Library employees face countless changes, big and small, in their workplaces every day: not only the COVID-19 pandemic but also such commonplace events as open positions, renovations, budget cuts, and new library systems. No single handbook can anticipate all the changing needs. This case study discusses how one particular library responded, in a…

During the last few years, many academic libraries have accepted the challenge of helping their users locate and acquire the numeric data they need. To meet their users' ever-increasing need for data, librarians are purchasing data sets one at a time ("small data"). This service, though important to our users, raises many issues in the…

Revealing hidden assets stewarded by research institutions so they can be made available for research and learning locally and globally is a prime opportunity for libraries to create and deliver new value. "Making Archival and Special Collections More Accessible" collects important work OCLC Research has done to help achieve the…

Starting in summer 2011, two librarians at Wesleyan University annually interviewed and directed usability studies with undergraduate students to determine how students interact with academic e-books. In 2014, the librarians used a campuswide quantitative survey to supplement these longitudinal qualitative findings. While students are increasingly…

"Developing Collections to Empower Learners" examines collection development in the context of today's shifts toward digital resources while emphasizing the foundational beliefs of the school library profession. Writer Sue Kimmel includes practical advice about needs assessment, planning, selection, acquisitions, evaluation, and…

Library customers have more remote information choices than ever before, so we must ensure that when they do come to the library, they experience a welcoming environment, a high standard of service, and receive equitable levels of service across campus. Developing a customer service program was a logical next step to reinforce the ongoing…

This study reviewed link resolver success comparing 360 Link and a local implementation of WebBridge. Two methods were used: (1) comparing article-level access and (2) examining technical issues for 384 randomly sampled OpenURLs. Google Analytics was used to collect user-generated OpenURLs. For both methods, 360 Link out-performed the local…

Student consulting is a form of problem-based learning through which students work on strategic issues for organizations. To explore how students perceive their research-related tasks, 15 student consultants were asked to evaluate their comfort levels with seven tasks--adapted from the Association of College and Research Libraries' Information…

The U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) sponsored the symposium "Scholarship and Libraries in Transition: A Dialogue about the Impacts of Mass Digitization Projects" in March 2006 at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. The symposium was organized with a keynote and several other individual presentations, as well…

Colleges and universities are integrating information literacy into their undergraduate curricula. Accreditation commissions of higher education are integrating information literacy into their general education standards. Students enrolled in programs that promote information literacy are instructed to utilize library resources and services to…

This paper reports on the evaluation of local usage statistics of a specific set of chemistry journals at the University of Denver in Colorado, USA. The objective of the study is to demonstrate that commercial publishers in chemistry charge considerably more for their journals than those from the non-commercial sector. There are three variables…

The Brick & Click Libraries Symposium is a one-day conference that focuses on providing library resources and services for students who are either on-campus learners or off-campus learners. It is sponsored by Northwest Missouri State University in order to offer academic librarians a forum for sharing practical information. The subjects and…

The successful development and implementation of an electronic resources management (ERM) system depends on an undertaking that includes many key factors. Some of these key factors include determining user groups and their needs, evaluating implementation and technical issues, testing the system, exploring how the system will be used, setting…

This publication outlines the complete community networking process: planning, developing partnerships, funding, marketing, content, public access, and evaluation, and discusses the variety of roles that the local public library can play in this process. Chapter One, "The Importance of Community Networking," describes the importance of community…

Describes The Gateway, a computerized library system for undergraduate students that integrates access to multiple sources of information and provides embedded training on their use. A discussion of the general interface design principles is followed by the results of a preliminary evaluative study. Numerous sample screens illustrate the text. (13…