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…

Competition in the virtual reference market got really hot this past summer. Recent developments in virtual reference offerings suggest the market is much more dynamic than most people would have imagined a short time ago. With Google's acquisition of Meebo and its subsequent decision to shut down the chat widget service, many libraries scrambled…

As knowledge brokers, librarians are living in interesting times for themselves and libraries. It causes them to wonder sometimes if the traditional tools like the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system can cope with the onslaught of information. The categories provided do not always seem adequate for the knowledge-discovery habits of…

Academic libraries are flocking to online social networking sites in an effort to meet users where they are. Pinterest is the latest of these rapidly growing online social networking tools. The author of this article reports results from a survey on academic libraries' presence on Pinterest. The survey found most academic library pinboards are in…

"Sense of place" no longer applies only to the physical library. All students are distance learners to one extent or another, and all distance services must be considered as a single virtual learning commons. Librarians at Bucks County (PA) Community College implement and integrate current teaching, learning, virtual reference, and mobile access…

Since SC LENDS started operating in June 2009, more public libraries have come on board. All of this on the back end connects to a Mozilla-based staff client that has distributions for Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows, using SSL encryption to keep communications secure and private between remote libraries and the servers hosted at a high-end…

Today's academic libraries must demonstrate their value to cost-conscious university administrators. Budget trade-off decisions that involve the library can be difficult for any university administrator to make, and such decisions are complicated by the recent appearance of massive global digital libraries that seem poised to replace the…

Do students prefer to use Google instead of the library catalog? Ever wondered why? Google is easier to use and delivers plenty of "good enough" resources to meet their needs. The current generation of online catalogs has two main problems. First, the look and feel of the interface doesn't reflect the conventions adhered to elsewhere on the web,…

One of the toughest challenges in an academic library systems office is how to manage and present the extensive selection of electronic resources from a variety of vendors. At York College of Pennsylvania, the authors participated in an admissions-driven web revision cycle and used a campus-provided CMS for 8 years. During this time, they tried…

The paper describes the theory and definition of the practice of librarianship, specifically addressing how Web 2.0 technologies (tools) such as synchronous messaging, collaborative reference service and streaming media, blogs, wikis, social networks, social bookmarking tools, tagging, RSS feeds, and mashups might intimate changes and how…

This paper will look at the services presently offered to distance students by libraries within the categories of professional staff, access to resources, reference assistance, and library user instruction. It will then offer the argument that these services could be improved by developing embedded librarians within online academic courses as a…

To date, over one-fifth of all U.S. higher education students are now taking at least one online course. The Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) recently surveyed more than 2,500 colleges and universities to reveal that over 3.9 million students were taking at least one online course during the 2007 fall term. This number is a 12% increase from fall 2006.…

Electronic communication technologies continue to change the landscape of reference services. For many users, virtual communication is the preferred means of conversing. Synchronous virtual reference, similar to other synchronous means of communication, is an important method for reaching students and for providing teaching and learning…

It seems, at times, that a frantic race persists to ensure that a child, in the crucial learning stages of early elementary education, acquires the appropriate reading level before he or she "gets behind." Though there are obvious issues with branding a book "Grade Level One" or "Reading Level 2.2," it is nevertheless…

Given the recent spate of library system vendor acquisitions and consolidations, integrated library system (ILS) migrations have become a hot topic again. Although ILS migrations happen all the time, they tend to be cyclical in nature. Today, people are thinking broadly about what options might be available to them. These include changing vendors,…