In his article "The McDonaldization of Academic Libraries?" Brian Quinn explores to what extent and to what effect academic libraries have become "McDonaldized," according to the concept developed by sociologist George Ritzer. Quinn identifies a number of ways in which the four dimensions of…

Many students leave the biology classroom with misconceptions centered on cellular structure. This article presents an activity in which students utilize images from an online database called "The Cell: An Image Library" (http://www.cellimagelibrary. org/) to gain a greater understanding of the diversity of cellular structure and the…

Learning is becoming more self-directed and informal with the support of emerging technologies. A variety of online resources have promoted informal learning by allowing people to learn on demand and just when needed. It is significant to understand self-directed informal learners' motivational aspects, their learning goals, obstacles, and…

Objectives: To compare the performance of a range of search facilities; and to illustrate the execution of a comprehensive literature search for qualitative evidence in social work. Context: Developments in literature search methods and comparisons of search facilities help facilitate access to the best available evidence for social workers.…

A three-year, grant-funded program to create an online video clip library for personnel programs preparing teachers of students with visual impairments in the United States and Canada was launched in September 2014. The first author was the developer of the Library of Video Excerpts (L.O.V.E.) and collected over 300 video clips that were 8 to 10…

The use of freely-available web-based materials in professional development has rarely been investigated in mathematics education research. In this article, the responses to a survey by 267 preschool teachers about their use of online professional development materials are described. The web materials were based on a design model and the survey…

Electronic resources have become a dominant feature of higher education, both traditional and distance learning based. Unlike in the past when universities relied majorly on the physical library and hard copy of books, e-books accessible through e-libraries are the dominant features of this century's institutions of higher learning. This study…

Using a mixed methods research approach this study explores faculty perceptions of LORLS at DBS. Data generated by the study will inform advocacy, marketing and training initiatives to promote the platform. The study concludes with a number of deductive and inductive findings. The first is that although DBS faculty are highly predisposed to using…

The Ithaka S+R Library Survey 2016 examines strategy and leadership issues from the perspective of academic library deans and directors. This project aims to provide academic librarians and higher education leaders with information about chief librarians' visions and the opportunities and challenges they face in leading their organizations. In…

This article traces the historical development of Digital Libraries (DLs), examines some DL initiatives in developed and developing countries and uses 5S Theory as a lens for analyzing the focused DLs. The analysis shows that present-day systems, in both developed and developing nations, are essentially content and user centric, with low level…

Technological advancements in the field of World Wide Web have led to a plethora of remote and virtual labs (RVLs) that are currently available online and they are offered with or without cost. However, using a RVL to teach a specific science subject might not be a straightforward task for a science teacher. As a result, science teachers need to…

The huge amount of information available online has given rise to personalization and filtering systems. Recommender systems (RS) constitute a specific type of information filtering technique that present items according to user's interests. In this research, a web-based personalized recommender system capable of providing learners with books that…

This article describes the application of electronic resources management (ERM) to digital repository management at the Health Sciences and Human Services Library at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. The authors discuss electronic resources management techniques, through the application of "Techniques for Electronic Management,"…

Mobile information technology is changing the education landscape by offering learners the opportunity to engage in asynchronous, ubiquitous instruction. While there is a proliferation of mobile content management systems being developed for the mobile Web and stand-alone mobile applications, few studies have addressed learner expectations and…

Introduction: This paper studies the effects of several dissemination channels in an open access environment by analysing the download data of the OAPEN Library. Method: Download data were obtained containing the number of downloads and the name of the Internet provider. Based on public information, each Internet provider was categorised. The…