Branch; and Technology Resources Center. A discussion of the need for a coordinated approach to information services provision uses the National Library of Agriculture…

Presents an overview of information infrastructure development in Latvia and discusses the role of the Latvian Academic Library. Describes Latvia's telecommunications, information network, data transmission, and electronic information services and reviews the types of electronic information sources that have been created. (Author/JMV)