The purpose of this article is to share findings from a qualitative study showing the positive influences the local public library and the school library had on the personal and academic lives of 18 low-income English language learners of Mexican descent while they were adjusting to the numerous demands of school in the US. For these students, the…

This study examines perceptions of provosts from Canadian research-intensive universities regarding their institution's academic libraries. Interviews conducted with nine provosts explored how they perceive academic libraries in terms of alignment with institutional mission, how they envision the future of their libraries, and what they interpret…

This paper presents the results of thirty-seven interviews of senior library leaders at American Association of University (AAU) institutions conducted in Spring 2023. The author replicated a 2016 study from "portal," revealing an increased focus on strategic plan-based decision-making along with new priorities of open scholarship and…

This issue of "Research Library Issues" ("RLI") presents an introduction article and two companion articles, which highlight Net Neutrality. The introduction article, "Why Net Neutrality Matters and What Research Libraries Can Do about It" (Mary Lee Kennedy), explains that the fundamental intent of the open internet…

Public libraries are heavily affected by political and policy-making processes that shape the funding, activities, and roles of libraries in society, with the explosion of information policy decisions in the past two decades significantly increasing the responsibilities of libraries while also increasing limitations on their activities. Research…

This paper will look at the services presently offered to distance students by libraries within the categories of professional staff, access to resources, reference assistance, and library user instruction. It will then offer the argument that these services could be improved by developing embedded librarians within online academic courses as a…

This paper highlights the findings of a survey completed by ACRL/STS [Association of College and Research Libraries/Science and Technology Section] members on scholarly communication issues. In particular it identifies the percentage of their daily activities that are spent in support of scholarly communication activities; extent of change of job…

Since 2009, Open Access (OA) Week has been celebrated worldwide in October each year. It is an opportunity for librarians to engage with the research community and demonstrate the value that they bring to their organisations in the area of disseminating scholarly output. Although thousands of events have been held since the inception of OA Week, a…

Students at U.S. colleges and universities are concerned about the high cost of textbooks. Expansion of library course reserves has been suggested as one solution to this problem. The authors surveyed libraries at public universities to explore the status and management of physical course reserves and the role they play vis-a-vis textbook…

Addresses the utility of classification in both current and future library applications and demonstrates the role librarians can play in enhancing public access to information available on the Internet. Reports on a survey of current trends in classification of electronic titles based on catalogs of members of the Association of Research…

Traditionally, several types of library in Australia have been perceived as having a "research" role, notably the National Library, the state libraries, and the university libraries, together with a few special libraries serving research-producing organisations such as the CSIRO. This paper provides some speculations on how some…

This report is the third in a set of three reports from the project, "Issues in Library Research: Proposals for the 1990s," which was launched in September 1986 to investigate library and information science issues in order to assess the current state of the profession and identify a research agenda to lead into the next decade. This…

The 1994 Forum on Library and Information Services was planned to provide an opportunity to explore the role of libraries in the evolving information and communications infrastructure. This report on the proceedings of the Forum begins with the agenda and a list of the participants. Two roles of the Department of Education relating to libraries…

Recent government initiatives to combat social exclusion within the United Kingdom have served to place librarians and libraries as prominent players in the movement to providing information over a wider social context. For example, The Peoples Network is a government initiative to connect all public libraries to the information superhighway by…

This document presents the program and proceedings from the 68th International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) Conference held in Glasgow, Scotland, August 18-24, 2002. Topics of presentations include: library services for parliaments; needs assessment; the effects of September 11th on information provision and privacy;…