Proper planning and assessment surveys of projects for academic library Web sites will not always be predictive of real world use, no matter how many responses they might receive. In this case, multiple-phase development, librarian focus groups, and patron surveys performed before implementation of such a project inaccurately overrated utility and…

Self-service is a hit. From gas stations to banks to grocery stores--it has become table stakes for retailers who aim to satisfy an increasingly independent consumer. Libraries are no exception, and, in fact, with their card catalog past, they may well have been in the vanguard in enabling customers to find what they want on their own. Card…

Customer service is at the core of everything librarians do in libraries. They strive to create positive customer relationships and to provide added value to the library services offered to their patrons. Emerging technologies offer opportunities for creative integration with library services. Staff should be encouraged to explore, learn, and…

When schools and universities look at saving energy in their facilities, they are likely to review the efficiency of their heating and cooling systems, or the quality of their building envelopes. When facility managers focus attention on school bathrooms, they are more likely to consider issues such as cleanliness and safety as more critical than…

User experience (UX) is about arranging the elements of a product or service to optimize how people will interact with it. In this article, the author talks about the importance of user experience and discusses the design of user experiences in libraries. He first looks at what UX is. Then he describes three kinds of user experience design: (1)…

Libraries are evolving into learning laboratories or "libratories"--environments where a wide variety of learning activities and projects can take place. Part project space, part design studio, part community meeting and presentation space, and part research and development lab, libraries of the future will have a new alphabet of services--the new…

In the new millennium, school librarians are more likely to be found sitting behind a computer as they update the library web page or create a wiki on genetically modified organisms. Or they might be seen in the library computer lab as they lead students through tutorials on annotated bibliographies or Google docs. If adequately supported, school…

At the 2011 ALA conference, social media was still a topic of many discussions. For the past few years, librarians have shared their efforts to incorporate social networking applications like Facebook and Twitter as part of library services. Some librarians have taken on the challenge of establishing a social network for their library, while…

The year 2010 saw a major revolution in tablet technology with the introduction of the Apple iPad. Curious about the potential of this new technology for libraries, a group of librarians at Ryerson University in Toronto seized an opportunity to investigate the emerging role of the tablet in the daily academic lives of students. The group found…

Two of the most time-consuming jobs in the library are taking inventory and keeping track of in-house uses of library material. Librarians have long been searching for more efficient solution for these two activities. New technology can be the answer to creating efficiency for libraries. In fact, if one is a SirsiDynix library, there is an easy…

This study reviewed link resolver success comparing 360 Link and a local implementation of WebBridge. Two methods were used: (1) comparing article-level access and (2) examining technical issues for 384 randomly sampled OpenURLs. Google Analytics was used to collect user-generated OpenURLs. For both methods, 360 Link out-performed the local…

Most higher education facilities have already accomplished some measure of a "microgrid" investment with building control systems (BCS), energy management systems (EMS), and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) installations. Available energy production facilities may include boilers, chillers, cogeneration, thermal storage, electrical…

In response to the rapid development of digital libraries over the past decade, researchers have focused on the use of metadata as an effective means to support resource discovery within online repositories. With the increasing involvement of libraries in digitization projects and the growing number of institutional repositories, it is anticipated…

The year 2011 was the PALNI (Private Academic Library Network of Indiana) consortium's "rookie season" for the implementation of Primo, the 2010 Discovery Layer 500 race winner. In this article, the authors report on their transition to the cloud within Ex Libris Ltd.'s Primo TotalCare environment: their preparation, the steps involved…

Purpose: This paper aims to elaborate the library data migration process from LAMP (Library Automation Management Program) to the open source software Koha's (2.2.8 Windows based) Pakistani flavour PakLAG-Koha in six legislative assembly libraries of Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach: The paper explains different steps of the data migration…