This article describes how the author changed a gloomy and outdated library into a cheery and welcoming place for teaching and learning. When the author was hired as the new library media specialist at Tri-County Career Center Library in Nelsonville, Ohio, the library was antiquated, uncomfortable, and not geared for the present-day hills of…

This report provides a variety of measures of households' use of public libraries and notes some interesting comparisons. It is a product of the Library Statistics Program at the National Center for Education Statistics. The data for this study were collected as part of the October 2002 Current Population Survey (CPS) Library Supplement.…

Getting acclimated to campus life is overwhelming to most freshmen, making library orientation low on their priority list. The author teams up with two college librarians in action. Michael Pasqualoni, Instructional Services Librarian at Syracuse University Library, taught IST 200 last Fall. He relied on an arsenal of media tools to keep students…

Purpose: To describe the development of the library management system, e-Granthalaya, for public libraries in India. This is an initiative of the Indian government's National Informatics Centre (NIC). The paper outlines the challenges and the potential of a full-scale deployment of this software at a national level. Design/methodology/approach:…

Libraries are investing heavily in an increasing number of electronic journals and providing access to them through their websites. We set out to determine if ARL academic libraries offer the same options on their websites to access electronic journals and databases. Using a checklist, we evaluated the websites for the presence of A-Z lists, links…

This abstract covers the breadth of higher education activities in North Carolina in their quantitative aspect, from simple counts of enrollment and degrees conferred to complex analyses of the flow of student transfers among institutions. Collected and published annually, this wide range of information should be useful to members of the public…

The "CAUT Almanac of Post-Secondary Education in Canada" is a source for the most current statistical information available on post-secondary education in Canada. The Almanac provides statistics on the following: (1) finance; (2) academic staff; (3) students; (4) universities and colleges; (5) research and development; (6) libraries; (7)…

In accordance with the recent philosophy of quality in higher education embraced by European institutions, a checklist for the qualitative evaluation of service charters in academic libraries is proposed. The checklist is based on the existing literature on the topic, not only the large number of research papers on quality issues in general, but…

This study explores Virginia elementary school principals' perceptions of the instructional role of the library media specialist and the origin of these perceptions. Principals who responded to the study strongly endorse the role of library media specialist as teacher of information literacy skills and as instructional partner. Respondents…

Reference services are in transition. Impacted by advances in technology, changing user expectations, and the migration to greater provision of online and distance service, reference in academic libraries today is not the same service it was even just a decade ago. Most literature looks at reference competencies either for a specific service model…

This study draws from narrative research, wherein stories of individuals, groups, and communities are central to the interpretation. Through a process of interpretive interactionism, the author examined the groups and institutions involved in the ongoing conflict between the state and public education in Oaxaca, and then included comparisons and…

The ethnographic study utilized the research techniques of observations, content analysis, and semi-structured interviews with tween participants (i.e., 9- through 13-year-old youth) during an 8-week literary blog project. Twenty-six participants created individual blog pages within a member-only classroom blog site that allowed for online…

The introduction of outcomes-based education in South Africa placed many challenges on the transformation of science classrooms. The 2009 National Education Evaluation and Development Unit (NEEDU) Report concluded that South African rural and township schools are largely dysfunctional. This article examined some of the reasons for the…

"Emergent literacy" is defined as the developmental process beginning at birth in which children acquire the foundation for reading and writing, including language, listening comprehension, concepts of print, alphabetic knowledge, and phonological awareness. The environment within which emergent literacy skills develop is also an important…

Primary literature is our main mode of communication in the sciences. As such, it is important for our undergraduates in the discipline to learn how to read primary literature. Incorporating primary literature into undergraduate science courses is often difficult because students are unprepared to comprehend primary articles. Learning to read and…