Once the pristine pastime of blue bloods tracing their pedigrees back to the "Mayflower," genealogy--from hobby to serious endeavor--has broadened and deepened into a democratic avocation. It was Alex Haley's "Roots," published 30 years ago, with the hugely popular TV miniseries coming a year later, that likely started the boom. Television still…

Offering a separate, popular reading collection can be a valuable public service in academic libraries. Popular reading is also known as leisure reading, recreational reading, and reading for pleasure. These phrases are synonyms for an interest in reading bestsellers, mysteries, romance novels, biographies, graphic novels, humor, self-help, or…

This study examines what the public search for in the catalogue of the State Library of Victoria (SLV). As well as indicating the type of content being accessed, this gives an indication of what catalogue users expect of the State Library collection. A content analysis was undertaken of a random, stratified sample of 4,000 search queries typed in…

Various normalization techniques to transform journal impact factors (JIFs) into a standard scale or range of values have been reported a number of times in the literature, but have seldom been part of collection development librarians' tool kits. In this paper, JIFs as reported in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) database are converted to…

Libraries are constantly evolving and changing expectations for the user and the information environment. More than just being an authoritative source for research, expertise, and quality content in the form of books and journals, the information center is evolving into a more expansive role. With the growth of information technology awareness and…

Many adults, even librarians who willingly add comics to their collections, often dismiss the importance of comics. Compared to reading "real" books, reading comics appears to be a simple task and compared to reading no books, reading comics might be preferable. After all, comics do have words, but the plentiful pictures seem to carry most of the…

This article presents the results of the 2008 "Library Journal" Budget Survey. Libraries that responded to the annual "Library Journal" Budget Survey are doing reasonably well, continuing the modest growth reported last year. However, a closer look suggests that budget increases may not go far enough. While 81% of all respondents projected an…

The appeal of children's literature is large, encompassing college students and adults in addition to children, young adults, and literary scholars. The genre's literary sophistication and cultural significance is becoming more apparent to a wide variety of readers. Children's literature, however, is still often overlooked and underappreciated in…

As the first wave of baby boomers hit their "golden years," there is a growing demand for housing that meets their changing physical needs. The older and disabled population face a lot of physical challenges in a traditional home. Before homeowners can modify their houses, they must first understand the key design terminology involved.…

This article talks about selection policy and provides suggestions on how library media specialists can update their selection policies to provide an atmosphere that facilitate inquiry. The selection policy is meant to ensure that the collection meets the needs of the school community as comprehensively and effectively as possible. Instead of…

Dogs are indeed people's best friends. A majority of owners report that their dog is a "member of the family," and that acceptable canine behavior and optimal care are high priorities for them. The human-animal bond, the close connection between people and their pets, is forged by positive interactions, but unacceptable canine behaviors that…

This article offers a savvy guide to the best graphic nonfiction books for teens. Many of these titles work well with teens, offering them quick access to facts and an enjoyable encounter with books and information literacy. In putting together this list of essential titles for high schoolers, the author searched for graphic nonfiction that is…

Prediction of book circulation is seen as one major factor for some libraries in the development of an efficient book buying policy. The study approaches this problem of predicting book use from the conviction that there are certain characteristics associated only with high-use books, and certain other characteristics which are associated with…

The very rich variety of truly rare and desirable materials held by the Sam Houston State University library is quite frequently a literal embarrassment because so often there is no time, money, space or skilled personnel necessary to develop them adequately. The problem lies, in part, in the indiscriminate acceptance of too varied materials.…

An outline of the activities necessary to convert from comprehensiveness of collection to selectivity of collection in university libraries is presented. These are the development of 1) written collection policies; 2) deselection programs; 3) cooperative storage and acquisition programs; and 4) the criteria necessary to evaluate the resulting…