The Integrated Library System remains a true innovation that forms the baseline of service provided by the contemporary library. The purpose of this paper is to take a moment and reflect upon this innovation, and also to comment about ways to boost and revive innovative endeavors that can further develop the ILS. (Contains 1 table.)

Evaluation in Library and Information Services has traditionally focused on quantitative measures of input and output. This trend has been generally reflected in the emerging efforts relating to the evaluation of electronic information services (EIS). Less well developed are qualitative approaches to evaluation of EIS. Issues that feature high on…

Blogging offers an alternative and sometimes superior way to communicate with library patrons. It provides an opportunity to speak more directly to them, and it does so in a manner that is more comfortable and convenient for all involved. A library's Web site may be the only interaction that patrons have with the organization, so it makes sense to…

From 2000-2004, the Auburn University Montgomery Library measured electronic book usage. Electronic book usage increased while use of the printed collection decreased. Subject areas most used resembled those reported by larger institutions, supporting the idea that some subjects are amenable to electronic use regardless of institutional size and…

New consortial buying models have dramatically increased the availability of online resources, particularly journal articles, in the universities and technical institutes of developing countries. The degree of acceptance and pattern of use of such materials is of great interest to library collection development. Ankara University surveyed faculty…

What is the impact of an academic library consortium on the perceptions of library services experienced by users of the member institutions' libraries? What is the impact of an academic library consortium on the perceptions of library services experienced by users of the member institutions libraries? In 2002 and 2003, OhioLINK (Ohio's consortium…

A five-month research study at Cornell University Library (CUL) confirmed the strategic importance of a library presence in faculty-created course Web sites. It sparked specific recommendations to support the seamless integration of the CUL digital library within the virtual learning environments created by faculty.

Gulf Coast Community College in Panama City, Florida, is celebrating a fifty-year anniversary in 2007. Maintained by the library, the school's archives represent the historical contributions on a local and national level. Gulf Coast Community College library is ensuring the school's historical significance through the digitization of its…

The authors are conducting a three-part study to evaluate current trends in the preservation of digital content, with an emphasis on electronic records. The study emanated from the authors' work on the Preservation Task Force of the International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems (InterPARES) project. This article…

This article profiles Pat Renzulli, CIO for the School District of Philadelphia, who was selected as David Kearns CIO of the Year 2006. Among other accomplishments, she developed a process for principals to receive key performance indicators, lead the implementation of an instructional management system, rolled out a district-wide technology…

Outline Processor Markup Language (OPML) is an emerging format that allows for the creation of customized research packages to push to patrons. It is a way to gather collections of Web resources (links, RSS feeds, multimedia files), organize them as outlines, and publish them in a format that others can share and even subscribe to. In this…

This paper reports the findings of a qualitative research study designed to investigate the opportunities and obstacles presented by a digital library for supporting teaching and learning in an inquiry-based undergraduate geology course. Data for this study included classroom observations and field-notes of classroom practices, questionnaires, and…

Kids ask the darndest questions. And sometimes they ask them in the darndest places, including online information systems that were not designed to answer them. There is a reason for this continuing phenomenon, and an important lesson in it for school library media specialists and other educators. To understand the phenomenon at hand, imagine an…

This article presents a project-based case study that was developed for students with diverse backgrounds and varied inclinations for engaging technical topics. The project, called History Places, requires that student teams develop a vision for a kind of digital library, propose a conceptual model, and use the model to derive a logical model and…

Lippincott Library's Historical Corporate Annual Reports Collection contains useful primary sources of information for several disciplines, including applied accounting and business history. They also are reflections of the societal and cultural mores of the times. Unfortunately, these reports are fragile, difficult to locate, and hard to access.…