This article explores the closing of the Howard Ross Library of Management at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. We hypothesized that closing a branch library would result in a decline in the use of library services. We measured library service using circulation statistics, library instruction workshop statistics, and data from the online survey…

This article compares three sources of information about academic libraries to consider what the future could hold and the skills needed to deliver effective services within that future. The starting point is the contents of "New Review of Academic Librarianship" (formerly "British Journal of Academic Librarianship") from 1986,…

In 2010, the University of Toronto's Centre for Teaching Support & Innovation (CTSI) and University of Toronto Libraries (UTL) jointly launched Partnering for Academic Student Success (PASS), a partnership to foster new opportunities for collaboration between academic librarians and those involved in developing excellence in university…

This article discusses the accessibility of two content management systems, Berkeley Electronic Press's Digital Commons and OCLC's CONTENTdm, widely used in libraries to host institutional repository and digital collections content. Based on observations by a visually impaired student who used the JAWS screen reader to view the design and display…

The objective of this qualitative study was to identify and explain challenges encountered by academic librarians when trying to incorporate evidence into their practice. The findings resulted in the identification of five main determinants that act as either obstacles or enablers of evidence use. The identification of these determinants provide…

This First Look presents findings from the provisional data of the Integrated Postsecondary Data System (IPEDS) Spring 2015 data collection, which included four survey components: (1) Enrollment at postsecondary institutions during fall 2014; (2) Finance, for the 2014 fiscal year; (3) Human Resources at postsecondary institutions during fall 2014;…

The "Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) Almanac of Post-Secondary Education in Canada" is a source for the most current statistical information available on post-secondary education in Canada. The Almanac provides statistics on the following: (1) university and college finances; (2) academic staff salaries and gender; (3)…

Plagiarism is a vexing issue for Higher Education, affecting student transition, retention, and attainment. This article reports on two initiatives from the University of Bradford library aimed at reducing student plagiarism. The first initiative is an intensive course for students who have contravened plagiarism regulations. The second course…

The existence of a ubiquitous and cheap worldwide communications network that increasingly makes documents easily and freely available will require a transformation of academic library collecting practice. It will be driven by a number of specific developments including: the digitization of content; the development of print repositories; the…

In a follow-up study to the ERIAL (Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries) Project, librarians at UIC compared the responses of first-generation college freshmen from the original study to those of seniors. The study's aim was to determine whether student information literacy increases as a result of undergraduate education and to…

The incorporation of visual resources in academia is becoming increasingly popular. The Cousins Hereward Postcard Collection comprises 212 postcards that depict social, historical, cultural, and economic activities in Jamaica during the period 1900-1912. Illustrations include social conditions of the working class and peasantry, natural history…

Mobile devices are being extensively adopted by health sciences faculty, students, and practitioners, but there is little evidence of how this technology is being used by health librarians in their own professional practice. In 2011, health sciences librarians at the University of Saskatchewan undertook a project to familiarize themselves with…

At the University of Mississippi, screencasting was used to promote a database trial to the ARTStor Digital Library. Using Jing, a free product used for recording and posting screencasts, and a Snowball USB microphone, 11 videos averaging 3 minutes in length were posted to an online topic guide. Screencasting was used as a quick, creative, and…

Just as academic gaming in general cannot be limited to any one topic or genre, the "Public Services Quarterly" Internet Resources column is not limited to a single entry on gaming and gamification in libraries. Public services librarians interested in designing their own games have many successful examples to draw from. The previous…

PubMed Central Canada (PMC Canada) represents a partnership between the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the National Research Council's Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (NRC-CISTI), and the National Library of Medicine of the US. The present study was done to gauge faculty awareness about the CIHR Policy on…