This study analyzed digital item metadata and keywords from Internet search engines to learn what metadata elements actually facilitate discovery of digital collections through Internet keyword searching and how significantly each metadata element affects the discovery of items in a digital repository. The study found that keywords from Internet…

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…

Today's electronic information landscape is growing exponentially with no signs of slowing. This poses a significant challenge for academic libraries. Librarians must continually learn and adapt to harness this explosion of resources. To fulfill their claim as the leaders in the information field they must be effective in providing access and…

Parents of children with autism face many challenges that arise from the practical, day-to-day issues of living with autism. The specific goals of this guide are to help parents: (1) find information about autism; (2) distinguish between research-based and non-research-based information; (3) become savvy consumers of information by giving them the…

Introduction: This study explores the extent to which an institutional repository makes papers available and accessible on the open Web by using 170 journal articles housed in DigiNole Commons, the institutional repository at Florida State University. Method: To analyse the repository's impact on availability and accessibility, we conducted…

Has your institution purchased discovery layer tools? Are you wondering how students are using them and how much return your institution is getting on that investment? Not only are there more resources available to students online than ever before, but there are also more avenues for students to discover those resources. The Royal Roads University…

The absence of a well-defined space for library resources within course-management systems has been well documented in library literature. Academic libraries have sought to remedy this deficiency in numerous ways. This article describes how a "library nugget," or module, was added to the Buffalo State College course-management system,…

Google Scholar is a free service that provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly works and to connect patrons with the resources libraries provide. The researchers in this study analyzed Google Scholar usage data from 2006 for three library tools at San Francisco State University: SFX link resolver, Web Access Management proxy server,…

The contributions in this volume represent a decade of OCLC's user behavior research findings that articulate the need for the design of future library services to be all about the user. Highlights include: (1) People associate the library with books and do not consider the library in relation to online resources or reference services; (2) People…

Content-enriched metadata in bibliographic records is considered helpful to library users in identifying and selecting library materials for their needs. The paper presents a study, using circulation data from a medium-sized academic library, of the effect of content-enriched records on library materials usage. The study also examines OPAC search…

E-books have yet to assume a significant place in academic library collections. This article focuses on extracting common themes from the literature that might help the reader better understand why e-books have not yet become the cornerstone of the academic library. Patrons do not use e-books because they find the experience of using e-books…

Eighteen scholarly papers and twelve abstracts comprise the content of the fourteenth annual Brick and Click Libraries Symposium, held annually at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. The proceedings, authored by academic librarians and presented at the symposium, portray the contemporary and future face of librarianship.…

As the use of the Ohio State University Libraries interlibrary services has increased, there have been more requests to borrow items that are already available to patrons locally, often in electronic format. Patterns relating to why patrons could not find locally available materials were identified in the record of canceled interlibrary requests…

Library patrons familiar with Web searching conventions often find library searching to be less familiar and even intimidating. This article describes and evaluates a series of usability research studies employing two different and popular methodologies: user-centered redesign and usability testing. Card sorting and affinity mapping were used to…

Over the past dozen years, the switch from paper to electronic sources of information has been all encompassing. How can technology support the efforts of scholars to find and evaluate information? General-purpose search engines use an obscure mix of advanced algorithms to index, search, match, and rank results. Metasearch software extends the…