Association of College and Research Libraries' (ACRL's) "2016 Top Trends in Academic Libraries" noted a "shift to the incorporation and integration of more continuous, ongoing, flexible, and sustainable review of collections," and "an increasing need" to align collection development with "institutional research…

In September 2011, Flinders University Library launched FindIt@Flinders, the Primo discovery layer search to provide simultaneous results from the Library's collections and subscription databases. This research project was an exploratory case study which aimed to show whether students were finding relevant information for their course learning and…

This case study will describe how the Stony Brook University Libraries instruction program partnered with another student support service (student computing office) to nurture a relationship with the Educational Opportunities Program (EOP) over several years to provide their students with the library research and computer skills needed to succeed…

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…

This issue of "Research Library Issues" ("RLI") highlights the value of professional failure. The idea to explore this theme emerged from conversations with the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Innovation Lab Advisory Group earlier this year. It is the hope this issue highlights the value of failure--both its necessary…

A key area of debate within the public and academic library sectors across the world is use of physical space. Changing ideas about what a library should be, coupled with the growth of digital collections, has raised fundamental questions about how library buildings are used and the role of space in library services. Alongside these drivers is the…

Offering a separate, popular reading collection can be a valuable public service in academic libraries. Popular reading is also known as leisure reading, recreational reading, and reading for pleasure. These phrases are synonyms for an interest in reading bestsellers, mysteries, romance novels, biographies, graphic novels, humor, self-help, or…

World Café, sometimes termed Knowledge Café, is now an established method of facilitating productive dialogue between a group or groups of people around an issue that matters to the group as a whole. Now a world movement, the methodology is straightforward and uses conversation as a key process to connect people, who may be from different…

Recent years have seen a growing emphasis on modern special collections (in themselves no new phenomenon), with a dichotomy between guidance for detailed cataloguing in "Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Books)" (DCRM(B), 2007) and the value of clearing cataloguing backlogs expeditiously. This article describes the De la Mare…

This research highlights the scenarios that might serve as a strategic vision to describe a future beyond the current library, one which both guides provosts and creates a map for the transformation of human resources and technology in the university research libraries. The scenarios offer managerial leaders an opportunity to envision new roles…

The literature, activities, and resource needs of engineering students and faculty provide insight into a demographic that is often among the early-adopters of new technologies, tools, and methods of sharing information. Despite the often non-bibliographic nature of their research efforts, there are numerous elements of the traditional service…

Academic and research libraries have been increasing their efforts for a number of years to demonstrate their contributions to student learning outcomes in support of the institutional educational mission. Whether through one-shot instruction or credited classes, libraries invest a great deal of time and effort in instructional programs. A key…

Libraries are responding to customer preferences for electronic research materials through the acquisition and management of these products. Electronic resources have significantly different characteristics than print resources when it comes to technical services management. This paper addresses aspects of a corporate research library's evaluation…

Data curation is a concept with many facets. Curation goes beyond research-generated data, and its principles can support the preservation of institutions' historical data. Libraries are well-positioned to bring relevant expertise to such problems, especially those requiring collaboration, because of their experience as neutral caretakers and…

Big data sets and powerful computing capacity have transformed scholarly inquiry across many disciplines. While the impact of data-intensive research methodologies is perhaps most distinct in the natural and social sciences, the humanities have also benefited from these new analytical tools. While full-text data is necessary to study topics such…