In the summer of 2003, at the invitation of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), a working group of fifteen higher education presidents, provosts, scholars, and digital resource innovators met at Dartmouth University to launch The Scholarly Communication Institute. Their eyes were on nothing less than how information…

This article evaluates the Legal Information Skills Tutorial (LIST), a successful multi-media online learning project at the University of Melbourne Law School based on the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) Information Literacy Standards. (Council of Australian University Librarians, Information Literacy Standards (2001)…

This article describes a new five-volume series, "Fashion, Costume, and Culture: Clothing, Headwear, Body Decorations, and Footwear through the Ages" (Sara Pendergast and Tom Pendergast, Editors), that provides a broad overview of costume traditions of diverse cultures from prehistoric times to the present day. These volumes illustrate how…

This column lists and defines several sets of selected terms that may better help any educator communicate with the digital-savvy student clientele. Terms were gathered from the sources listed in "Further Reading" and confirmed among three online professors at Indiana University/Purdue University at Indianapolis. The sample terms are clustered by…

Accompanying the explosive growth of the Internet have been concerns about protecting children from viewing pornographic and other harmful images through cyberspace. In the past few years, Congress has passed several acts to censor Internet sites available to children, but only the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) has received Supreme…

The potential of videoconferencing to enrich distance learning needs to be widely recognised as well as the technology embedded in curriculum delivery and in distance learning programmes. The argument is supported by reference to a wide range of case studies from the author's experiences over a period of six years as International Officer with the…

Most adults are challenged when it comes to understanding teens' motives. "What were they thinking of?" is an all-too-common response. Without a doubt, no developmental period in life is more confounding and baffling than adolescence. Until recently, erratic teen behavior was blamed on raging hormones, but scientific research in the last decade…

Catalogers, catalog managers, and others in library technical services have become increasingly interested in, worried over, and excited about FRBR (the acronym for Functional Requirements of Bibliographic Records). Staff outside of the management of the library's bibliographic database may wonder what the fuss is about (FERBER? FURBUR?), assuming…

The paper describes an effort to assess the information literacy skills of first year college students. An instrument was developed and information was gathered on students' experience and comfort in conducting library research as well as their perceived competence with specific information literacy skills. In addition, students completed a skills…

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…