According to the author, one of her most important goals as a school librarian is to inspire her students to become lifelong lovers of reading. She recognizes that she cannot do this alone, and one of her most powerful partners is a parent. She can encourage a child to check out a book that may open their eyes to the wonders of literature, but if…

The Elko County School District in Nevada has elementary school librarians that are "solo" librarians. Over the last several years they have worked to collaborate on meeting monthly--even though the district covers 17,100 square miles--and on providing professional development face to face and online. Sharing and collaboration help them…

A project-based active/cooperative design course is planned, implemented, assessed and evaluated to achieve several desired engineering outcomes. The course allows freshman-level students to gain professional hands-on engineering design experience through an opportunity to practise teamwork, quality principles, communication skills, life-long…

The number of U.S. school librarians has greatly diminished despite advocacy efforts on the local and national level. This case study investigated the factors that led governing board members in a mid-size urban high school district to retain certified school librarian positions despite a major economic crisis. Data were collected through school…

Declining reference statistics, diminishing human resources, and the desire to be more proactive and embedded in academic departments, prompted the University of South Florida Library to create a taskforce for re-envisioning reference services. The taskforce was charged with examining the staffing patterns at the desk and developing…

There have been substantial changes in the labour market over the past few years and survey results indicate 60% of staff will leave public library service over the next decade. While this creates opportunities for library staff, limited training budgets and a focus on compliance and specific library skills training have led to a gap in the formal…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to find out whether LibQUAL+[TM]can account for student loyalty to the library of an institution of higher education. LibQUAL+[TM] is a marketing tool that is used to measure perceived service quality of libraries, and the present analysis aims at validating this service quality instrument within a more…

This study explored 1) whether there were any differences in the way medical students used library resources under problem-based learning (PBL) and scenario-based learning (SBL) curricula; and 2) what improvements the library could make to facilitate its use by medical students using the different curricula. Twenty medical students selected from…

The essay presents a quasi-case study of one academic librarian's experience as an embedded librarian in multiple online courses over a five-year period. Technology used included chat, email, and a librarian question-and-answer bulletin board inside an eCollege course management system, and a dedicated-use ElluminateLive! virtual training room for…

Soccer, or football as it is called in the rest of the world, is the most popular and fastest-growing global sport, with an estimated 240 million people regularly playing what Brazilian star Pele called "the beautiful game." Millions, worldwide, watch it on television. In 2006, the average viewership for each match of the month-long World Cup was…

We examined the issues related to delivering service excellence through the lens of 39 graduating school librarians in written assignments for the final course of their certification program, as they focus on what is needed to apply standards to become an effective school library media specialist in the 21st century. Of the 16 issues identified,…

In an academic library, the use of online databases and electronic journals is becoming more prevalent. Such resources are being used to assist in distance education programs and online learning environments. Students in other states have access to the same information available to students who live close to campus. The use of these sources has…

As higher education confronts shortages in hungry times, will officials who previously viewed the library as a sacred cow think it's time for a barbecue? Don't light the charcoal yet. Interviews with chief academic officers and an online survey taken by over 130 leaders in academic affairs yield surprising results. It's no secret that academic…

Librarians love books. They love the feel, the smell, and the look of the page. However, physical volumes have kept the author from reaching the ideas and stories that he wants. An impenetrable pile of pages in linear order, books are difficult to decode, search, and rearrange, and one of the worst information management systems he has…

The rumored death of librarianship caused by the advent of technology has not, and will not, come to pass. In this article, the author describes how technology has exponentially increased the librarian's ability to provide library service at the Calcasieu Parish Public Library, where she serves as head of Collection & Computing Services. The…