This article discusses commuter students' experiences with the academic library, drawn from a qualitative study at the City University of New York. Undergraduates at six community and baccalaureate colleges were interviewed to explore how they fit schoolwork into their days, and the challenges and opportunities they encountered. Students…

When looking for ways to improve library services, we considered what data sources were readily available to us and how we could harvest and use this data. We investigated three years of chat reference statistics at Central Michigan University, a large research institution, to gain a better understanding of our patrons' chat behavior. We then…

A traditional mixed methods research model of citation analysis, a survey, and interviews was selected to determine if the Bruce T. Halle Library at Eastern Michigan University owned the content that faculty cited in their research, if the collection was being utilized, and what library services the faculty used. The combination of objective data…

Beginning in 1994, a series of collection analysis and assessment projects of community college library/LRC collections in Florida has been conducted by the College Center for Library Automation (CCLA). The purpose of the assessments conducted through LINCC, the network for Florida community colleges, was to provide data for improvement of…

This paper hypothesizes (1) the softer the subject, or (2) the purer the subject, or (3) the more a subject can be characterized as life-oriented, the greater the number of books that will be charged. Interaction and higher order (polynomial) combinations between the three characteristics are also hypothesized. A scale value for each…

An analysis of 2,805 citations from 31 dissertations of Ph.D. candidates in the field of business management provided information regarding publication form, periodical title, subject, time span, language, and publisher. (Author/JAB)

A review of research on use of the library by workers in the humanities. Includes tables of citations and humanities journals studied and a generalized profile of information seeking behavior of scientists, social scientists, and humanists. (LS)

As a means of studying the present public catalogs and possible catalog format alternatives at the Iowa State University library, a 6-week queuing study was conducted. Objectives of the study were (1) to determine the correlation between other library statistics (e.g., door counts and circulation records) and use of the public catalogs; (2) to…

Relatively little is known about the information-seeking patterns of students using college libraries. In order to assess the bibliographic search process of students, a questionnaire and log form were given to 55 undergraduate students at Bucknell University's Bertrand Library. Forty-seven students completed the log and questionnaire. Each of the…

The research reported in this paper examined data related to the characteristics of interlibrary loan borrowers, the material borrowed, the question of cost and time it takes to acquire the material, and staff information and procedures. The variables were coded onto computer cards and then tabulated into frequency tables by the computer. There…

The general results of this statistical sampling of book readership at a college library revealed that three times as many book readers were reading nonlibrary books as library books inside the library. About one-half of the library books being read are classified as Social Science books. Business Administration majors read books in the library…

A survey of student life patterns and library use at the Community and Technical College of the University of Toledo was made. From the results of the student survey it is clear that student life patterns could not easily be "synchronized" with present library delivery service patterns. The knowledge gained about student life patterns…

Two measures of effectiveness for university libraries are constructed. The Primary Measure of Effectiveness, defined over the total population of users, considers the number of material and information items desired by the users, the number of satisfactorily answered inquiries, and the number of users. For the Secondary Measure of Effectiveness…

The Molesworth Institute conducted a year long experiment on the shelving practices of two academic libraries of comparable size, with similar user populations. Results show that the practice of leaving the middle two shelves empty for future expansion cannot be recommended. Measurements include accumulation of dirt; usage; and incidents of…

This new column discusses the need for gaining administrative and academic support for library instruction programs to improve "library literacy," i.e., the learning of the basic skills for finding information, and summarizes the findings of a five-year experiment at the University of Colorado to improve/increase faculty and student…