Librarians at universities continue to seek new ways to engage and partner with researchers in order to enhance and enrich the way that they work. This article looks at some of the ways that libraries have been doing this in recent years, what has worked, and what needs to be done to continue to develop these important partnerships. These…

At Webster University, solo librarians manage libraries on six campuses in Africa, Europe, and Asia. On the home campus in St. Louis, ten librarians at a traditional library serve faculty, staff, and students at metro and military campuses across the U.S., at international campuses, and online. To ensure consistency for users, librarians have…

Digitization and preservation of natural resource documents were reviewed and the current status of digitization presented for a North American university. It is important to present the status of the digitation process for natural resources and to advocate for increased collections of digital material for ease of reference and exchange of…

Student workers are a well-established component of academic library operations. Recently, their traditional role has expanded to include responsibilities that were previously assigned to librarians, including in-person and virtual reference support. This trend has raised concerns about service quality and highlighted the importance of adequate…

This research explores the application of implicit personalisation techniques in information retrieval in the context of education. Motivated by the large and ever-growing volume of resources in digital libraries, coupled with students' limited experience in searching for these resources, particularly in translating their information needs into…

To address challenges that learners, course creators, librarians and academics involved with OER and MOOCs are facing when looking for scholarly materials, Athabasca University Library has initiated the development of "the Open Library at AU." This open library is a full library website that provides easy access to open and free…

Libraries are important to universities, and they have two primary features: readers as well as collections are highly professional. In this study, based on the experimental study with five millions of users' borrowing records, our discussion covers: (1) the necessity of recommender system for university libraries; (2) collaborative filtering (CF)…

"Research Library Issues" ("RLI") focuses on current and emerging topics that are strategically important to research libraries. The articles explore issues, share information, pose critical questions, and provide examples. This issue includes the following articles: (1) Special at the Core: Aligning, Integrating, and…

This publication follows the tradition of publishing selected papers from Pacific Islands Association of Libraries, Archives and Museums (PIALA) annual conferences. This 21st annual conference was held in Kosrae, Federated States of Micronesia, November 14-17, 2011. The volume begins with a listing of the members of the PIALA 2011 Planning…

This article features new library designs that offer flexible, people-centric, tech-driven environments that reflect the increasingly synergetic nature of today's campuses. Among these new library designs is the University of Calgary's Taylor Family Digital Library, a 265,000-square-foot building scheduled to open in fall 2010 and touted as the…

Podcasting is a term derived by combining iPod with broadcasting. During 2006, when the idea of podcasting was still in its infancy, this author [an information systems librarian at the Universal College of Learning (UCOL) in New Zealand] began to consider how this new technology could be used by librarians to provide instructional sessions. She…

Purpose: The paper aims to study how the present distance learning libraries can improve upon their existing services and introduce new ones to enhance quality of services to distance learners. Design/methodology/approach: The paper includes a review of literature on quality assurance in open and distance education in general and student support…

The authors, library practitioners from either side of the Atlantic Ocean, embarked on a dialogue about the ethical challenges encountered in providing library services to distance learners. Unable to find an existing, appropriate ethical framework for their discussion, they agreed to devise their own, informed by relevant professional codes and…

Purpose: To provide practical information on two electronic journal-related products implemented in Library and Information Services at University of Wales Swansea. Design/methodology/approach: An overview is provided of the evaluation of electronic journal management products undertaken and subsequent implementation. Findings: Serials Solutions…