Purpose: The paper seeks to examine the health risks faced when using computer-based systems by library staff in Nigerian libraries. Design/methodology/approach: The paper uses a survey research approach to carry out this investigation. Findings: The investigation reveals that the perceived health risk does not predict perceived ease of use of…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to give a brief introduction to Second Life, and to provide an outline of how one academic librarian has got involved with using it and reviews the issues that have arisen from a library perspective. Design/methodology/approach: The paper offers a reflection on whether library activities in Second Life are…

As future professionals, graduate students must be information literate; however, information literacy instruction of graduate students is often neglected. To address this need, we created literature review workshops to serve graduate students from a wide range of subject disciplines at a point of shared need. Not only did this strategy prove to…

In summer 2008, a small group of Santa Clara University librarians were charged with exploring ways of making online library research guides more user friendly and interactive. In order to know how to enhance our guides, we first asked the question, "What makes a research guide useful?" What follows is a detailed process of discovery.…

When the electronic resource management system (ERM) at Kansas State University Libraries suffered a horrible data loss, the "contract db" presented a challenge for the librarians responsible for electronic resources. It was a decent data repository, but it had no ability to manage the tangled process of licensing, acquiring, activating,…

As colleges of education prepare to meet NCATE standards they will find technically savvy allies and willing partners at their campus libraries. The information literacy and technology targets in the standards of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) parallel the information literacy standards developed by the…

A group of major universities has been quietly working for the past two years to build one of the largest online collections of books ever assembled, by pooling the millions of volumes that Google has scanned in its partnership with university libraries. One of the most important functions of the project, say its leaders, who unveiled the giant…

In September 2007, Yale University Library (YUL) and Microsoft agreed to partner in a large-scale project to digitize 100,000 books from the YUL collections--an ambitious effort that would substantially increase the library's digitized holdings, particularly in the area of its own text collections. YUL has been digitizing materials from its…

The higher education literature abounds with reports and studies calling for reform in undergraduate education. An alphabet soup of higher education associations creates or advocates desired learning outcomes for postsecondary education and endorses approaches for student learning. This article shows connections between some of the major…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify the leadership orientation of the academic library leader considered ideal by faculty, administrators and librarians in private, non-profit, doctoral universities in Southern California. Theoretical Framework: The theoretical framework used for this study was Bolman and Deal's Leadership…

In order to reach distance students in times of financial uncertainty, librarians must be creative. While much has been written about Camtasia, Captivate and Jing tutorial software, Adobe Presenter, a Microsoft PowerPoint plug-in, has not been discussed. This article describes how our library team created multimedia tutorial projects at Idaho…

Purpose: The paper seeks to provide a comparative analysis of the functionality of five web-based OPACs available in Indian academic libraries. Design/methodology/approach: Same-topic searches were carried out by three researchers on the web-based OPACs of Libsys, VTLS's iPortal, NewGenLib, Troodon, and Alice for Windows, implemented in five…

The "ARL Annual Salary Survey, 2008-2009" reports salary data for all professional staff working in ARL libraries. The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) represents the interests of libraries that serve major North American research institutions. Data for 10,148 professional staff members were reported this year for the 113 ARL…

The purpose of this study was to disclose the claims of an impending shortage of librarians in academic libraries as it relates to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The target population of this study was HBCU libraries that had a full-time equivalent enrollment of 3,000 students or more and that were accredited by the Southern…

This article reports on surveys conducted in 2002, 2006, and 2008 by members of the Louisiana Academic Library Information Network Consortium (LALINC) for the purpose of chronicling both the status of information literacy programs in Louisiana and the role of general education directors in program formation. Results from each survey are given,…