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,…

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 article provides a case study about an institutional ORCID initiative at Florida State University. The authors describe how they launched the initiative with minimal resources and staff time at their disposal. The authors also describe specific strategies that can be replicated at other institutions, including identifying the right partners…

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…

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…

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 paper discusses the author's experience directing the Purple Mountain Observatory Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Nanjing, China. Routine collection development, management and preservation issues are described, and the unique challenges and opportunities involved in operating a remote observatory library are highlighted.

Various normalization techniques to transform journal impact factors (JIFs) into a standard scale or range of values have been reported a number of times in the literature, but have seldom been part of collection development librarians' tool kits. In this paper, JIFs as reported in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) database are converted to…

Most academic libraries are seeking to provide electronic access to the very dynamic and changing field of technology related material. "Safari Tech Books Online" and "Books24x7" are the major e-book collections in this area. We compared the "Safari Tech Books Online" and "Books24x7" e-book packages as to…

The literature, activities, and resource needs of engineering students and faculty provide insight into a demographic that is often among the early-adopters of new technologies, tools, and methods of sharing information. Despite the often non-bibliographic nature of their research efforts, there are numerous elements of the traditional service…

Jill Powell, engineering librarian from Cornell University, visited the library at NASA Goddard in Greenbelt, Maryland in July 2013, interviewing library staff and selected NASA scientists. She studied the library's digital projects, publications, services, and operations. She also interviewed several NASA scientists on information-seeking…

Using citation analysis, the authors examined the journals cited in theses and dissertations over the first five years of the Water Resources Graduate Program at Oregon State University. These journal titles were compared to the titles predicted as being important in the 2003 Oregon State University Libraries new program (Category I) review. A…

The author is a reference and instruction librarian at Iowa State University with collection development and liaison responsibilities for chemistry, biochemistry, entomology, and natural resource ecology. She recently came to librarianship with an education and three years' experience in biochemistry and biotechnology. During the last four years…

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…

This article describes a campus-wide customer satisfaction survey undertaken by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Research Library in 2007. The methodology, survey instrument, data analysis, results, and actions taken in response to the survey are described. The outcome and recommendations will guide the library both…