The public library must meet the needs of the community and the patrons it serves. One area of need is for genealogical materials to support the study of genealogy and family history. Because of the lack of information on the materials needed to make up a core collection of Ohio materials, a select group of 18 libraries and 15 genealogical…

Different people have a diversity of needs and expectations when approaching an information retrieval system, and providing people with the ease and efficiency to access information is important when designing systems. By examining the man-machine interface from the cognitive viewpoint, it is possible to investigate how a person interacts with an…

The purpose of this paper was to investigate how well the Kent State University Archives serves its users. A self-administered questionnaire of 15 questions was utilized and the survey was conducted during the spring semester of 1991. It was found that the majority of archive users are undergraduate students from Kent State University doing…

A periodicals use study was conducted in a public high school library media center to determine whether its periodicals collection supported the curriculum needs of the students. For this study, 3,924 magazine requests by the students over an 8-month period were collected and analyzed. The analysis revealed that 96% of the magazine date requests…

In this age of limited resources, municipal courts scrutinize their library budgets with a view to maintaining adequate legal information sources and services at the lowest possible cost. Some courts relying on the authority of the Ohio Revised Code Section 2303.201 assess additional court costs to fund the acquisition and maintenance of…

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which environmental factors pertinent to bibliographic instruction are represented in the library literature and to determine any changes in the female to male ratio of authors that may have occurred over time. In 1990 the Bibliographic Instruction Section (BIS) of the Association of College…

Arguing that recommended lists for hospital libraries are too general, this use study evaluated the journal collection of a small hospital library. It is noted that the literature on use studies indicates that, with the availability of resources through computer searches, interlibrary loans, consortiums and networks, journal evaluation is no…

Conducted prior to the building of a new central library, this study was designed to assess the need for children's library services in downtown Sacramento. The development of a profile of the community environment and general characteristics of the population through the use of secondary sources is described; the assessment of family needs and…

This study evaluates the "Education Resources Information Center" (ERIC), "Library and Information Science Abstracts" (LISA), and "Library Literature" (LL) databases, determining how long the databases take to enter records (indexing delay), how much duplication of effort exists among the three databases (indexing…

Across Ohio and the rest of the United States, some children are being educated at home by their parents instead of attending public or private schools. This movement is called home-schooling. Little is known about these home-schooled children and their use of public library resources to supplement and enrich their home-school education. This…

A questionnaire was distributed to bookstore employees to determine their awareness and correct use of reference tools and skills with customers. Fifty employees returned the survey for a 42% response rate. The questionnaire collected demographic data on the education, work background, and on-the-job training of typical clerks at three Cleveland…

A survey was mailed to the 185 U.S. Roman Catholic cathedrals to determine the nature and extent of cathedral music libraries. In addition to baseline demographic information, survey questions focused on the following topics: (1) music library staffing and management; (2) methods of cataloging and classification; (3) the use and creation of…

This study examines the treatment given to libraries, librarians, and library usage in freshman English textbooks. The study follows criteria established by Virginia Tiefel ("Libraries and Librarians as Depicted in Freshman English Textbooks," College English 44, September 1982) in a study of texts published between 1952 and 1980. Tiefel found…

Library effectiveness--in particular, user satisfaction--is difficult to measure because it is a vague, subjective concept that is different for every person who enters the library. Library assessment traditionally has been measured by: (1) how well it has been meeting its stated goals and objectives; (2) the library processes, which include…

This study describes personal interviews with 35 Native Americans of Eastern and Central North Carolina who are traditional artists and performers. The interviews were conducted to determine the information environment of these artists and performers. In addition to assessing library usage and library satisfaction, the study also examines…