Given the many changes in our students and their study and research practices, libraries are finding it necessary to seek new ways to reach these students. The Undergraduate Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign created a new model to do so. Librarian's Office Hours are a hybrid of reference and instructional services that…

Library patrons familiar with Web searching conventions often find library searching to be less familiar and even intimidating. This article describes and evaluates a series of usability research studies employing two different and popular methodologies: user-centered redesign and usability testing. Card sorting and affinity mapping were used to…

In 2004, Sampson-Livermore Library at The University of North Carolina at Pembroke, began circulating laptops to its patrons. After a small pilot project, full-scale implementation occurred and the service proved to be very popular. Policies and procedures were adjusted at several steps along the way to accommodate lessons learned from the…

In the early 1990s, numerous academic libraries adopted the web as a communication tool with users. The literature on academic library websites includes research on both design and navigation. Early studies typically focused on design characteristics, since websites initially merely provided information on the services and collections available in…

To assess their knowledge, use, and attitudes regarding peer-to-peer (P2P) applications, this study surveyed academic librarians (n = 162) via a mail-in survey. Correlations between the sample characteristics (age, gender, year of MLS, type of library job) and P2P knowledge, use, and attitudes were also explored. Overall, academic librarians…

A brief questionnaire was sent to a random selection of 70 librarians in the State University of New York Librarians' Association Directory to determine the frequency of their use of humor at the reference desk and in the library instruction classroom, their perceptions of classroom humor, and their reasons for using humor in these situations.…

This paper examines attitudes toward and practices concerning preparation and storage of archival copies of dissertations at the 15 Ohio doctoral granting institutions. The purpose of this study is two-fold: to determine the extent to which archivists and graduate school deans are aware of the preservation standards regarding theses and…

This document consists of all 11 issues of this newsletter published in 1993 (November-December was a combined issue). The newsletter reports on cooperative national and international preservation activities and is written primarily for university administrators and faculty, library and archives administrators, preservation specialists and…

A survey of librarians in LIBRAS, a consortium comprising 16 Chicago-area liberal arts college libraries, tested two hypotheses: (1) the salary level of the group with faculty status is significantly greater than that of the group without faculty status; and (2) there is a statistically significant correlation between the amount of professional…

This paper argues that the first order of the day in reference collection development is to cope with the problems that developing user-responsive, client-centered reference collections always incur. It is suggested that the responsiveness of reference collections can be measured largely by the currency of the materials in the collection and by…

This report presents the results of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) 1983 survey of librarians' salaries in 19 tables. A brief introduction summarizing the most important statistical findings from the survey notes that the fiscal 1984 median salary for ARL university librarians was $24,940, an increase of 6.1% from the previous year.…

A study was conducted to determine the educational value and effectiveness of a one-credit library research course offered since 1981 at Slippery Rock University (SRU) in Pennsylvania. The course is based on a workbook adapted from the one used at Pennsylvania State University and students are required to complete workbook exercises and to compile…

This unobtrusive study examined whether the accuracy of reference service provided by student reference assistants (SRAs) and full-time paraprofessional department assistants (DAs) at the Brigham Young University library had improved since 1987. The effects of the following factors on accuracy were also considered: (1) whether a question was…

In January 1989, the Library Instruction Forum of the Virginia Library Association sent a two-page questionnaire to each of the 82 academic libraries in Virginia to obtain information on current bibliographic instruction activities within the state. Designed to encourage cooperative development of new instructional programs and techniques and…

The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) commissioned Research USA, Inc., to conduct a survey of 468 of their individual members in order to find out more about them, their libraries, and their involvement with ACRL. Some of the specific areas studied in the survey include: (1) the type and place of their employment; (2) their…