The problem undertaken in this study was the impact of the COVID-19 on academic-library directors at small, private, liberal-arts institutions in Wisconsin. The purpose of this study was to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic closures on collection development and reference interviews. The participants were seven academic-library…

Instructional support is one of the primary reasons academic libraries collect video materials. Nonetheless, no one has published research into the perceptions of the people who install and maintain the equipment used to play these materials in college and university classrooms regarding the longevity of physical media formats. To address this gap…

Building strong relationships between academic librarians and teaching faculty is paramount for promoting services and resources. While librarians face challenges ranging from new technologies to heightened expectations and fiscal difficulties, the key work remains in solid relationship building. Drawing on the experience of a group of subject…

While broad assessment projects are often used to steer library strategic planning initiatives, this article will present the benefits of qualitative interviews with distance learning constituents as a framework for developing a focused vision and targeted services. This article will describe the planning and execution of an assessment project…

As academic libraries evolve to affirm their place as key partners in research, teaching, and learning in university communities, the process of innovation is one of great importance in the intentional design of library services, resources, and staffing. This dissertation was a qualitative, exploratory research study in which the conceptual…

During the last few years, many academic libraries have accepted the challenge of helping their users locate and acquire the numeric data they need. To meet their users' ever-increasing need for data, librarians are purchasing data sets one at a time ("small data"). This service, though important to our users, raises many issues in the…

Distance learners must balance many challenges when studying away from their home institution, including balancing work, family and study times. How, where, and when a student organizes and interacts with his or her study environment is a significant factor in student persistence and retention. Support services provided by the home institution,…

Rapidly growing within academic libraries, library data services have often been focused on assessing research trends and building partnerships outside the library. There are distinct benefits, however, to using data audit methodologies created for these external assessments of researcher practices inside the library as well. In this article, we…

Participatory and anthropological studies have blended with library customer service design and feedback practices as ways to engage users in deeper and more meaningful conversations about their needs. Formal user studies can be cumbersome, expensive, and time consuming however. Sometimes asking a simple question will work just as effectively in…

Two academic libraries undergoing significant organizational changes were the location for a project that researched how staff members and subunits of the libraries made collective judgments, negotiated what is sometimes called the "landscape of practice"--the collective body of knowledge of their profession--and thus came to collective…

This article analyzes 21 in-depth interviews of engineering and atmospheric science faculty at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) to determine faculty data management practices and needs within the context of their research activities. A detailed literature review of previous large-scale and institutional surveys and interviews…

This study used participatory and service design methods to identify emerging research needs and existing perceptions of library services among science and engineering faculty, post-graduate, and graduate student researchers based at a satellite campus at the University of Colorado Boulder. These methods, and the results of the study, allowed us…

The past decade has brought enormous changes in scholarly communication, leading many libraries to undertake large-scale digital publishing initiatives. However, no study has investigated how technical services departments are changing to support these new services. Using change management as a theoretical framework, the investigator uses content…

In this article the authors provide an overview of the concept of a digital branch library and the manner in which it can be used to enhance academic library community engagement. As the front door to the branch, the library's Website is key to going beyond service provision toward sustaining relationships with faculty, students, staff, and…

Colorado State University librarians conducted five focus groups with thirty-one faculty, research scientists, and research associates. The groups explored: (1) The nature of data sets that these researchers create or maintain; (2) How participants manage their data; (3) Needs for support that the participants identify in relation to sharing,…