The Marketing column features essays about a variety of creative and innovative marketing strategies used to highlight collections or promote services in all types of libraries. Its purpose is to provide real examples of how libraries are using marketing and outreach techniques in interesting ways. This article describes the social media content…

Through their affiliation with an institution of higher education, undergraduate students are able to access a range of research materials and, as a result, enter the scholarly conversation and build upon existing research. This ability to access information that others cannot is called information privilege. This article builds upon Char Booth's…

This article shares the story of the author's involvement in a national literacy initiative known as the African American Read-In (AARI) in Springfield, Missouri. The article highlights successes that public school librarians and university librarians are experiencing as they work together to promote diversity and reading through a community-wide…

This paper will outline the process and discussions undertaken at the University of Denver's University Libraries to implement a lending service providing video game consoles. Faculty and staff at the University Libraries decided to pursue the new lending service, though not a traditional library offering, to support the needs of a video game…

In the spring of 2015, the University of Minnesota Libraries formed the Content Services department, which is comprised of Interlibrary Loan, Publishing Services, and the Copyright Permissions Service. These three service points, as well as additional Library units, work together with campus partners to save students money on their course…

Kara J. Malenfant wrote in her 2010 article "Leading Change in the System of Scholarly Communication: A Case Study of Engaging Liaison Librarians for Outreach to Faculty" that it would be interesting to revisit the University of Minnesota (UMN) Libraries in three years and see how they are doing. Malenfant had documented a culture shift…

"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) Business Intelligence and Data Visualization with Tableau…

This article provides the framework for a set of standards and outcomes that would constitute information literacy with primary sources. Based on a working model used at Dartmouth College's Rauner Special Collections Library in Hanover, New Hampshire, these concepts create a framework for teaching with primary source materials intended to produce…

In fall of 2011 the University at Buffalo Libraries circulation department undertook Six Sigma training for the purpose of overhauling its student scheduling process. The department was able to mitigate significant staffing budgetary reductions and resource reallocations and to overcome the unique challenges of scheduling student labor for a…

"Special Libraries, Special Challenges" is a column dedicated to exploring the unique public services challenges that arise in libraries that specialize in a particular subject, such as law, medicine, business, and so forth. In each column, the author will discuss public service dilemmas and opportunities that arise in special libraries.…

The purpose of this paper is to describe how a series of one-shot or single class library instruction webinars were created for on-campus and distance education students at Virginia Tech, a land grant institution in rural southwestern Virginia. Virginia Tech's distance learning department on campus trained in Centra 7.6 software and the lead…

Penfield Library at the State University of New York at Oswego (SUNY Oswego) has a gallery exhibit space near the front entrance that is used to showcase student-faculty research and art class projects. This article features the library's outreach efforts to science faculty and students through research exhibitions. The library held an exhibition…

More than a project, The Big Shift is an epic library tale for the ages. What starts as a simple collection shift grows into a major space-planning project, a lesson in catalog maintenance, and thanks to Hurricane Ike, a disaster recovery effort. The Big Shift tells the story of how the University of Houston Libraries handled the numerous…

While library programming for children is a staple in most public libraries, it is quite rare in the academic setting. In 2006 the education librarian at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire began offering literacy programs in a library that traditionally discouraged children and community members from using its resources. Successful programs…

Did you ever wish for an easy-to-maintain tool to create course-level or assignment-level instruction for online or distance students? LibGuides can provide the solution! LibGuides provide a versatile and easy-to-maintain platform for delivering step-by-step, scaffolded tutorials that enhance learning outcomes through chunking, reduced strain on…