A library media specialist writes about high school book clubs describing about setting the administration, dealing with logistics, recruiting members, choosing the right books, reaping the benefits, publicizing the club and reaching out to other clubs.

A growing number of American Library Association (ALA)-accredited library schools are offering distance education graduate programs, sparking a debate about the quality and acceptance of such degrees. Alumni of distance education Library and Information Science (LIS) programs were surveyed about their distance education experiences. Survey results…

A one-time survey may give a falsely precise indication of local usage. Examining four iterations of a library assignment survey reveals large within-discipline variation; even individual faculty members are inconsistent in their use of library assignments from year to year. Additional causes of variation include changing faculty and pedagogy.…

A library media specialist believes students should go beyond the facts and other information they find in sources. They can stretch their intellect and engage them in the learning process. The students can produce more meaningful and significant results by combining information found in sources, their original idea and transferable skills in the…

An effective systems librarian must understand security vulnerabilities and be proactive in preventing problems. Specifics of future attacks or security challenges cannot possibly be anticipated, but this paper suggests some simple measures that can be taken to make attacks less likely to occur: program the operating system to get automatic…

Do school librarians play a role in teaching students to read? Yes, they do, and librarians should embrace that role if they want school administrators and politicians to recognize them as central to fostering literate kids, according to several people who took part in the literacy challenge group. The question of how and what school librarians…

This article details the work of Sally Lancaster of Everett Public Schools in Washington. Sally Lancaster may be an educator by training, but she knows the value of libraries. As assistant principal of Alternative Programs for the Everett Public Schools, Lancaster led a statewide battle that not only saved the criteria for school libraries in the…

Even if one is equipped with an MLS, the 11 libraries that comprise the Harvard College Library can be pretty daunting. That is why Carrie Miyoshi Macfarlane and Kathleen Sheehan created Threading the Maze. The online publication is presented to students in expository writing, the one course all undergraduates must take. "This highly effective…

Purpose: To examine the relationship between deposit of electronic theses in institutional and archival repositories. Specifically the paper considers the automated export of theses for deposit in the archival repository in continuation of the existing arrangement in Wales for paper-based theses. Design/methodology/approach: The paper presents a…

The issue of live bibliographic instruction (BI) versus electronic BI is a matter many libraries are facing as more technology becomes available to afford such an option. At the University of Oklahoma Government Documents Collection, a study was administered in March 2001 to determine the relative advantages between these two teaching techniques.…

Many of the Internet sites visited by students exhibit text structures that parallel those of information books. Most Web sites incorporate tables of contents and indexes, which are the actually helpful for students. However, table of contents and indexes are not the only information text structures that students will interact with when surfing…

This month's column focuses on online Web conferencing software. This year promises to have the right mix of conditions to create significant growth in the use of these systems among libraries; library consortia, networks, and associations; and other library-related organizations. Travel budgets are being cut, librarian positions are being…

This article presents a general framework for building conceptbased digital course libraries. The framework is based on the idea of using a conceptual structure that represents a subject domain ontology for classification of the course library content. Two aspects, domain conceptualization, which supports findability and ontologies, which support…

An account is given of the design and compilation of a freely-available database, updated on a monthly schedule, listing journals, books, conference proceedings and online publications concerned with any and every aspect of low vision. Specific topic areas can be located by means of keywords and through other bibliographical details such as the…

Academic library faculty require a supportive atmosphere in order to successfully engage in research and publication. At Oregon State University, the Library Faculty Association (LFA) provides venues for peer criticism of manuscripts and presentations and for the discussion of professional issues. A survey of LFA members on their level of…