A citation analysis of chemistry PhD dissertations at the University of Texas at Austin yielded data on how often graduate students cite books in their bibliographies, and on the characteristics of the books cited, in terms of age and local ownership. The analysis examined samples of dissertations selected from five discrete years--1988, 2006,…

The research guide is a common tool librarians use to communicate with and instruct their audiences. Despite their prevalence and value to users, research guides remain underused. There are many examples of efforts encouraging guide use, but few studies have measured the effectiveness of that promotion. Academic Outreach librarians at Virginia…

A diversity audit of the natural resources monographs took place in the spring and summer of 2022 at the California Polytechnic University, Humboldt Library. The goals of the audit were to construct a diversity audit that could be undertaken with very limited time and personnel availability. The findings have provided the library with important…

This study uses qualitative and quantitative data to identify science library trends at Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member institutions. Our recent count found 69% of all ARL academic institutions have at least one science library. Comparing our data to a 2010 study of American ARL institutions, the number of science libraries at…

This research explores the perspectives and practices of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in Canadian Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) academic librarianship. Research data were collected from Canadian STEM librarians through an online survey and one-on-one interviews. Findings indicate that the majority of…

In this case study, two librarians reflect upon our efforts to design STEM-focused information literacy instruction for undergraduate students at an R1, land grant university. Designed around the principles of culturally relevant pedagogy, our curriculum integrates community-focused and regionally specific topics reflecting our students' lived…

Science and engineering libraries have an important role to play in preserving the intellectual content in research areas of the departments they serve. This study employs bibliographic data from the Web of Science database to examine how much research material is required to cover 90% of faculty citations in civil engineering and computer…

This paper highlights the findings of a survey completed by ACRL/STS [Association of College and Research Libraries/Science and Technology Section] members on scholarly communication issues. In particular it identifies the percentage of their daily activities that are spent in support of scholarly communication activities; extent of change of job…

In response to a hypothesis that researchers who no longer use print journals may miss out on the serendipitous benefits of "poor indexing" provided by print tables of contents, librarians at the University of Florida surveyed their engineering faculty to determine faculty use of tables of contents in either print or online format. Results…

This article describes an analysis of course syllabi from selected courses in the biology curriculum at Iowa State University. The purpose of this research was to learn about the numbers and types of information literacy assignments given to students majoring in biology. Overall, the most common assignment type for biology majors was a lab report…

Job ads are supposed to provide careful descriptions of the positions being advertised. Based on this premise, an analysis of job ads over time should reveal emerging trends and changes in a profession. The existing literature on science librarianship emphasizes that there are fluctuations in the demand for subject expertise and technology skills…

Information literacy instruction programs for graduate students can be challenging to develop. One solution is to develop non-course-based, non-mandatory library instruction programs, in order to meet the information literacy needs of as many graduate students as possible. This was the approach taken by the Taylor Library at the University of…

Research libraries have sought to apply their information management expertise to the management of digital research data. This focus has been spurred in part by the policies of two major funding agencies in the United States, which require grant recipients make research outputs, including publications and research data, openly available. As many…

As academic libraries are increasingly supported by a matrix of database functions, the use of data mining and visualization techniques offer significant potential for future collection development and service initiatives based on quantifiable data. While data collection techniques are still not standardized and results may be skewed because of…

Research librarians should be literate in locating government resources at both federal and state levels. Although assistance with policy research may not be as frequently requested as other subjects, librarians need to be knowledgeable in this subject area. Policy resources produced by federal and state legislative and executive agencies can be…