The temperature may have been sweltering and the logistics a challenge, but that didn't stop the American Library Association (ALA) in Chicago from drawing more attendees than ever before. The 27,800 who came, including 6,731 exhibitors, set a new record, topping the previous record of 26,542 in 2001 in San Francisco and the Chicago totals of…

Many instruction librarians teach students that the URL extension .gov is one sign of a reliable, authoritative Internet source. This is true in many cases, but there are other very important reasons that government information deserves a larger place in information literacy sessions. It offers a clear example of several concepts students must…

Virtual libraries are becoming more and more common. Most states have a virtual library. A growing number of public libraries have a virtual presence on the Web. Virtual libraries are a growing addition to school library media collections. The next logical step would be personal virtual libraries. A personal virtual library (PVL) is a collection…

Ohio Educational Library Media Association (OELMA) has been working for many years to gather evidence in hopes of convincing their state government of the need for a certified library media specialist in every school. Its latest efforts began in 2002 when the board of OELMA applied for a grant to do a state study. Board members of OELMA, however,…

Roy J. Stewart made two very significant contributions to Deaf America. He was a key member of a Gallaudet alumni committee (along with Harley D. Drake, class of 1904, and Frederick H. Hughes, class of 1913) that raised seed money for the construction of the Edward Miner Gallaudet Memorial Library, which was influential in Gallaudet's attaining…

If librarians want to improve their visibility and value in the increasingly crowded digital information spaces, where users expect good results without expending much time or effort, they must learn to repurpose data to create added value. Since librarians already possess valuable data sources, like circulation statistics, reference transactions,…

When the author saw the job ad for Metropolitan State University, she thought she had found a new way to be a librarian. In her new position, frustration and occasional terror sometimes grip her: when she's teaching, or speaking in front of other faculty members, or trying to figure out how to be a "professional." In other words, her…

In this article, the author talks about an internal content management system that they have created at Calvin College. It is a hybrid of CMS and intranet that organizes Web site content and a variety of internal tools to help librarians complete their daily tasks. Hobbes is a Web-based tool that uses Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts written…

This paper considers the possibility of practicums in graduate programs for information management students. The benefits of such practicums are identified and explored and possible drawbacks discussed.

The culture of assessment in higher education requires academic librarians to demonstrate the impact of information literacy instruction on student learning. As a result, many librarians seek to gain knowledge about the information literacy assessment approaches available to them. This article identifies three major assessment approaches: (1)…

This chapter discusses the Association of American Colleges and Universities' (AAC&U's) Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education (VALUE) project, which aims to demonstrate that faculty across the country share fundamental expectations about student learning on all of the essential learning outcomes deemed critical for student…

This catalog of resources entails, by definition, an incomplete listing of available materials in the Rutgers University Department of Economics, Alexander Library at Rutgers, data centers throughout Rutgers, and the Internet. Because of the changing nature of the field, this scrapbook is constantly being revised. This scrapbook contains seven…

This report presents various inflation measures for schools, colleges, and libraries for fiscal year 1996, plus historical data for the period 1975-96. An introductory section covers the purpose and organization of the report and defines the indexes used. Chapter 1 covers the theory and design of price indexes. In text and 10 data tables, chapter…

This book focuses on guiding librarians at institutions of higher education on being proactive in securing tenure and promotion in their professional employment. The book has nine chapters. Chapter 1 gives advice on what to include in an application for a tenure-track position and what activities representing individual growth and development…

This paper shows how the content of a World Wide Web page is selected and how an examination of the intended audience influences content. Examples from the New Mexico Tech (NMT) Library homepage show what sources are selected and what level of detail is appropriate for the intended audience. Six fundamental functions of libraries and information…