To address challenges that learners, course creators, librarians and academics involved with OER and MOOCs are facing when looking for scholarly materials, Athabasca University Library has initiated the development of "the Open Library at AU." This open library is a full library website that provides easy access to open and free…

The aim of this study is to investigate if providing mathematics education pre-service teachers with animated library tutorials on library and database searches changes their searching practices. This study involved the completion of a survey by 138 students and seven individual interviews before and after library search demonstration videos were…

The electronic parliamentary library at the European Union (EU) level is developing to meet the needs of a changing political context. It is emerging in multiple forms: cooperation among EU institutions; cooperation among EU parliaments; and the service of the European Parliament itself. The development of electronic service presents a management…

This paper concentrates on the identification of the main trends that are visible from a librarian's perspective in the area of copyright management in the digital environment. The first section discusses the expansion of licensing, including reasons for this trend, standards for licenses, and collecting societies (i.e., societies that act on…

This paper discusses library development in the changing environment arising within the forthcoming Information/Knowledge Society. The role of the library as a social institution is examined in the context of the evolution of the whole literary and knowledge system. Ideas about conceptual changes to be introduced by the library in order to respond…

This paper on public libraries in Thailand begins with a section that provides background on public libraries in the past, lists the functions of the public library, and describes three size classifications of public libraries. The second section outlines the tasks of the current public library in three areas: informal education; nonformal…

This paper examines the potential of the library catalog to serve as a portal to the Internet. The first section provides an overview of the development of the catalog, including the emergence of the union catalog, standardization of cataloging practice, MARC format, and the insufficiency of resources to catalog all the titles acquired by…

The presence of Siberian and Far Eastern libraries on the Internet has become the reality of today. Joining this community, they solve at least two main problems--those of rational use of World Wide Web resources and those of providing access to their own products. There is a system of fixing documentary streams disclosing regional problems. Each…

This paper discusses digital libraries on the Internet. The resource repository hierarchy, consisting of two major paradigms, search engines (SEs) and digital libraries, is presented. SEs are classified into three categories: basic-SE, directory, and meta-SE. The following six major characteristics of a library are summarized: collection of data…

This paper describes the development of a Web site, popular instructional sessions, expanded reference and research services, the addition of more databases, and collection development designed by the California Institute of Technology Library to support an Internet Business class and other business-related ventures on campus. The first section…

The Andy Holt Virtual Library, with a focus on the Humanities and Fine Arts, is free and open to the public, though designed to serve the learning communities within the College of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of Tennessee-Martin (UT). It also plays a resource role in UT's New College and the Tennessee Governors School for the…

This paper supplements a previous paper that reported on a tour of leading U.S. research libraries that are investing significantly in and have significant experience with innovative online collections and services. The previous paper reported the following five key challenges: architectural and technical; standards and best practices; strategies…

Discusses the development of Electronic Library at TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute, New Delhi). Highlights include: hardware and software used; the digital library/Virtual Electronic Library; directory of Internet journals; virtual reference resources; electronic collection/Physical Electronic Library; downloaded online full-length…

This paper presents a case for applying information competency (IC) standards to digital reference services at academic libraries. Practical reasons for applying standards or guidelines to e-mail and online chat reference services are given with some insight to the nature of digital reference interactions. The standards that arose from the…

This paper begins with a discussion of the characteristics and the singularity of chaotic systems, including dynamic systems theory, chaotic orbit, fractals, chaotic attractors, and characteristics of chaotic systems. The second section addresses the digital libraries (DL) concept and the appropriateness of chaotic models, including definition and…