The American Council of Learned Societies and the Council on Library and Information Resources appointed 36 scholars, librarians, and leaders of various academic enterprises to five task forces "to consider changes in the process of scholarship and instruction that will result from the use of digital technology and to make recommendations to…

Assesses the collections of Nigerian university libraries by comparing them to those of their peers in other African and British universities. Discusses the impact of the World Bank Loan Project on resuscitating Nigerian university libraries. Strategies for maintaining adequacy and relevance of the collections for the 21st century are recommended.…

Library book vendors are facing new realities in the 21st century. Changes in continuations, firm order placement, value-added services, approval plans, retrospective collection development, and database creation and maintenance are being effected in an effort to keep current customers and attract new ones. Those changes and the subsequent shift…

Answers some of the more common objectives and addresses critical issues raised in over 250 responses from readers of the author's article, "Building the Largest Library: Driving into the Future" (Searcher, March 1999). Responses are discussed under four main subject areas: the catalog, collection development, interlibrary loan, and library…

Examines the Amazon.com online bookstore as a blueprint for designing the world's largest library. Topics include selection; accessibility and convenience; quality of Web sites and search tools; personalized service; library collection development, including interlibrary loan; library catalogs and catalog records; a circulation system; costs;…

Describes cooperative planning and projects with teachers, students, and the library media specialist at an elementary school to help update the library to meet current and future information needs. Highlights include flexible scheduling; resource sharing; classes in library skills; computer technology; and updating the collection to include…

Examines the development of Nigerian University libraries and the political factors that created them and continue to effect their development, with a focus on those established between 1980 and 1984. Users, governance, finance, buildings, staffing, collection development, services, cataloging and classification, and automation are described.…

Traces the evolution of the Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication (CIP) program and discusses its value to libraries, including its use for cataloging, acquisitions, and collection development. Perspectives from participating publishers are given, future possibilities are discussed, and a sidebar describes problems with CIP. (LRW)

Examines the role of the serials vendor in the collection assessment and evaluation process in academic libraries. Topics discussed include the subscription agency's resources, including databases; issues of quality, accessibility, and manageability; costs, both present and future forecasts; availability, including document delivery; and issues of…

Discussion of the future of library collection development and the need for planning focuses on the technique of scenario planning and discusses the results of scenario planning at the University of NebraskaLincoln that examined collection development and digital information. (LRW)

These proceedings of a workshop on cooperative collection development and resource sharing in the Southwest contains the text of the following presentations: (1) "Collaborative Collection Development in an Era of Financial Limitations" (Paul Mosher); (2) "Cooperative Collection Development: The New Mexico Point of View" (Jeanne…

Analyzes employment statistics of Association of Research Libraries members, relates data to patterns of library collection growth and decline during those years, and speculates on future staffing. Variables used to measure personnel are the number of professionals, nonprofessionals, full time staff, and ratio of professionals to full time staff.…

Discusses some of the people and events that influenced academic journal publishing in the past 30-40 years and how this may affect the future. Topics considered include changes in printing technology, automation of accounting and subscriber information, economic considerations, library collection development and funding, and electronic journals.…

This reexamination of earlier forecasts and statistics related to research library growth--Purdue studies first published in 1965, data and forecasts from Fremont Rider's 1944 book--shows mixed results for evidence of continuing rapid growth of collections and acquisition expenditures and marked decline in acquisition rates. (16 references) (EJS)

Examines current perceptions of cooperative collection management among libraries as well as possible alternative futures. Highlights include relationships between access, delivery, and the collections; integrated resource sharing; and resource sharing as a social model, including paradigm shifts involving networks based on users rather than…