The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has placed a significant focus on standards. Understandably, classroom teachers are focused on effectively covering their content area standards and are often reluctant to add information literacy skills to their lessons because they see no direct connection to the state achievement tests. However, a close…

"Research Library Issues" ("RLI") is a bimonthly report from ARL (Association of Research Libraries), CNI (Coalition of Networked Information), and SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition). This issue includes the following articles: (1) Removing All Restrictions: Cornell's New Policy on Use of Public…

This survey was a joint initiative between Society of College, National, and University Libraries (SCONUL) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), that since 2004 has sponsored a program to assist libraries with the assessment of services that they offer their users and the processes that support those services. It was based on an ARL…

Libraries have never been stable or static. They are inevitably designed for one information vessel and have to learn to accommodate a new one. Scrolls became codices, and books were augmented with vinyl records, VHS tapes, and CDs. The only difference in trying to manage technology now, as opposed to then, is that change comes so much more…

The current economic crisis has naturally reached into one's pocket and made many people anxious about their own finances. As consumers ride out these treacherous times, where can they go to find advice on managing and paying down their debt, protecting their investments, incomes, and retirement plans, and applying for mortgages in a tight credit…

Teacher shortages have real impact on schools, students, and communities. A gap of one teacher in a school means diminished opportunities for students. And, like many challenges in public education, the pain of teacher shortages is not distributed equitably: The communities that suffer the most from teacher shortages are often low-income and…

The purpose of this article was to examine how technological advances in research affect The University of West Alabama's mission as well as its resources available to students through the curriculum lab as the lab should be an integral part of the University's offerings. Living in the age of the instant, the prevalence of information available…

The Association of Research Libraries E-Science Working Group developed a survey to "build an understanding of how libraries can contribute to e-science activities in their institution" and "identify organizations and institutions that have similar interests in e-science to leverage research library interests." The August 2009…

HomeworkNYC Apps is a suite of tools designed to provide around-the-clock help to the estimated 1.3 million children and teens served by the libraries of New York City. Aimed at being a one-stop shop for all things homework related, the HomeworkNYC website offers access to library catalogs and databases, browsable subject guides, and even…

Introduction: We define the results list problem in information search and suggest the "associative index model", an ad-hoc, user-derived indexing solution based on Vannevar Bush's description of an associative indexing approach for his memex machine. We further define what selection means in indexing terms with reference to Charles…

In August 2008, the Missouri River Regional Library (MRRL), where the author serves as information technology coordinator, switched over from an internally hosted Microsoft Exchange email server to the Google Apps product. As the person who led the charge to use Google Apps and the person who actually flipped the switch, he was responsible for…

The very nature of information seeking in today's world suggests that credibility is an important factor in how one goes about seeking and using information. The proliferation of Web-based resources and the ability for nearly anyone to publish on the Web force individuals to make judgments of quality and authority as they flow on- and offline in…

Over the past decade, policy discussions about public access computing in libraries have focused on the role that these institutions play in bridging the digital divide. In these discussions, public access computing services are generally targeted at individuals who either cannot afford a computer and Internet access, or have never received formal…

Teaching students how to conduct research that helps them develop a scholarly work is often a daunting task. A fortuitous collaboration between faculty members in the School of Education and the academic library led to the development of strategies for teaching graduate students how to conduct quality research. Over the course of four years,…

Although in the late 1990s there was much discussion as to whether the idea of information literacy was necessary or had longevity, global interest in the phenomenon has increased rather than diminished. Information literacy standards have been developed and become widely accepted in educational systems. Research centres for information literacy…