A survey of the information use and communication patterns of physicists. Includes tables on: sources of information; journal use, importance, and subscriptions; preferred study areas; and library use. (LS)

A survey of the faculties at six colleges was undertaken to measure the degree to which the libraries of those institutions were communicating with the faculty concerning the availability of various references services. The results demonstrated that the average faculty member was aware of barely half the services actually available. (11…

As part of a project designed to construct a mathematical model of the operation of an academic library, a research team determined the usefulness of a quantitative approach to making decisions about the number of copies of each item that a university library should provide. Using the reserve collection of the University of Lancaster Library as a…

This study reports an analysis of some aspects of the use of periodicals by freshmen at the University of North Carolina, as related to the undergraduate and other campus libraries. The study also asks whether the dispersion of citations, among periodicals cited by freshmen in bibliographies of required term papers, conforms to a general law of…

The user indicated several changes in library use habits as a result of the computer-based searches, among them more direct access to the primary literature and increased use of library resources as they had been made aware of new sources and media--e.g., microforms. (2 references) (Author/NH)

Business students have little skill in using the academic library. The importance of information in today's business world make it imperitive that this handicap be overcome. In a recent survey 77 percent of post graduates polled favored a formal course in library use. (4 references) (Author/DH)

A research project is being conducted to construct a mathematical model of the operations of an academic library to be used in making managerial decisions. As part of this project, this report examines Bradford's Law of Scattering and the fall-off of use of documents as they age. A series of mathematical analyses indicate how these two laws can be…

The eleven conference papers emphasize the need for research into the "why" and the "who" of the library non-user. Attitudes and environmental factors contributing to non-use are: (1) lack of student motivation by pre-college experience with libraries; (2) failure of instructors to utilize the library except as a reserve collection, (3) failure of…

Presents data on the use of microfilm backfiles of 140 periodicals over a three-year period in a community college library, showing 25 percent of titles were unused in each year, with five titles accounting for over 50 percent and 30 titles for over 90 percent of use. Scholarly journals were rarely used. (RT)

The investigation of ultrafiche technology and its applications in higher education resulted in an unanticipated far-reaching study on the general use of microforms. This occurred when it was found (1) that reader presentations of typical educational materials were of excellent quality throughout the range of reduction ratios investigated, 32x to…

This study was undertaken at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to ascertain if a relationship exists between the kind and amount of information given for a specific item and the access point selected by the searcher to determine its availability. Data, study questions, and four references are included. (Author/CHC)

Describes a study that measured the use of government publications in an academic library before and after the merger of the government publications department and the reference department. The implications of the findings that the merger resulted in declines in government publications use and the quality of reference service for government…

Describes simple, unobtrusive method of determining who uses government publications by analyzing manual check-out circulation data at Arkansas State University. Per capita circulation and cross-tabulation results, analysis by classification number, document circulation and library circulation statistics, and publications that make up more than…

A user study to determine the ratio of citation-bound queries to data-bound queries originated by university faculty and processed through reference department personnel or by independent use of reference materials in the university library revealed a majority (75%) of the queries are citation-bound. Important implications are suggested for the…

Characteristics of periodical use at a small liberal arts college were studied using a methodology aimed at providing a more accurate system for data collection by recording all the periodicals used in an entire semester. In the John J. Wright Library at La Roche College (Pennsylvania), circulation records were consulted, and one person while…