This article presents interesting articles that explore several different areas of reference assessment, including practical case studies and theoretical articles that address a range of issues such as librarian behavior, patron satisfaction, virtual reference, or evaluation design. They include: (1) "Evaluating the Quality of a Chat Service"…

At first sight, the "big deal" seems an excellent value for academic libraries. A more thorough-going evaluation, however, exposes dangers. This paper examines the roles and strengths of the players in the information supply chain: creators, publishers, intermediaries, libraries. Traditional hard-copy procurement is analysed in terms of these…

The review and negotiation of license agreements has become a time-consuming but necessary part of the job of providing access to the electronic information resources required by libraries' patrons. The nature of these agreements may pose a number of barriers to the development of fully integrated collections. This article presents a fictitious…

Transfer students represent an increasingly important group in four-year schools. To date, only limited information on the research abilities and library needs of this group has been reported. A survey of information needs and skills of incoming transfer students at Western Washington University (WWU) showed that while many reported some…

Citation analysis of 265 Workforce Education and Development (WED) dissertations, theses, and graduate research papers at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC) was used to (1) determine core serials in the discipline, (2) provide Morris Library with a guide to serials acquisition and maintenance in the discipline, and (3) provide future…

When George Mason University's Johnson Center opened a decade ago, it was on the leading edge of architectural design and innovative thinking about spaces for learning. Over time, the building has retained many of its revolutionary aspects even as it has accepted encroachments of conventionality. With its four floors and central atrium, twenty-two…

Higher education programs across the nation have recognized that transformation in pedagogical norms is critical. Often, decreased funding for education is cited as a primary driver for the need to transform the way higher education does its business. This article describes a series of factors that confirm that the decrease in funding is only one…

The number of state virtual libraries is rapidly expanding. These virtual libraries might include collections of subscription databases; state weblinks and resources; digital collections of primary source documents; and a state union catalog or links to school, public, and academic library catalogs. Most of these virtual libraries include an…

What will Google do next? Representatives of the company divulge few details of their projects -- a policy that, in the case of its partnerships with university libraries, probably only fuels the buzz. In this interview, Adam M. Smith, a senior business-product manager, discusses Google's work with publishers and libraries on expanding its…

As an information and instruction librarian at SUNY-Cortland, the author is responsible for designing, developing, and maintaining the Library's Web site. In this article, she describes her experience in combining print/microform holdings list. She pursued a strategy that would make the two holding lists "appear" as one by using XML. She iterates…

Online library services have been mostly available uniquely in English. To serve the diverse communities that uses library services, a growing number of libraries have been investigating the ins and outs of offering virtual reference in languages other than English. Developing this kind of service in languages spoken by various library user groups…

In late 1990s, Gap theories and the LibQual model began to be widely accepted by research libraries in the U.S. Since then, library service evaluation and user satisfaction issues have been discussed in various aspects of both the research and professional literatures of library and information science. Although the research presented herein is…

Twenty-three scholarly papers and eleven abstracts reflect the content of the seventh "Brick and Click Libraries Symposium," held annually at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. The proceedings, authored by academic librarians and presented at the symposium, portray the contemporary and future face of…

Issues 248 through 255 of "Fast Facts" from the Library Research Service present data gleaned from libraries in Colorado and across the nation. Topics addressed in these "Fast Facts" from 2007 include the library labor market, the benefits to libraries of using a statewide courier service, and the results of a patron survey at…

Library webmasters in medium-sized academic libraries were surveyed about their educational backgrounds, job responsibilities, and training and experience levels in Web development. The article summarizes the findings of the survey with recommendations for libraries and library and information science programs. (Contains 7 tables, 5 figures,and 5…