Even as librarians have spent the past twenty years documenting the rich world of scholarly communication beyond the catalog, repositories and catalogs too often remain completely siloed from each other. Current practices and tools to unite the two focus entirely on matching names, an imprecise method requiring substantial time spent on review.…

Academic libraries are increasingly asked to articulate connections between the work of library staff and student success. This article discusses how a team of librarians participating in CARLI Counts, an immersive professional development program funded by a Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Grant through the Institute of Museum and Library…

The University of Louisville's Ekstrom Library needed to remove 260,000 items from its shelves, and shift a further 95,000 within an extremely short deadline ahead of plans to redesign its third floor into an inviting, modern, student-friendly space for patrons to enjoy. The move faced three distinct challenges: space, item tracking, and…

Despite the widespread adoption of streaming video by academic libraries, there has been little discussion about how video content is discovered and accessed through the library catalog as compared to vendor platforms. This article explores the current status of video resources in the library catalog to better understand how users find and access…

This study reports faculty experiences regarding the discovery of scholarly content, highlighting similarities and differences across a range of academic disciplines. The authors interviewed twenty-five faculty members at a public, high-research university in the Midwest to explore the intersections of discovery, browsing, and format from diverse…

This article describes an exploratory study examining the common perception among library-based publishers that open access academic publications (especially monographs) are not readily discoverable in library catalogs. Using titles from the Michigan Publishing imprint, digital culture books, the study provides an empirical basis for evaluating…

Sometimes users need to be asked if they need help. This is difficult with online users, because in-person cues cannot be used to engage when the users need assistance. Proactive chat widgets help to solve this problem as the chat box slides out onto the screen and prompts the user for help. The need for the proactive chat widget was also seen as…

Introduction: It has been suggested that cognitive characteristics may affect search. This study investigated how decoding abilities, short-term memory capacity and rapid automatised naming skills relate to query formulation. Method: A total of twenty dyslexic participants and twenty non-dyslexic controls completed four standardised cognitive…

Introduction: Text genres used by so-called information organizers in the processes of information organization in information systems were explored in this research. Method: The research employed text genre socio-functional analysis. Five genre groups in information organization were distinguished. Every genre group used in information…

Colorado State University Libraries (CSUL) purchased the digitized "United States Congressional Serial Set," 1817-1994 and "American State Papers" (1789-1838) from the Readex Division of NewsBank, Inc. and, once funds and records were available, the accompanying MARC records. The breadth of information found in the "Serial…

Patron-Driven Acquisitions (PDA) is a new model used for e-book acquisition by academic libraries. A key component of this model is to make records of ebooks available in a library catalog and let actual patron usage decide whether or not an item is purchased. However, there has been a lack of research examining the role of the library catalog as…

Academic libraries are turning increasingly to unified search solutions to simplify search and discovery of library resources. Unfortunately, very little research has been published on library user search behavior in single search box environments. This study examines how users search a large public university library using a prominent, single…

Technology makes it possible to redefine libraries and make them relevant to the public once again. But how good are the digital services offered by public libraries today? The digital services department team of the Pode project at Norway's Oslo Public Library has spent the last 2 years investigating the possibilities available in order to…

There has been a noticeable divide the past few years within the library world regarding electronic books. Many academic libraries have been purchasing or leasing web-based academic ebooks for years. Most public libraries on the other hand (thanks in large part to services such as OverDrive) have directed their attention toward downloadable…

Linked data stores house vetted content that can supplement the information available through online library catalogs, potentially mitigating failed author searches if information about the author exists in linked data formats. In this case study, a total of 689 failed author index queries from a large Midwestern academic library's online library…