The process of determining whether a source of information is relevant is multidimensional, dynamic, and subjective. This essay puts information science scholarship on relevance, including the process and nature of making relevance judgments, in conversation with models of teaching and learning information literacy. Teaching librarians are…

Engaging with materials can shape the teaching experience, teachers' practices and mindsets, and, ultimately, students' learning experiences. This issue of "Learning Professional" looks at an area of emerging interest: curriculum materials and the role they play in the daily work of educators and leaders. Educators, researchers, and…

This paper examines the usefulness of poetry book prizes as a selection tool by evaluating their fairness, meaningfulness, and reliability as an indication of quality. The results of two surveys, one collecting data on poetry book prizes and the other asking librarians about their collecting practices, suggest that selecting on the basis of prizes…

This review focuses on the inclusion criteria for the selection of studies in the National Early Literacy Panel report. It argues that the interpretation of early literacy is overly narrow and ignores the important role of background knowledge and conceptual development. To make this argument, it examines studies of comprehension in content areas…

Increasing demand for biotechnology and biomedical resources prompted the Engineering Library at the University of Colorado at Boulder (UCB) to complete a collection assessment of the journals, books, and other resources provided by the University Libraries. This paper presents a variety of methods for evaluating library collections and describes…

There is a general perception that as librarians, we know what constitutes and defines a rare book, that our heritage book collections are well-documented and their future survival is planned for and secure. This discussion paper asks whether our definitions of heritage material might be too narrow and whether they reflect the reality across all…

Various normalization techniques to transform journal impact factors (JIFs) into a standard scale or range of values have been reported a number of times in the literature, but have seldom been part of collection development librarians' tool kits. In this paper, JIFs as reported in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) database are converted to…

This article examines what is desirable in online reference books in science and technology and outlines a framework for evaluating their interfaces. The framework considers factors unique to these subject areas like chemical structures and numerical data. Criteria in three categories, navigability, searchability, and results, were applied to five…

Reformers suggest that parental choice will improve equity by making it possible for parents to select better schools for their children. A key assumption behind this claim is that parents choose from a set of schools that range in quality. Data from this longitudinal interview study suggest this assumption may be false. In one Midwestern city,…

This article examines the process by which college-level foreign language programs evaluate and select instructional materials for beginning level courses. A review of the relevant literature reveals an ambivalent relationship with textbooks, often the default curriculum for language courses. Despite textbooks' apparent key role in language…

The intent of the research is to focus attention on the existence and use of selection policies and to analyze selection policies to determine their thoroughness and currency. Professional guidelines and experts in the field offer direction on the selection of materials and criteria on dealing with challenges in the school library media center.…

Approval plans are used by many libraries as an adjunct to title-by-title selection, and sometimes as a substitute for it. The author examines this approach to purchasing library materials, considering positive and negative effects approval plans may have on collection balance as well as on acquisitions budgets and workflow. The article also…

As the definition of teacher quality changes with time, the selection mechanism of students into teacher education programmes may also change accordingly. In Taiwan, before the 1994 teacher education reform, selection of pre-service students was based solely on academic achievement. Afterwards, the selection was delegated to individual teacher…

Presents feedback from 14 teenagers in response to the Young Adult Library Services's 1995 Best Books for Young Adults list. Offers recommendations for librarians who create book lists: respect teens and their books; beware the influence of reviews and an author's momentum; make two lists; use real criteria for selection; and listen to them. (JMV)

The Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR) is one of the most widely used social desirability scales. The authors conducted a reliability generalization study to examine the typical reliability coefficients of BIDR scores and explored factors that explained the variability of reliability estimates across studies. The results indicated…