For the last decade or more, circulation numbers of physical materials have declined in academic libraries across the United States. In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic drastically altered society and daily life, not to mention library functions. In particular, fears of contagion via physical surfaces and transmission by contact led many…

Rural public libraries hold economic, cultural, and social capital assets in trust for the benefit of their communities. Filling a gap in the study of those assets, 2012 through 2015 rural library statistics from the Institute of Museum and Library Services were combined with public data from the United States Departments of Agriculture and Health…

Download rates of academic journals have joined citation counts as commonly used indicators of the value of journal subscriptions. While citations reflect worldwide influence, the value of a journal subscription to a single library is more reliably measured by the rate at which it is downloaded by local users. If reported download rates accurately…

While some Canadian universities have a long history in the provision of data services, that was not the norm in Canada, especially in small universities and colleges. To maximize the use of data by students and researchers in academia, it was evident that increased education, resources, and tools were required to support those delivering data…

Library quality is no longer evaluated solely on the value of its collections, as user perceptions of service quality play an increasingly important role in defining overall library value. This paper presents a retooling of the LibQUAL+ survey instrument, blending the gap measurement model with perceptual congruence model studies from information…

Although cited reference studies are common in the library and information science literature, they are rarely performed in nonacademic institutions or in the atmospheric and oceanic sciences. In this paper, we analyze more than 400,000 cited references made by authors affiliated with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration between…

Fueled by the pressing need for electronic resource usage statistics, librarians are finding themselves being thrust into the role of hunter-gatherer. This article discusses the work done at University Library at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis to provide usage statistics for all its paid subscriptions for a 3-year period. The…

The Joint Usage Statistics Portal (JUSP) (jusp.mimas.ac.uk), created by five U.K. libraries in 2009, gives participating libraries a single point of access for electronic journal statistics. It provides its more than 160 participants, including 140+ academic libraries in the United Kingdom, as well as 21 publishers and 3 intermediaries, with…

Database cancellation is one of the most difficult tasks performed by a librarian. This may seem counter-intuitive but, psychologically, it is certainly true. When a librarian or a team of librarians has invested a great deal of time doing research, talking to potential users, and conducting trials before deciding to subscribe to a database, they…

This paper provides an overview of EBSCO's new Usage Consolidation product designed to streamline the harvesting, storage, and analysis of usage statistics from electronic resources. Strengths and weaknesses of the product are discussed as well as an early beta partner's experience. In the current atmosphere of flat or declining budgets, libraries…

The "LJ" Index of Public Library Service 2010, "Library Journal"'s national rating of public libraries, identifies 258 "star" libraries. Created by Ray Lyons and Keith Curry Lance, and based on 2008 data from the IMLS, it rates 7,407 public libraries. The top libraries in each group get five, four, or three stars. All included libraries, stars or…

For the August/September 2010 issue of "Library Technology Reports" (LTR) published by the American Library Association Techsource division, the author and her colleague, Rachel A. Fleming-May, focused on use and usage, both of electronic resources and use of libraries in general. In this article, the author discusses a few of the findings from an…

At the Libraries Service Center, statistics are generated on a monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis by using four Microsoft Excel workbooks. These statistics provide information about what materials are being requested and by whom. They also give details about why certain requests may not have been filled. Utilizing Excel allows for a shallower…

From a fledgling technology with no proven business models, electronic books (e-books) have grown in importance usurping traditional formats as an acquisitions budget line in many academic library contexts. Business models include purchase, subscription, and pay per use. In academic and research libraries, web based e-book delivery is the dominant…

Reference services in public libraries are changing dramatically. The Internet, online databases, and shrinking budgets are all making it necessary for non-traditional reference staff to become familiar with online reference tools. Recognizing the need for cross-training, Chesapeake Public Library (CPL) developed a program called the Database…