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"…

There's a lot of focus on the "Next Gen" librarians out there bringing a youth perspective that's supposed to shake things up and introducing new ideas and practices into a profession that sometimes moves forward at a glacial pace. But the ideas of the new generation do not invalidate the work done by those who came before. In fact, change in…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a personalised information support system to help faculty members to search various portals and e-resources without typing the search terms in different interfaces and to obtain results re-ordered without human intervention. Design/methodology/approach: After a careful survey of…

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.

Duane Webster is a visionary leader who, throughout his career, has had a significant impact on the improvement of libraries and librarianship. His work to establish the Association of Research Library's (ARL) Office of Management Studies (OMS) and its several organizational improvement programs laid the foundation for organization development in…

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…

Libraries receiving the corpus of a comics publisher are presented with challenges, especially regarding preservation and access for special and circulating collections. Libraries must consider user research needs and collection relevance. Library literature is consulted and recommendations are made regarding bibliographic description, subject…

Most academic libraries do not yet have gaming collections, let alone gaming services and facilities that support the unique and growing teaching and research needs of campus environments. Academic libraries in particular need to start thinking about developing the next generation of gaming collections and services. This article examines the…

This article examines Web resources in research articles from 30 scholarly journals in disciplines across the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. The purpose of the study is to report the degree to which scholars make use of Web-based resources in the journal literature and to identify Web citation characteristics within different subject…

Introduction: We examine doctoral students' awareness of and attitudes to open access forms of publication. Levels of awareness of open access and the concept of institutional repositories, publishing behaviour and perceptions of benefits and risks of open access publishing were explored. Method: Qualitative and quantitative data were collected…

Today's academic libraries must demonstrate their value to cost-conscious university administrators. Budget trade-off decisions that involve the library can be difficult for any university administrator to make, and such decisions are complicated by the recent appearance of massive global digital libraries that seem poised to replace the…

Affective responses toward library- and web-based research were measured in surveys administered before and after an eight-week, one-credit-hour, university course in information literacy. Affect refers to attitudinal and emotional responses as measured via Likert scale questions regarding: like-dislike, difficulty-ease, confidence-anxiety, and…

In recent years, libraries have made efforts to create games, often for the purpose of information literacy instruction. Games can provide an interactive alternative to traditional instruction by introducing research tools and resources while also teaching problem solving skills within a collaborative learning environment. Despite the benefits,…

This study investigated the use of a university library academic service to assist in research information seeking, and the role and value of the academic services in support of research from the viewpoints of both academic users and librarians. Ten Ph.D. students completed questionnaires followed by face-to-face discussions and four academic…