In the age of self-checkout machines and entire television networks devoted to do-it-yourself home improvement projects, the DIY ethic seems to be around to stay. The desire to be self-sufficient and use one's time more efficiently is hard to pass up, especially for busy academic librarians. This column is devoted to resources that not only…

In their Top Trends of 2012, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) named data curation as one of the issues to watch in academic libraries in the near future (ACRL, 2012, p. 312). Data curation can be summarized as "the active and ongoing management of data through its life cycle of interest and usefulness to scholarship,…

Examines commercial electronic document delivery services that are available to academic libraries. Highlights include collection development issues; criteria for selection and evaluation; remote access systems, including CARL UnCover 2, Faxon Finder and Faxon Xpress, ContentsFirst and ArticleFirst, and CitaDel; and on-site access systems,…

Discusses the application of cellular technology for cellular data communications (CDC). The cellular phone system industry and market are described; barriers to CDC are explained; CDC applications for online searchers are discussed; and problems with using CDC for online searching are reviewed, including cost, portability, ease of use, and…