Take a look around the bus or subway and see just how many people are bumping along to an iPod or an MP3 player. What they are listening to is their secret, but the many signature earbuds in sight should give one a real sense of just how pervasive digital audio has become. This article describes how that popularity is mirrored in library audio…

Many academic libraries rely on "Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries" when making collection development decisions. This study examines holdings and use for books reviewed in "Choice," books designated by "Choice" as Outstanding Academic Titles, and the general collections for two groups of libraries. (Contains 12 tables and 3 figures.)

In this article, the author profiles Carolyn Brodie, winner of this year's Scholastic Library Publishing Award. One can be completely charmed by Brodie's soft-spoken Arkansas accent, warm demeanor, and genteel manners. While the graciousness is authentic, the woman behind it is fearless, with a clear vision for youth services, remarkable tenacity,…

In putting up its new, Frank Gehry-designed Lewis Library, Princeton University endured its share of challenges. It constructed models of the building to give the subcontractors a chance to practice. It fired a contractor halfway through the job when the building was past due. It learned that some subcontractors were trying to bribe their way onto…

Because so much information exists only in video format--from documentaries to instructional videos to entertainment films that create a significant amount of the popular culture--libraries have increased their collections of these materials. Nevertheless, no library could possibly afford to collect every item its patrons might one day request.…

Despite the media's fascination with the "literacy crisis," there is rarely any mention of the real cause of the problem: Lack of access to books for children of poverty. In this article, the author presents a compelling demonstration of what happens when librarians make sure children have access to interesting reading material: They read! And…

The use of interactive web technologies on public library web sites in the United States has been a topic of much discussion in recent years, and a shift in certain types of user services is underway. Terms like "Web 2.0" and even "Library 2.0" have become common in library literature and at conferences as those on the early…

As individuals become more and more comfortable mediating all kinds of situations online and through various technologies, their virtual selves increasingly overlap their "real" lives. Posting a "happy birthday!" message on Facebook is as automatic as dropping a card in the mail. E-mailing relevant links to co-workers happens as naturally as…

Due to a shortage of librarians to teach classes coupled with a growing student body, librarians at East Tennessee State University (ETSU) decided to explore alternative means to deliver instruction. Their charge was to supplement traditional classroom instruction by utilizing ETSU's course management system (Desire2Learn, D2L) to inform students…

Library/information science professionals need a clearly articulated definition of usability/Web usability to implement intuitive websites. In this study, the authors analyzed usability definitions provided by the ARL library professionals and those found in the library/information science and computer science-information systems literature.…

The Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information Access (TICFIA) Program supports projects focused on developing innovative technologies for accessing, collecting, organizing, preserving, and disseminating information from foreign sources to address the U.S.' teaching and research needs in international education and foreign…

School librarians need a simple action plan for overcoming the barriers to adopting School Library 2.0. This book provides one, and describes how fully integrating technology would dramatically benefit 21st-century schools. Despite the substantial efforts that have been made to bring schools into the 21st century, research indicates that the…

This dissertation is a dual-site ethnographic case study of the lived information literacy experiences of students in their junior year of high school relative to their school library and librarians. What began as an investigation of an apparent gap in understanding between the views of teens and school librarians regarding "information…

The modern world's understanding of American university press has long been shaped by university-press books. American university-press books are good international advertisements for the universities whose logos grace their spines. The growth of transnational scholarship and the expansion of digital communications networks are converging in ways…

Large-sized repositories of learning objects (LOs) are difficult to create and also to maintain. In this paper we propose a way to reduce this drawback by improving the classification mechanisms of the LO repositories. Specifically, we present a solution to automate the LO classification of the Universia repository, a collection of more than 15…