The past decade has witnessed an explosion of the penetration of mobile technology through all strata of society. Mobile technologies including cell phones, tablets, and even some e-readers are used for surfing the web, running apps, reading email, posting to social media, conducting banking transactions, etc. This liberation from desktop and…

The focus of all of this intense interchange was the shape and future of learning institutions. Our charge was to accept the challenge of an Information Age and acknowledge, at the conceptual as well as at the methodological level, the responsibilities of learning at an epistemic moment when learning itself is the most dramatic medium of that…

The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) collects institution-level data from postsecondary institutions in the United States (50 states and the District of Columbia) and other U.S. jurisdictions (see appendix A for a list of other U.S. jurisdictions). This "First Look" presents findings from the provisional data of the…

Introduction: This study explores blind users' unique help-seeking situations in interacting with digital libraries. In particular, help-seeking situations were investigated at both the physical and cognitive levels. Method: Fifteen blind participants performed three search tasks, including known- item search, specific information search, and…

Built as one of 60+ hubs on the HUBzero platform, STEMEdhub was developed in 2011 as a resource for research, education, and collaboration in STEM education. The hub currently supports 82 different groups. In this article, the authors describe two specific groups (SLED and AAU) that are taking advantage of numerous communication and resource tools…

This is a study of the treatment of library patron privacy in licenses for electronic journals in academic libraries. We begin by distinguishing four facets of privacy and intellectual freedom based on the LIS and philosophical literature. Next, we perform a content analysis of 42 license agreements for electronic journals, focusing on terms for…

Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, have recently emerged as a disruptive pedagogy gaining rapid momentum in higher education. In some states, proposed legislations would accredit MOOCs to provide college-credit courses in the name of cost saving, efficiency and access. While debates rage regarding the place of MOOCs in higher education, some…

To some, discussing the demise of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system is tantamount to blasphemy, while to others it is a discussion long overdue (no pun intended). The author was asked, as an educator of librarians, to present her thoughts on the issue. Her conclusions are based not on thorough scientifically sound research, but rather…

Clinton Community College (CCC) is a small campus serving a rural community just outside the city of Plattsburgh in upstate New York. It is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system. The Leroy M. Douglas Sr. Library (Douglas Library) is located in the George Moore Academic and Administrative Building (Moore Building). Prior to…

This paper gives an overview of open archives developed during the period of 2004-2012 in India including institutional, subject, cross repositories, etc. It also depicts the actions taken by the Indian government in response to the OA developments. The paper highlights that there are one cross institutional repository, three cross institutional…

This paper describes the automated copyright clearance process for electronic reserves materials by the electronic reserves staff at the Information and Library Services (ILS), at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC). Besides the standard practice to handle and post required course readings in digital format for UMUC's distance…

"Research Library Issues" ("RLI") focuses on current and emerging topics that are strategically important to research libraries. The articles explore issues, share information, pose critical questions, and provide examples. This issue includes the following articles: (1) Introduction (Sue Baughman); (2) An Overview of the…

Today's electronic information landscape is growing exponentially with no signs of slowing. This poses a significant challenge for academic libraries. Librarians must continually learn and adapt to harness this explosion of resources. To fulfill their claim as the leaders in the information field they must be effective in providing access and…

This report presents tabulations for the 2012 Academic Libraries Survey (ALS) conducted by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), within the Institute of Education Sciences. The 2012 ALS population included postsecondary institutions with all of the following: total library expenditures that exceed…

The purpose of this study was to understand the organizational level decision factors in technology adoption in the context of digital libraries. A qualitative case study approach was used to investigate the adoption of a specific technology, XML-based Web services, in digital libraries. Rogers' diffusion of innovations and Wenger's communities of…