The Association of College and Research Libraries developed information literacy standards and associated performance indicators for undergraduate psychology students. A survey of tenure-track faculty members and full-time lecturers in the Psychology Department at Eastern Michigan University was conducted to discover how those professors viewed…

School librarians should strive to create a learning environment that prepares their students for higher level thinking. They should not only memorize and remember, but also synthesize and evaluate their learning. This can be achieved through social literacy. By utilizing a collaborative lesson that has students teaching other students, school…

Students are taught how to read at a very young age, but how well do the students understand what they are reading? Students are taught how to read the words on the paper, but do they comprehend what the words mean when used together? What can educators do to help students think critically and really understand what is being taught? Teachers and…

Books in the home provide a pivotal connection point for caregivers and children for developing important social and emotional skills, as well the most critical life skills that children will acquire--literacy and a love of learning. However, access to books in many communities is limited and many households have no books at all. But what if…

This article presents a guide to a preconference workshop on the new AASL "Standards for the 21st-Century Learner." This interactive session will help educators to empower their students to think and to create. The session provides a way to understand and incorporate the new standards in a school library program.

This article describes ways of measuring the monetary value of resource sharing across jurisdictional boundaries, using the same "buy once, use many times" logic that is the basic underpinning of libraries. (Contains 4 notes.)

This article provides a practitioner's guide to marketing user-initiated borrowing at the point of need. By reviewing interlibrary loan book requests and manually transferring them to an INN-Reach consortial system, Link+, the University of Nevada, Reno Libraries were able to successfully market the service, deliver materials faster, and save…

Do all schools need brick-and-mortar libraries? In this article, Johnson and Mastrion share their contradictory thoughts to the question. Johnson says some schools don't need library facilities or programs or librarians. These schools' teachers and administrators: (1) feel no need for a collaborative learning space; (2) feel the ability to process…

Using an electronic shelf-reading system a cost-benefit analysis was conducted of an inventory/shelf-reading project in a medium-sized academic library. Analyses include time spent, cataloging discrepancies, books found with active statuses, mis-shelving rate and distance, and subsequent use of found books. Correctly re-shelving "missing"…

This article aims to assist information professionals in developing a resource collection that serves Wind Energy students in academic settings. Traditional as well as Internet resources should be utilized in order to meet the needs of this unique student population.

This study investigates user preferences for reference and technical support, services, and facilities featured in an academic library and Learning Commons through a 23-item questionnaire distributed to building entrants during one 24-hour period on March 14, 2006. Results revealed a strong preference for face-to-face assistance (including…

In February 2008, the faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University made history, unanimously passing a revolutionary open access mandate that, for the first time, would require faculty to give the university copies of their research, along with a nonexclusive license to distribute them electronically. In the press, Harvard University…

Prior to this year, the National Library Legislative Day never really held much importance for the author as a school library media specialist. However, this feeling changed after she attended her first National Library Legislative Day in May of 2008. The goal of this day is to allow everyday practicing professionals to speak with their national…

In "Empowering Learners: Guidelines for School Library Programs" (2009), the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) identified the instructional partner role of school librarians as the most critical role for the future of the profession. To determine the extent to which school librarian preparation programs prepare pre-service…

This article describes the creation of a Lyndon Learning Commons at Lyndon State College. The Commons model emphasizes the integration of a variety of academic support services, increasing both their proximity to one another and cross-unit collaboration, in order to make these services more visible, more accessible, and easier for students to…