For nearly a decade now, librarians have discussed and deliberated ways, for the sake of convenience, to integrate internet-like searching into their own catalogs to mimic what academic library patrons have been using outside the library. Discovery tools and web-scale discovery services (WSDS) attempt to provide users with a similar one-stop shop…

The year 2011 was the PALNI (Private Academic Library Network of Indiana) consortium's "rookie season" for the implementation of Primo, the 2010 Discovery Layer 500 race winner. In this article, the authors report on their transition to the cloud within Ex Libris Ltd.'s Primo TotalCare environment: their preparation, the steps involved…

This article describes the Project Lefty, a search system that, at a minimum, adds a layer on top of traditional federated search tools that will make the wait for results more worthwhile for researchers. At best, Project Lefty improves search queries and relevance rankings for web-scale discovery tools to make the results themselves more relevant…

It seems, at times, that a frantic race persists to ensure that a child, in the crucial learning stages of early elementary education, acquires the appropriate reading level before he or she "gets behind." Though there are obvious issues with branding a book "Grade Level One" or "Reading Level 2.2," it is nevertheless…

Today's students have grown up in an information environment very different from the one that many people remember. They have been raised on the fast-paced edutainment of "Sesame Street" and have spent their adolescence watching 3-minute music videos on MTV. Their media environment specializes in short messages and multimedia, with news dispatched…

To any library with an electronic collection of any significance, the OpenURL link resolver has (or should) become an indispensable service for helping its users retrieve full text from citations. Although they are a relatively new technology (in library terms, at any rate), link resolvers arguably have become as important as the OPAC; they locate…

This article presents the results of a comprehensive survey of integrated library system (ILS) vendors conducted by the author and commissioned by "Computers in Libraries" CIL. The survey was intended to: (1) provide an up-to-date comparison of functionality currently available in ILS products; (2) provide a comparison of support services…

ScanGrants (www.scangrants.com) is a free, online listing of grants, scholarships, and other types of funding in the health sciences. It is basically a launch pad for anyone looking for money to fund medical research or community/public health projects, or to finance their education in various healthcare fields. The goal is to enable researchers,…

In this article, the authors discuss ways one can create a digital library on a shoestring despite the current high technology costs. Here, they describe the University of South Carolina's digital library development. The cost associated with building and maintaining the digital collections seems to have been worth it based on the feedback that…

Discusses issues related to libraries filtering Internet searches. Topics include the American Library Association (ALA) stand against any form of Internet censorship, the increasing use of GUIs (graphical user interfaces), First Amendment rights, intellectual freedom, and deciding on the criteria for filtering. (LRW)

In an attempt to make the Kansas City Public Library's Web site more user friendly, the Web team took an opportunity to completely redesign the site. This article describes the techniques that the team used to organize and design the new Web site. By adopting a guided approach to the Internet, they were able to streamline their Web links and…

This article explores personalized search technologies showing that various vendors are trying a variety of approaches. Brief descriptions are given of some of beta projects in effort to assist librarians seeking to offer services that meet their patrons' individual needs by exploring how personal search technologies are being used on the Web in…

Discusses mental models for online searching and the importance of understanding the user mental models and their search needs in order to teach searching and to help them effectively. Suggests that librarians should try to match the user's perspective first, not just teach a search strategy that is too complicated. (LRW)

OpenURL resolvers and federated search engines are important new services in the library field. For some librarians, these services may seem "old hat" by now, but for the majority these services are still in the early stages of implementation or planning. In many cases, these two services are offered as a seamlessly integrated whole.…

Describes the use of laptop computers by reference librarians at the East Carolina University Health Sciences Library. Topics discussed include computer selection; online searching; office space utilization; the professional image of librarians; security measures; expansion capabilities; and the development of a local area network. (LRW)