The challenges to education for librarianship and information science are numerous and great: technology, research, expanding curricula to address problems of special constituencies, and recruiting committed individuals. Changes are occurring rapidly, and practitioners and educators must work together to ensure the challenges are met. Thirteen…

The average age of students at Governors State University (GSU) in Illinois is 36. A study of 50 nontraditional graduate students at GSU examined their perceptions of their library research skills. This article reports on the survey findings, discusses older students and library automation, and makes recommendations for future nontraditional…

Discusses Web site management, rather than design, as it relates to academic libraries. Reviews library literature as well as literature from other fields and presents results from four case studies that investigated staffing, professional rivalries, governing structure, usability studies, staff tool versus public resource, maintenance, and…

Discusses the use of print versus electronic resources by undergraduates and describes a study at a Canadian university that examined the use of print resources in relation to online resources. Investigated which type of source they used first and whether problems associated with electronic journals would cause them to switch to print versions.…

The level of library provision was surveyed in independent Scottish schools; surveys were returned by 39 of the 75 independent schools. The survey covered school size, examinations taken by pupils, library staffing and qualifications, books per pupil, audiovisual and computer-based resources, resources other than books, information skills programs…

Describes results of a 1986 survey of adult public library users in Mississippi. Data are reported on occupation, age groups, sex, level of education, frequency of visits, and services used; and results are compared with the findings of surveys of public library patrons in other states. A copy of the questionnaire is included. (six references)…

Discusses the evaluation of library reference service; examines problems with past evaluations, including the lack of long-term planning and a systems perspective; and suggests a method for continuously monitoring and improving reference service using quality improvement tools such as checklists, cause and effect diagrams, Pareto charts, and…

Argues that a mix of quantitative and qualitative measures is most efficacious in library collection analysis. Cases drawn from the literature in which a combination of these measures was profitably applied are considered, and the types of software packages for purposes of data manipulation are discussed. (Contains 15 references.) (KRN)

Describes a study that was conducted at the University of Botswana library to determine the extent to which Library of Congress catalog cardsets facilitate the cataloging and classification process. Flow charts for cataloging and classification are described, and estimates of cataloging costs using cardsets are compared with costs for original…

A study investigated the relationship between the completeness of end users' mental models of an online system and their ability to use the system effectively. Although all of the study subjects were relatively successful, those with more complete mental models tended to have better search results than subjects with incomplete or poor mental…

A factor analysis of affective data gathered from searchers of an online library catalog, and a card catalog allowed researchers to isolate factors leading to success or failure in information retrieval. Factor patterns serve to identify how searches are evaluated by users. Further research is suggested as are features to facilitate successful…

Presents an interim report on a study investigating the impact of flexible and fixed scheduling of library instruction on library media specialists' consultative and instructional roles. The relationship between scheduling and the number of the media specialist's consultative tasks, library instruction lessons offered, and participation in student…

A survey on the role of academic library committees showed that not all libraries use committees in significant roles; committees do not guarantee librarians a significant voice; librarians were positive about policy-related committees and negative about fact-finding and information-gathering committees; and smaller libraries used committees more…

Reports on discussions from the 1991 ALISE (Association for Library and Information Science Education) Annual Conference about modernizing the curricula of doctoral programs; federal funding for doctoral education; evaluating faculty performance; research on a range of topics by ALISE members; the closing of Columbia University's library program;…

Describes measures of cost effectiveness that are useful for academic library collections, based on experiences at the Louisiana State University libraries. Highlights include circulation analysis of newly cataloged books; current periodical use compared to cost; faculty ranking of journals; and circulation patterns (i.e., use versus cost and…