The University Libraries at Virginia Tech established an Open Access Subvention Fund (OASF) in August 2012. Although it began as a two-year pilot project, the Fund has continued to the present. Anyone at Virginia Tech is eligible to apply for funding to offset the cost of an article processing charge to publish in an open access journal. To learn…

This Proceedings document begins with the text of the keynote by Dr. Michelle Caswell, followed by seven papers, representing a sampling of the symposium presentations from the 2022 Digitizing Hidden Collections (DHC) Symposium, a capstone event for the Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives program. This program was funded by the…

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…

This article describes the author's (an elementary school librarian) journey as she researched various bike bookmobile programs in the United States. Though the three programs had different target audiences, all the bike bookmobiles that she observed generated excitement and interest in reading. Public interest for each program was high. People…

The purpose of this study was to explore the adaptive measures that academic libraries perform when implementing and operating a 24-hour schedule. Five in-depth interviews were conducted with current managerial-level librarians at 24-hour academic libraries. The exploratory interviews revealed similar measures for security, budgeting, employee…

Google Scholar and academic library discovery systems are both popular resources among academic users for finding scholarly information. By conducting an online survey with 975 users from more than 20 public research universities across the United States, this study comparatively investigates how and why academic users use these two resources.…

"Research Library Issues" ("RLI") is a bimonthly report from ARL (Association of Research Libraries), CNI (Coalition of Networked Information), and SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition). This issue includes the following articles: (1) ARL Encourages Members to Refrain from Signing Nondisclosure or…

A hallmark of school library media best practice is for the library media center to be open and accessible to patron use before, during, and after the school day and throughout the entire school year. Anecdotal evidence and informal discussion among school library media specialists indicate that library media facilities are sometimes used for…

Local records are the foundation on which social history is constructed. However, in an era when most historians categorize themselves as social historians, it is amazing to note how much these primary resources appear to be underutilized in scholarly works. This article attempts to understand why this is so by investigating how it is that…

This strategic technology plan for Virginia's public libraries presents current findings, recommendations, and the steps required to achieve universal access to electronic information. Introductory material includes lists of members of the Library of Virginia Board and Technology Plan Committee, an executive summary, and vision statement. The…

Offers a descriptive account and critical analysis of three cooperative collection development projects undertaken by the Virtual Library of Virginia (VIVA), a consortium of Virginia academic libraries. Reviews cooperative collection development processes and explains objectives that included cost effectiveness, improved access to information…

Describes Virginia's statewide and community electronic resource access projects, including the Blacksburg Electronic Village, connected with Virginia Tech and the Internet; a public education network; a consortium of college and university libraries; the state library's digital initiative; and a cooperative library network. (LRW)

This report is a response to House Joint Resolution No. 32 of the 1986 General Assembly of Virginia that directed the Council of Higher Education to conduct a study of the academic library facility needs in Virginia's public system of higher education. In preparing its response to the resolution, the council incorporated much of the report of a…

The directors of 40 academic libraries in Virginia were surveyed to obtain information on their practices relating to public access, services, and fees in their libraries. Complete or partial responses were received from 21 libraries in private institutions and 14 from state-supported institutions. These responses indicate that all of the…

Telecommunications networks were placed in 16 rural high school library media centers in 12 southside Virginia counties. With these units, the high school media centers are able to access the online public access catalog at Longwood College, the Lancaster Library's VTLS (Virginia Tech Library System) database. If a needed book is found, a request…