Beginning with a discussion of how collections diversity has been conceptualized and assessed within the literature, we then analyze four areas in which professional practices and modes of thinking create barriers to collecting materials from historically marginalized voices. Specifically, we discuss how metadata practices can obscure these…

At the University of Maryland Libraries, Angie Ohler, Director of Collection Services, discusses the history of the management of electronic resources for the past ten years at the Maryland Libraries, including the challenges of in an ever-changing environment and solutions she developed over time. The history she describes are lessons learned…

Books are the most important medium of communication in the humanities, a major medium in the social sciences, and a central component of academic library collections. This study examined humanities and social sciences books that won prizes from ten leading United States disciplinary associations between 2000 and 2009. The study extends earlier…

For the past several years academic libraries have been adopting discovery systems to provide a search experience that reflects user expectations and improves access to electronic resources. University of Houston Libraries has kept pace with this evolving trend by pursuing various discovery options; these include an open-source tool, a federated…

This study investigates the perceived impact of future e-book collections on student research and recreational reading habits at our institution through three questions: how students currently use library print collections, how students use e-books, and how these factors impact student perception of the effects of future library e-books on their…

The increasing availability and prominence of e-books has led to a perception in some quarters that the requirement for physical books is decreasing, as most, or all scholarly material is openly available in digital form. Some academic administrators and librarians have suggested that it may be possible or desirable to have a solely, or…

This article discusses some things to consider when thinking about adding e-readers to one's collection. These include: (1) What is the purpose?; (2) Which device?; (3) How will one keep track of his or her e-readers and their contents?; (4) What are some potential pitfalls?; (5) Is there a positive impact on student learning?; and (6) Are…

Memoirs and autobiographies have been a wildly popular nonfiction genre for the past 20 years, ever since Frank McCourt and Mary Karr set the craze in motion with "Angela's Ashes" and "The Liar's Club", respectively. Memoirs have drawn fiction readers to the nonfiction shelves and elbowed their way into book discussion groups. In this confessional…

The core mission of libraries has always centered on making content and related services available to patrons. The form in which that content is delivered has changed continually. The most ancient libraries or archives organized clay tablets or cylinders written in cuneiform. Centuries ago, the transition from scrolls to codices must have been…

Digital repositories are new tools for documenting the accumulated scholarly work produced at academic institutions and disseminating that material broadly via the internet. Digital repositories support all file types and can be adapted to meet the custom design specifications of individual institutions. A section for community engagement…

Collection development librarians have long struggled to meet user demands for new titles. Too often, required resources are not purchased, whereas some purchased resources do not circulate. E-books selected through patron-driven plans are a solution but present new challenges for both selectors and catalogers. Radical changes to traditional…

Over 2000 participants made the daylong programming at the "Library Journal"/"School Library Journal" Virtual Ebook Summit, September 29, a robust conversation and not just within the summit interface but also in tweets with the #ebooksummit hashtag (and beyond) and in libraries across the country where participants logged in to take part. The…

The society relies on institutions of higher education to produce a literate workforce; one that is able to function in a dynamic, technological, information-overload environment. In support of this new thrust, most universities have incorporated the use of new media and ICTs in the teaching learning process resulting in a multi-modal approach…

Librarians engage in some sort of negotiation all the time. Unfortunately, library schools do not uniformly teach negotiation theory or skills. New librarians are left to their own devices to self-educate, and self-educate they must. Most of the library-specific negotiation literature and continuing education opportunities focus almost entirely on…

E-Books are books or other forms of text in digital form, an enhanced book without paper and at little or no cost, technologies that are already available at most schools can be used to expand the library media center's collection of books, at the same time making many books more accessible to students. Many tools are available for free to convert…