In this article, the authors discuss how the University of Rochester's two-year ethnographic study reveals what students do on campus and how the library fits in. Under Nancy Fried Foster's guidance, teams of librarians and staff conducted a two-year investigation. The goal: to improve the libraries' reference services, facilities, and web pages…

Vibiana Bowman enjoys spending time with young adults--which is just as well since she has a few of her own, has done her time as scout leader, and now teaches proper research methods to students at Rutgers University--Camden. She first discovered how much this instruction was needed when she noticed her own kids cutting and pasting copy from the…

Causes for an expanded educational role for academic libraries are identified and discussed, and factors influencing change are described, including improving the ratio of professional to support staff, success of librarian/faculty interaction, and participation by librarians on university-wide committees, need for librarians to acquire new skills…

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) offers student workshops that range from Cool New Web Stuff (what is on the web that can help make research or just plain life easier) and How To Use Google Scholar. These workshops are brilliant fodder for podcasting. In fact, the initial idea for its podcast project came from a student plagiarism…

Library schools need to address the question of professional preparation in relation to their present programs. In addition to the author, statements are made by Ralph Blasingame, Martha Boaz, George Bobinski, Margaret Chisholm, Guy Garrison, Norman Horrocks, Jean Lowrie, Kenneth Shaffer, Roy Stokes, and William Summers. (4 references) (SJ)

Discussion of the teaching role of the academic librarian focuses primarily on reference librarianship. The interaction between patron and librarian and the necessity for the librarian to teach are noted. Eighteen references are provided. (EJS)

Considers the new roles of librarians that have evolved from changes in technology. Discusses new job titles for librarians; changes in bibliographic instruction; training the trainers; virtual branch libraries; teamwork and collaboration; changes in organizational structures; and outsourcing options. (LRW)

Considers the concept of library reference management and traditional reference functions in terms of aggrandizement, highlighting staff evaluation, bibliographic instruction, online searching, interlibrary loan, and the vertical file. Three references are listed. (EJS)

Jennifer Duvernay, a science reference librarian at Arizona State University (ASU), feels it is very important to make sure that the information shopping experience is completely satisfying. "I'd like our students to choose to come to us because they have good experiences with us, trust us, and like us, despite [the availability of] plenty of…

Discusses reference-use statistics in academic libraries. Highlights include new functions and resources, limits of traditional counting methods, ranking the sources, the Internet's impact on instruction, computer-assisted versus one-on-one instruction, and creative solutions to reference services. (AEF)

In this article, the author discusses teaching library and information science (LIS) students about online searching. She discusses the many changes that have taken place over the years in terms of searching and also in terms of the role of the librarian in helping with searches. The author also mentions that although searching now has become a…