Popular culture is extremely influential in both academe and society at large. However, formal disciplinary study of popular culture lags far behind that influence. Anthropology, film studies, history, musicology, and sociology are only some of the disciplines that frequently include popular culture as a research focus. This article advises on how…

The increasing availability and prominence of e-books has led to a perception in some quarters that the requirement for physical books is decreasing, as most, or all scholarly material is openly available in digital form. Some academic administrators and librarians have suggested that it may be possible or desirable to have a solely, or…

Libraries and catalogers face choices in the treatment of the growing collections of electronic journals. Policies issued by CONSER and the Library of Congress allow libraries to edit existing print records to accommodate information pertaining to the electronic versions (single record option) or to create new records for them. The discussion…

Developing a library collection is one of the most important pursuits in medical librarianship. A library's collection is its foundation, and the collection is the central information resource upon which most library activities rely. Today's vision of the medical or health sciences collection must incorporate a broader range of materials,…

Public health librarians face many challenges in collection development because the field is multidisciplinary, the collection's users have varied needs, and many of the essential resources are grey literature materials. Further, little has been published about public health selection tools. However, librarians responsible for these areas have a…

Reports on some of the new ways public library sites are presenting themselves to their patrons and to the broader World Wide Web audience. Discusses library virtual tours; calendar display; audio-visual materials; resource listings; book clubs; money-raising activities; fugitive fact files; hot item advisors; periodicals; FAQs (frequently asked…

The number of electronic resources has climbed up steadily in recent times. Some of these e-resources are reference sources, mostly in Science, Technology and Medicine (STM), which publishers convert to electronic for obvious reasons. The library budgets for materials usually have two main lines, budget for one time purchase (monographs) and…

Collection development in the highly specialized area of the United States merchant marine, which includes navigation, marine engineering, shipping, naval architecture and shipbuilding, and seamanship, requires familiarity with the national and international organizations, governmental and other, which regulate and oversee the marine industry.…

The conscientious selection of music materials requires an understanding of the needs of the public being served at least as much as it requires subject competence on the part of the selector. Online and print resources are available to aid in the selection of music materials in all formats, the most important of which are books, scores, audio and…

Describes how undergraduate libraries have responded to change and the changing needs of undergraduate students. Examines statistics from 20 libraries, and summarizes results of a survey of 9 libraries on book versus periodical usage; staff size; reference staff philosophy; library status; and response to increased emphasis on undergraduate…

This article discusses the web and print resources used in selecting material for a dental sciences collection in an academic library at a public university without a medical library. The process of creating a collection quickly and with limited resources is described, from the initial collection assessment to the decision-making processes…

In the down-sized academic library of the twenty-first century, many librarians with little or no formal collection development training or experience are being entrusted with large departmental budgets, occasionally without the collaboration of a department liaison. How do new librarians, or librarians new to a discipline, deal with this…

This collection development article presents an annotated bibliography that includes materials on the rapidly changing field of robotics and how to build robots. Includes considering users' skill levels; basic electronics for beginners; combat robots; periodicals; and Web Sites. (LRW)

The materials listed in this reference circular are recommended to libraries and organizations as basic resources for providing a current information service on visual impairments and physical disabilities. The selections, which are based on the holdings of the Reference Section of the National Library Service (NLS) for the Blind and Physically…

Identifies core journals in environmental geology and explores facets of interdisciplinarity to consider the visibility of this field to collection-development librarians. Intercitation analysis of citing and cited patterns in 1995 articles revealed the journal network of environmental geology. Titles clustered into three categories:…