Increasing workloads and decreasing budgets have left school district staff struggling to handle all their responsibilities, and regular communication across the district and into the community often suffers. Information may be delayed, inconsistent, or simply ranked low on the priority lists of busy administrators. Even transmitting information…

Being a solo librarian today is certainly challenging; however, because of technological interconnectedness, today's solo librarian is definitely not alone. Technology allows a school librarian to immediately and constantly connect and interact with other school librarians. This article discusses online resources and websites that will allow a…

Student advising is an important and time-consuming effort in academic life. This paper attempts to solve a technology-based "last mile" problem by developing and evaluating a web-based decision support tool (the Online Advisor) that helps advisors and students make better use of an already present university student information system. Two…

Self-directed learning on open online networks is now a possibility as communication and resources can be combined to create learning environments. But is it really? There are some challenges that might prevent learners from having a quality learning experience. This paper raises questions on levels of learner autonomy, presence, and critical…

The authors, both of whom are working at the Musselman library, relate how they are always looking for ways to improve and update their reference service. When they introduced a chat reference service to their online library services, they received only four inquiries in the entire year 2002-2003. The authors found out later that the paltry number…

These proceedings document the fifth year of the "Brick and Click Libraries Symposium", held annually at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. Thirty five peer-reviewed papers and abstracts, written by academic librarians, and presented at the symposium are included in this volume. Many of the entries have…