Commissioned by the Coalition for Networked Information, this report examines the role of research universities in addressing complex societal challenges. It focuses on climate change, which is best characterized as a "wicked" problem. Such problems are difficult to define and lack clear solutions in part because they involve multiple…

This paper examines the University of Sydney Library's development and piloting of a methodology to survey its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural collections, to enhance catalogue metadata and allow culturally sensitive material to be identified and protected. The research falls broadly within the interpretivist epistemology and draws…

February 12, 1924, is a landmark date in the annals of American music. The story of that snowy afternoon in New York has become almost legendary -- and the tale has undoubtedly become embellished in its telling and retelling over the past 100 years. The occasion was a concert titled "An Experiment in Modern Music," presented by Paul…

Research Libraries UK is a consortium of 37 of the UK and Ireland's largest research libraries with the purpose of convening its members around the key issues that affect them, to represent their collective voice, to support them as they face shared challenges, and to be an effective advocate on their behalf. In fulfilment of these roles, RLUK…

This article presents an analysis of the feasibility of a bookless library in a research setting. As spaces for collections are being converted for increased study and community spaces, many libraries have been moving low-use collections to off-site storage. Issues regarding the types of storage spaces available are addressed. Concerns and…

Recent years have seen a growing emphasis on modern special collections (in themselves no new phenomenon), with a dichotomy between guidance for detailed cataloguing in "Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Books)" (DCRM(B), 2007) and the value of clearing cataloguing backlogs expeditiously. This article describes the De la Mare…

Holocaust denial literature has been treated inconsistently in library collections. At one time Holocaust denial literature was classed and subject headings assigned with Holocaust literature. After specific Library of Congress classification numbers and subject headings for Holocaust denial and Holocaust denial literature became available in the…

In their Top Trends of 2012, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) named data curation as one of the issues to watch in academic libraries in the near future (ACRL, 2012, p. 312). Data curation can be summarized as "the active and ongoing management of data through its life cycle of interest and usefulness to scholarship,…

In anticipation of current and future mass digitization projects in which the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Library will participate, the Library's Conservation Unit began to gather data on the "scannability" of our general book collections to anticipate potential effects on conservation and preservation work flows. The…

Institutional repositories have been established by most university libraries but their level of success has varied. Determining what belongs in such repositories has been the subject of some discussion but research would suggest that a broader rather than narrower compass is a positive approach to adopt. By seeking out a variety of content types,…

This discussion report identifies key issues in the management of special collections material in the 21st century. The report uses a broad definition of "special collections," which encompasses distinctive material in all media and attendant library services. The group's main focus was on 19th- and 20th-century materials, including…

Increasing demand for biotechnology and biomedical resources prompted the Engineering Library at the University of Colorado at Boulder (UCB) to complete a collection assessment of the journals, books, and other resources provided by the University Libraries. This paper presents a variety of methods for evaluating library collections and describes…

The expectations placed on library instruction programs by the Association of College and Research Libraries are high. Many universities also include information literacy competencies as learning objectives to be assessed at the institutional level. With those standards in mind, it is becoming increasingly difficult to adequately educate students…

This document explores the transition from an analog to a digital environment for knowledge access, preservation, and reconstitution, and the implications of this transition for managing research collections. The volume comprises three reports. The first, "Can a New Research Library be All-Digital?" by Lisa Spiro and Geneva Henry,…

Offering a separate, popular reading collection can be a valuable public service in academic libraries. Popular reading is also known as leisure reading, recreational reading, and reading for pleasure. These phrases are synonyms for an interest in reading bestsellers, mysteries, romance novels, biographies, graphic novels, humor, self-help, or…