Outlines progress initiated by the University of South Africa (Unisa) library to develop online support to distance-education users. Topics include a library skills training program delivered via the World Wide Web; research information skills; Internet course development; current awareness service; the library's home page; electronic libraries;…

Discusses the results of a survey of young adult librarians that investigated how their needs are being met by publishers. Highlights include budgets; nonfiction expenditures; marketing; factors that influence patrons' book selections; jacket art; adults reading young adult books; underserved populations; the need for more paperbacks; and Internet…

This paper looks at the complex web of interrelationships that is emerging as the library and information professions come to terms with the growing phenomenon of knowledge management. This is manifest at one level in the wider organisational and business context, and at another in the professional and employment spheres. Two of the authors are…

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is one of Australia's largest universities, enrolling 30 000 students. Our Information Literacy Framework and Syllabus was endorsed as university policy in February 2001. QUT Library uses the Australian Information Literacy Standards as the basis and entry point for our syllabus. The university-wide…

The George A. Smathers Libraries of the University of Florida is currently undergoing a major renovation. Library West, the building that houses the humanities and social sciences collection, will be gutted and expanded. The collection will be moved to off-site storage and the staff will be relocated for a two-year period. The reality of these…

This article presents the experience of Circulation Services at Booth Library, Eastern Illinois University, during a 31-month relocation to temporary facilities while the building was undergoing renovation. The move to temporary locations presented new challenges and required unique solutions. Issues such as the rationale for the move to the…

As resources become more constrained in the library community, many organizations are finding that they need to have a better understanding of their costs. To this end, this article will present one approach to conducting a cost analysis (including questions to ask yourself, project team makeup, organizational support, and data organization). We…

This study uses virtual reference transcripts for which patrons completed exit surveys to seek any correlations between user and librarian satisfaction within virtual reference transactions. By analyzing transcripts with a focus on three elements-technology performance, preferred reference practices, and the demonstrated communication levels of…

In the down-sized academic library of the twenty-first century, many librarians with little or no formal collection development training or experience are being entrusted with large departmental budgets, occasionally without the collaboration of a department liaison. How do new librarians, or librarians new to a discipline, deal with this…

The paper traces the inability of the curricula of LIS schools in Africa to respond to the immediate job environment in Africa. The main weakness of the curricula is that they reflect essentially the curricula of LIS schools in the Western World. Thus, while most of the LIS curricula are relevant to the traditional library setting, the curricula…

In this paper, we develop a conceptual model for assessing student satisfaction with universities and the likelihood of students recommending their institutions to other prospective students. Student satisfaction is conceptualised as a mediator between resources and capabilities and recommendation. The resources and capabilities that contribute to…

As academic libraries renovate or build new spaces that provide services to users, they should consider opportunities to collaborate with other units on campus to develop collaborative services in the new space. These collaborative spaces, such as information commons, teaching and learning centers, and multi-media studios, offer advantages such as…

Assessment efforts document the academic library's contributions toward student success and institutional outcomes. Use of an Assessment Cycle at Pierce College Library enhances outcomes-based education and facilitates the library's role in the institutional assessment plan. Three examples of the Cycle are used to illustrate its application in…

Describes an ethnographic study that was designed to understand the nature and the role of public library service based on experiences at the Quebec public library. Using theoretical frameworks, the study provides an analysis of the two basic systems of meaning that service providers bring to their interaction with users. (Contains 65 references.)…

This study reports on exploratory research that investigated biology teachers' perceptions of their online information seeking practices and how these practices influenced their instructional planning activities. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the results of an online survey and ten in-depth interviews measuring use of specific online…