This manual describes the methods, procedures, techniques, and activities that were used to produce the Academic Library Survey of 2004 (ALS:2004). This manual is designed to provide guidance and documentation for users of the ALS data. Included in the manual are the following: (1) an overview of the study and its predecessor studies; (2) an…

Presented herein are data that describe collections, expenditures, personnel, and services in 65 medical libraries at Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member institutions throughout North America. In 2005-06, the reporting health sciences libraries held a median of 245,212 volumes, spent a total of $239,944,918, and employed 2,524 FTE…

The University of Maryland University College (UMUC) serves a dispersed patron base, and its library has developed, over time, a circulation system for distributing physical research materials to its patrons throughout the United States. This article discusses the development of this system and its associated interface/database management system…

Lippincott Library's Historical Corporate Annual Reports Collection contains useful primary sources of information for several disciplines, including applied accounting and business history. They also are reflections of the societal and cultural mores of the times. Unfortunately, these reports are fragile, difficult to locate, and hard to access.…

"When you start your new job as a school librarian, one of the first steps you must take is to ask to see the district's book selection policy. If there isn't one, write one. Right away. It protects you, the teachers, and the district." That advice was part of the author's school library administration course at the School of Library and…

A challenge for school libraries is the identification and management of electronic and paper resources that teachers and students need. Courtenay Middle School, on Vancouver Island, has begun to assemble collections of mediated online links, in addition to the traditional paper and video resources, and to ask fundamental questions related to…

Worthington, Ohio, has deep library roots. A library has been part of its history since the planning by settlers before the city's birth in 1803. Among the treasures brought by James Kilbourne and the Scioto Company from Connecticut to the new, planned community they built was a collection of books for their new subscription library. The books…

The International Children's Digital Library (ICDL) began as a research project funded primarily by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), and Microsoft Research and creates a digital library of outstanding children's books from all over the world (http://www. childrenslibrary.org). The project…

Hearing some fun facts about books and authors can bring books to life and help ignite students' interest in books and reading. Because most elementary school media centers and public libraries have many of the Newbery Medal books, students will have a better chance of finding books they decide they want to read once they hear about them. Reading…

In this article, the author discusses a project they undertook to reshape the libraries' Web services of the University of Houston site. The site had been in a state of flux and it needed a new structure for both managing and organizing it. She realized the staff was looking for a Web site that was more "Web 2.0" in nature. Web 2.0 is often…

With the rise in the number of types of digital media and the time youth spend on these platforms, researchers theorize that interacting with digital media can provide significant motivation for youth to participate, create, and become active learners. The Consortium on Chicago School Research, with funding from the John D. and Catherine T.…

PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) was inaugurated in 2001 as a follow-up to International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement's 1991 Reading Literacy Study. Conducted every five years, PIRLS assesses the reading achievement of young students in their fourth year of schooling--an important transition…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess costs in the National and University Library of Croatia for processing Croatian web resources and the maintenance and development of the service, and to analyse the present organisation and workflow of their processing, and to propose improvements. Design/methodology/approach: The assessment period…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the initiative of the University Grants Commission of India in setting up the Infonet Digital Library Consortium (The Information and Library Network) in order to provide access to scholarly communication to the academic community in India. Design/methodology/approach: The context of higher…

Technology has revolutionized the concept of libraries. Networking and computing technologies have now become sufficiently advanced to support the design and deployment of large digital libraries which are capable of supporting the conventional end-user functions. Digital libraries are a natural extension of the evolution in which libraries have…