Each year the State Library sends annual report forms to California's public, academic, special, state agency, and county law libraries. Statistical data from those reports are tabulated in this publication, with directory listings published in the companion volume, "California Library Directory." For this fiscal year, 389 libraries of…

"ARL Statistics 2007-2008" is the latest in a series of annual publications that describe collections, staffing, expenditures, and service activities for the 123 members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). Of these, 113 are university libraries; the remaining 10 are public, governmental, and nonprofit research libraries. Data reported…

Teachers serving students with disabilities often rely on the school library because of the diversity of resources, its positive association for many students, and the perception that it facilitates individualized attention. Media specialists and educators report that teachers typically send students with disabilities to the school library during…

The Position Statement on the School Library Media Specialist's Role in Reading, adopted by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Board in February 2009, is a guide to help practitioners build library programs that support every learner's development in reading. As part of the Learning4Life (L4L) plan to implement the Standards for…

In recent years, a number of statewide research studies have been conducted to determine the impact of school library media centers and their school library media specialists (SLMSs) on student achievement. Research studies in eighteen states have clearly established the relationship between well-staffed, well-funded school libraries on student…

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…

Library Web sites must compete against easy-to-use sites, such as Google Scholar, Google Books, and Wikipedia, for students' time and attention. Library Web sites must therefore be designed with aesthetics and user perceptions at the forefront. The Music and Performing Arts Library at Urbana-Champaign's Web site was overcrowded and in much need of…

Purpose: The paper aims to study how the present distance learning libraries can improve upon their existing services and introduce new ones to enhance quality of services to distance learners. Design/methodology/approach: The paper includes a review of literature on quality assurance in open and distance education in general and student support…

Collecting and presenting children's literature takes on new meaning when the audience is comprised of students who are affluent and represent the dominant culture. As a school librarian, the author of this article believes that children's literature provides a means by which she can introduce the diversity of society into the classroom.…

Web 2.0 challenges libraries to change from their predominantly centralised service models with integrated library management systems at the hub. Implementation of Web 2.0 technologies and the accompanying attitudinal shifts will demand reconceptualisation of the nature of library and information service around a dynamic, ever changing, networked,…

The article relates how the Brooklyn Campus Library of Long Island University, despite limitations of physical distance and the varying conditions of the remote graduate campus at Westchester, makes every effort to face each challenge creatively with practical solutions for implementation. We share our findings and experiences--what worked and…

Social networking sites cast a wide net, not only in the sheer number of sites that exist on the Internet but also in terms of their application and usefulness. The last column, in "PSQ" v.4 (3), examined sites that could assist professionals with outreach, networking, and collaboration. In this second column dedicated to social networking sites,…

Many libraries use RSS to syndicate information about their collections to users. A survey of 65 academic libraries revealed their most common use for RSS is to disseminate information about library holdings, such as lists of new acquisitions. Even though typical RSS feeds are ill suited to the task of carrying rich bibliographic metadata, great…

Local records are the foundation on which social history is constructed. However, in an era when most historians categorize themselves as social historians, it is amazing to note how much these primary resources appear to be underutilized in scholarly works. This article attempts to understand why this is so by investigating how it is that…