When improving a web presence, today's libraries have a choice: using a free Web 2.0 application, opting for open source, buying a product, or building a web application. This article discusses how to make an informed decision for one's library. The authors stress that deciding whether to use a free Web 2.0 application, to choose open source, to…

Library student assistants account for approximately one-fourth of the staffing in academic libraries in the United States. Each student assistant plays an important role in the daily operations of today's college libraries by providing desk coverage, technical support, and customer service. This article discusses the advantages/disadvantages of…

This study investigated how school and public librarians can become better disseminators of health information and improve health information literacy in small and rural communities in a selected research area. We used the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas as our study area, composed of the economically depressed Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr, and…

Student success is influenced by their ability to access, evaluate, and use resources. Traditionally, academic librarianship has provided students with these information literacy skills. The increase in distance learning options has created the need for libraries to provide both reference services equitable to those available onsite and access to…

In September 2007, Yale University Library (YUL) and Microsoft agreed to partner in a large-scale project to digitize 100,000 books from the YUL collections--an ambitious effort that would substantially increase the library's digitized holdings, particularly in the area of its own text collections. YUL has been digitizing materials from its…

Purpose: For many years, the Lupton Library offered a traditional library introduction class to first year students participating in the Freshman Seminar Program at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. In 2007, the library applied for and received a campus grant to purchase thirty iPod Touches, along with accompanying hardware and software.…

Archivists are challenged by many competing demands on their time. The rise of institutional repositories, often located in libraries rather than archives, and the concurrent increase in attention to the changes in scholarly communication may be perceived by archivists as being a demand that is too far from the archives' core mission to warrant…

Circulation is the library's tireless foot soldier: it serves as the front gate to the library's services and resources. This service point is where most patrons enter and leave; and experience their first and last impressions--impressions that linger. In an age when academic libraries are facing meager budgets and declining usage statistics, this…

The mere fact that a library service is being used does not mean that the service makes a difference or has a positive impact on the user. This has significant implications for Special Library and Information Services (SL&IS) that have to constantly prove that they add value. Because of the difficulty of measuring impact effectively, the…

In the last few years, technology-savvy librarians have begun turning their attention to a host of new tools to connect with their users and colleagues. The umbrella term for these new technologies--Web 2.0--began gaining traction in 2004. Many librarians were quick to embrace the new wave of technology. Early adopting libraries used blogs to…

Information Literacy (IL) competencies are defined as "the ability to locate, evaluate, and use information effectively" and are considered essential for students in their academic lives and future careers (ALA, 1989). IL plays an important role in developing critical thinking and problem solving skills, and improving academic…

This research was conducted to investigate the relationships between conceptions and practice of information literacy in academic libraries. To create a structure for the investigation, the research adopted the framework of Argyris and Schon (1974) in which professional practice is examined via theories of action, namely espoused theories and…

Over the past decade and a half, free access to computers and the Internet in U.S. public libraries evolved from a rare commodity into a core service. Now, people from all walks of life rely on this service every day to look for jobs, find health care, and read the latest news. As the nation struggled through a historic recession, nearly one-third…

Some of the author's most valuable experiences as a library media specialist (LMS) were not in a school library. Rather, they were on the streets of Chicago, in community gardens, and on the rooftops of buildings in Humboldt Park, where she was hired by the University of Illinois Community Informatics Initiative as a graduate assistant and LMS in…

This study examines patterns in how a group of fifth- and sixth-grade teachers evaluated and reported using different types of curriculum resources to support their teaching in relation to the mathematical concepts outlined in the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. In particular, it explores the use of resources that were available to…