This article addresses concerns raised by members of the local Muslim community regarding copies of the Qur'an in the circulating collections at Milner Library, Illinois State University. The librarians conducted an analysis of the collection of holy books and investigated the rules and traditions of the Islamic faith that govern the care and…

The former Associate Head of Access and Delivery Services of the North Carolina State University Libraries reports on successful use of matrix management techniques for the Circulation and Reserves unit of the department. Despite their having fallen out of favor in much of the management literature, matrix management principles are useful for…

Intranets can be crucial tools in fostering communication within an academic library. This article describes the successful implementation of an intranet wiki at the San Diego State University Library & Information Access. The steps involved with implementing, marketing, and supporting the MediaWiki software are described, and the results of a…

In 2009, the author spearheaded the Thunder Bay Public Library's (TBPL) service audit on kiosks. A task force comprising staff from the children's, reference, and adult services departments was formed to work on the audit. Task force members worked together and studied how patrons and staff use kiosks, conducted a literature review, surveyed other…

America has always been a nation of immigrants, and many school libraries serve students whose first language is not English. In AASL's 2009 "School Libraries Count! Survey," 14% of the 5,824 respondents reported a student population with 25% or more English language learners. Yet 91% reported that less than 5% of their collections are…

Campus librarians play a central role in conversations revolving around copyright compliance. The sheer volume of information provided within library physical and virtual spaces affirms the role libraries play in current copyright debates. Regardless of the function of librarians on any particular campus, it is important to confront the myriad of…

This article updates a previous article published in 1992 that described the role of the access services manager in policy formation. Since that time, the access services department and mission has matured and evolved to a prominent position within the library organization. Technological changes and innovation in the marketplace of wired and…

This article describes how and why the Library 101 Project was created and the lessons that the developers learned out of this project. The Library 101 is a project that challenges librarians to revise the paradigm of "basic" library services in order to remain relevant in this technology-driven world. It was developed by Michael Porter,…

This article describes the Project Lefty, a search system that, at a minimum, adds a layer on top of traditional federated search tools that will make the wait for results more worthwhile for researchers. At best, Project Lefty improves search queries and relevance rankings for web-scale discovery tools to make the results themselves more relevant…

The global economic crisis of the past 2 years has brought harsh circumstances to most libraries, calling into question many of the ways that librarians allocate resources. Lean budgets force libraries to devise strategies that make the very most of the resources available. Many libraries face the reality of doing more with less, often much less.…

This paper proposes utilizing a combination of the Quality Function Deployment (QFD)-Kano model as a useful tool to evaluate service quality. The digital library of the University of Guadalajara (Mexico) is presented as a case study. Data to feed the QFD-Kano model was gathered by an online questionnaire that was made available to users on the…

In this paper the author compares the use of digital materials that have been deposited in The Ohio State University (OSU) Knowledge Bank (KB). Comparisons are made for content considered in scope of the university archives and those considered out of scope, for materials originating from different campus sources, and for different types of…

This article reports on the implementation of a professional development program in emerging technologies for librarians at the University of Western Australia. Set up in 2008 to address a lack of pedagogically grounded training in this area, it has now graduated three cohorts. A qualitative analysis of participants' online contributions and…

Digital inclusion is the ability of individuals and groups to access and use information and communication technologies. Not all members of a community benefit equally, and some communities have been left out altogether. This paper is a guide for fostering digital inclusion throughout the United States so that everyone can take advantage of…

This study assessed students' satisfaction with Ramkhamhaeng University regional library services (RURLs) and the perceived quality of information retrieved from other information sources. In particular, this study investigated factors relating to regional students' selection of information sources to meet their information needs. The researcher…