Bill Schickling has spent a good chunk of his professional life at what is now Polaris Library Systems, shaping both the older Galaxy system and the newer Polaris integrated library system (ILS). When he joined the company as a programmer in 1987, it was still part of Gaylord, known mostly for its furniture and supplies division. Schickling was…

This article features the University of Liverpool's arts and humanities library, which applies a new search tool to improve the user experience. In nearly every way imaginable, the Sydney Jones Library and the Harold Cohen Library--the university's two libraries that serve science, engineering, and medical students--support the lives of their…

Discusses several economic concepts and principles important for librarianship--opportunity cost, resources, assets, and investment--and notes the difficulty of placing a monetary value on patron benefits. The law of diminishing marginal returns is applied to the relationships between library services and collection size, and between investment in…

Contains reprints of three articles: (1) "Our Commission, Our Omissions" (Eric Moon), published in 1984, discusses the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science; (2) "Some Popular Objections to Public Libraries" (William Poole), published in 1876, addresses taxes and quality of books; and (3) "Readers and…

Discusses measurement techniques for determining good reference service and describes results from a study of 12 public libraries in California that investigated reference service. Topics include inconsistent reference studies that showed reference service giving good results half of the time; and measuring unrelated outcomes of accuracy, utility,…

Identifies factors which may account for user dissatisfaction with online public access catalogs (OPACs) and discusses some advantages of OPACs over card catalogs: (1) design for subject searching; (2) flexibility; (3) browsing capability; (4) precision; (5) availability of status information; and (6) development of microcomputer software to…

Recommends that librarians consider emotional and other use-oriented classification and guides to supplement existing fact oriented classification schemes. Lack of imaginative acccess systems thwarts the exercise of user imagination in the pursuit of personal goals. (RAA)

Examines the issues of a lifetime of service to portray the future as an opportunity for librarians to achieve a leadership role in the information age. Freedom of information versus privacy, censorship, user needs, and technological advancement are discussed in the context of intellectual freedom. Six references are listed. (RAA)

Considers the current trend in libraries toward live, or digital, reference services. Highlights include models for reference, including synchronous versus asynchronous; benefits for users; software packages; user expectations; suitability of the technology; and determining the best service for users and their information needs. (LRW)

Describes a study that compared retrieval obtained by searching hardcopy and online indexes. Measures of comparison were recall and precision, user preferences, and the amount of effort required to complete the search. The findings indicate that neither method offers an overall advantage and suggest that both search modes should be maintained. (12…

Reports the results of an unobtrusive study, from a user's viewpoint, of reference services available in the Suffolk Cooperative Library System. The study raises questions of policy centering around user expectations of library reference services. (RAA)

Discusses the need for libraries to market the value of their services. Highlights include customer satisfaction surveys; competition with other information providers; borrowing ideas from the private sector; focusing on marketing electronic resources; targeting younger users; the importance of personal service; and having a budget for…

Reviews the results of studies that have measured manual and online reference performance in public libraries. Topics discussed include librarian interactions with patrons; characteristics of successful online searches; the recall and precision tradeoff; and the cost effectiveness of online searching. (two references) (CLB)

Presents W. Edwards Deming's Total Quality Management method and advocates its adoption in libraries. The 14 points that form the basis of Deming's philosophy are discussed in the context of the library setting. A flow chart of the reference process and user survey questions are included. (MES)

Jennifer Duvernay, a science reference librarian at Arizona State University (ASU), feels it is very important to make sure that the information shopping experience is completely satisfying. "I'd like our students to choose to come to us because they have good experiences with us, trust us, and like us, despite [the availability of] plenty of…