Ten scholarly papers and twelve abstracts comprise the content of the twenty-first annual Brick & Click Libraries Conference, held annually at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. The twenty-first Brick & Click Libraries Conference was held virtually. The proceedings, authored by academic librarians and presented at…

One particular topic likely on the minds of many university faculty, staff, and administrators starting a new academic year is budgets. While budget constraints are nothing new to libraries, many academic departments are starting to see more cuts in areas of faculty research and curriculum development. Academic libraries are in a prime position to…

In their Top Trends of 2012, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) named data curation as one of the issues to watch in academic libraries in the near future (ACRL, 2012, p. 312). Data curation can be summarized as "the active and ongoing management of data through its life cycle of interest and usefulness to scholarship,…

The lyrics from the Ervin Drake song made famous by Frank Sinatra, "It Was a Very Good Year," kept coming to mind in 2010, despite the economy. While the quantity of works produced declined, and publishers suffered along with everyone else, there was no diminution in quality. With reduced budgets for collections, librarians were forced to make…

Libraries are constantly evolving and changing expectations for the user and the information environment. More than just being an authoritative source for research, expertise, and quality content in the form of books and journals, the information center is evolving into a more expansive role. With the growth of information technology awareness and…

New teachers are eager to begin their careers with the information learned from their teacher preparation programs. Too many times, the classroom library is a second thought to the establishment of classroom rules and the implementation of curriculum. Rather than an instructional tool for literacy and classroom community, the library can become a…

Examines how librarians are customizing their services and collections for handheld computing. Discusses the widest adoption of PDAs (personal digital assistants) in libraries that serve health and medical communities; PDA-friendly information pages; the reference focus; journals and databases; lending materials; publicity; use of PDAs by library…

Discusses developing and implementing a collection plan for building Web-based e-libraries. The starting point for developing any collection plan is an assessment of the function of and need for an information collection and the audience it will serve. Discusses guidelines and practical strategies on where and how to find, identify, evaluate, and…

Media selection and acquisition is highly dependent on a number of variables, perhaps the most important of which is changing technologies. New technology is a wonderful and frightening thing, with a high level of impact on media collection development. New technologies can improve sound and visual quality, but can also play havoc with established…

Reference librarians can adapt services for older adults through interviews using interpersonal communication skills. Reader's advisory services, programming, and outreach activities should be focused to target older adult users. Information about issues of family relationships, health, housing, legal and financial affairs, and leisure can be…

The New Thought movement is the focus of an exercise in developing a core collection to support research in a defined subject area. The authors outline the New Thought movement's conceptual and historical development and apply this outline to the selection of library resources. A sample collection development policy is included; such a policy is…

Discusses the following management challenges libraries must cope with in the paradigm shift from print to electronic access to information: becoming involved in network issues; leveraging resources; duplication of effort; partnering; legal, political or economic; standards; remote users; and acquisition, selection and organization of electronic…

This paper describes the academic library environment in Finland, discussing increases in research funding that have not been directly evident in library budgets. It then describes the FinELib program, the National Electronic Library, which has a centralized approach to joint acquisition of electronic information resources. The key issues have…

Focusing on academic libraries in North America, this article describes the selection and acquisition of library materials for Chinese Studies from the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. It provides an historical overview of the Chinese book publishing and exporting practice, identifies and evaluates current online and printed…

The "Mapping the Human Genome" project demonstrated that librarians can help whomever they serve in accessing information resources in the areas of biological and health information, whether it is the scientists who are developing the information or a member of the public who is using the information. Public libraries can guide library…