The historiography of higher education in Nigeria has not fully accounted for Alan Pifer's crucial contributions in reforming the elitist British higher education tradition in colonial Nigeria. Through qualitative analysis of mostly primary sources acquired from the Rare Book and Manuscript Library in Columbia University, this article argues that…

In the eighteenth century there were enough printed sources and archival materials to challenge or even overwhelm historians of that day. Two productive editors of lexicons and information management were Christian Gottlieb Jocher, who taught history at the University of Leipzig and became the chief librarian at his university, and Johann Heinrich…

In 2008, the Digital Humanities Observatory was charged with creating an all-island gateway to Irish digital collections and resources. A key factor in the achievement of this goal was the development of the web application, "DHO: Discovery." This chapter will describe what "DHO: Discovery" was intended to be and to what extent…

Over the past years, a number of international initiatives that recognize the importance of sharing and reusing digital educational resources among educational communities through the use of Learning Object Repositories (LORs) have emerged. Typically, these initiatives focus on collecting digital educational resources that are offered by their…

There is growing concern that a variety of factors threaten the sustainability of academic libraries: developing and preserving print and digital collections, supplying and supporting rapidly changing technological and networking infrastructure, providing free services, maintaining growing costs of library buildings, and lowering libraries'…

Introduction: Very little research crosses the institutional boundaries of libraries and archives, and theres appears to be little predisposition to look for areas of common interest. However, practitioners in these settings have much to learn from each other. Purpose: This paper argues that practitioners' understanding of information management…

Prior to retiring from full-time librarianship to concentrate on readers' advisory (RA) consulting, teaching, and book and media discussions, Ted Balcom, longtime administrator of the Villa Park Public Library (VPPL), Illinois, repeatedly demonstrated a particularly effective approach to shoring up essential library support. Balcom, 1996 winner of…

There is a surging need for library services, placing high demands on staff time just as staff time and resources are shrinking. The increased demand coupled with decreased resources puts stress on those on the front lines and on administrators, many of whom are themselves suffering the same financial anxieties as their patrons. Nationwide, public…

Integrating advanced imaging and processing capabilities in libraries, archives, and museums requires effective systems and information management to ensure that the large amounts of digital data about cultural artifacts can be readily acquired, stored, archived, accessed, processed, and linked to other data. The Library of Congress is developing…

Recent engineering industry-based research has identified a number of skill deficiencies in graduating engineers. Emphasis on communication and teamwork informed by attributes of self management, problem solving and mutual accountability have been recognized as important needs by The Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET of the United…

"Research Library Issues" ("RLI") is a quarterly report from ARL (Association of Research Libraries), CNI (Coalition of Networked Information), and SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition). This issue includes the following articles: (1) Digitization of Special Collections and Archives: Legal and Contractual Issues (Peter B.…

As the availability of digital resources increased exponentially over the last two decades, academic libraries have heavily invested in electronic resources and made them accessible via library Web portals. Yet, underutilization of library Web portals is a common concern among academic libraries. According to the information systems (IS)…

Librarians, teachers, authors, video game designers, corporate executives, in fact all providers of information struggle with the dilemma of how to get consumers of information engaged with their message. School librarians know that engaged students learn more and retain the information longer; authors and game designers want their readers and…

Distance learning has flourished in Sudan during the last two decades; more and more higher education institutions offer distance learning programmes to off-campus students. Like on-campus students, distance learners should have access to appropriate library and information support services. They also have specific needs for library and…

Librarians at Wayne State College have developed an extraverted online embedded librarian model whereby librarians proactively push out content to students at time-appropriate moments. This article outlines why extraverted approaches are more effective than introverted approaches. It also details how to develop an extraverted program. First,…