"Research Library Issues" ("RLI") focuses on current and emerging topics that are strategically important to research libraries. The articles explore issues, share information, pose critical questions, and provide examples. This special issue presents a report released by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Joint Task…

Twenty-three scholarly papers and twelve abstracts comprise the content of the eleventh annual Brick and Click Libraries Symposium, held at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. The peer-reviewed proceedings, authored by academic librarians and presented at the symposium, portray the contemporary and future face of…

The American Council of Learned Societies and the Council on Library and Information Resources appointed 36 scholars, librarians, and leaders of various academic enterprises to five task forces "to consider changes in the process of scholarship and instruction that will result from the use of digital technology and to make recommendations to…

Discusses the national program for preservation microfilming in research libraries and suggests that microfilm is not the appropriate medium to be used. Recommendations for the electronic storage of materials on computerized databases are made; disadvantages of microfilm are described; interlibrary loan problems are discussed; and effects on…

This document proposes a model of the decision making process required of research libraries when they embark on digital conversion projects. A series of questions are offered that focus on facilitating the decision making process for library managers. Questions of what and how to digitize are placed in the larger framework of collection building…

The possibility of producing journal articles in electronic form is creating a revolution in scholarly communication. A number of research libraries are investigating or offering local and remote access to electronic journals. Because Internet access to a journal may not be available at the time of need, a prime collection development issue is the…

A 20-year strategic plan for library space has been developed at Cornell University, a private research university which also serves as the land-grant university for the State of New York. Two basic approaches to analyzing space needs were used. The first was the conventional analysis, where collections and user space needs are projected into the…

This document reports the preliminary results of a survey conducted in the spring of 1993 to gather information on the status and use of video collections and multimedia in Association of Research Libraries (ARL) libraries. Results from the survey include: 84 percent of the 73 respondents collect videorecordings; the largest collections are on VHS…