Discussion of electronic access to information focuses on a study conducted at the library of the College of William and Mary that used 40 reference desk questions to assess the value of printed sources, CD-ROMs, databases, and the World Wide Web. Also discusses the reference librarian as omnipaedia. (LRW)

Outlines the services that could be provided by a national digital library for science, mathematics, and technology education. Provides a list of links that lead to further discussion about the possible uses, architecture, and features of such a digital library. (AEF)

Examines the state of library automation in Pakistan. Discusses early developments; financial support by the Netherlands Library Development Project (Pakistan); lack of automated systems in college/university and public libraries; usage by specialist libraries; efforts by private-sector libraries and the National Library in Pakistan; commonly used…

Discusses the findings of a four-year study of 10 United Kingdom secondary schools which evaluated school library services to students with disabilities. Interviews and observations focused on the relationship between school library staff and special education staff, and the effect this had on library provision and information skills acquisition…

Discusses the need for strategic planning in university libraries and describes the planning process, based on experiences at Brown University. Explains the role of task forces that were formed to address six main issues: service to users, collections, educational role, technology, staff development, and facilities and space. (LRW)

Describes a qualitative study involving interviews with 12 women employees in academic libraries that investigated their views of computers and technology, methods for training effectiveness, learning styles, and views on serving patron's needs. Discusses training implications and makes suggestions for maximizing transfer of training. (LRW)

Describes the development of the Suffolk Cooperative Library System's live, online chat reference service, a pilot project for public libraries in Suffolk County (New York). Topics include chat software selection; a virtual reference collection; marketing; funding; staffing; evaluation; expanded hours of service; email; and extracting data from…

Discusses problems and as-yet unresolved questions about public access to government documents raised by electronic publishing. One solution is libraries should adapt to include electronic files of government publications and include them in the growing digital collections. The way that librarians approach the struggle to maintain free and open…

Recruiting and preparing the next generation of school library media specialists (SLMSs) is a growing concern nationwide. School library media preparation programs are critical to meeting the current shortage of SLMSs in the United States. To determine the status of professional preparation programs for SLMSs, surveys were sent to forty-eight…

Academic libraries are at a crossroads, facing increasing competition from other student services within their institutions and from commercial entities that duplicate their services. Examining some broader trends in education leads to suggestions as to how libraries might re-examine legacy services and assumptions and consider new directions.…

This article discusses the web and print resources used in selecting material for a dental sciences collection in an academic library at a public university without a medical library. The process of creating a collection quickly and with limited resources is described, from the initial collection assessment to the decision-making processes…

Valuable information in print is often neglected because of the rapid proliferation of electronic resources and the bias of many library users against print sources. At Joyner Library, it was decided to construct an interactive subject guide database that included resources in all formats to offer users a convenient starting point for research and…

The Association of Research Libraries' (ARL) E-Metrics Project is an ongoing effort to develop new measures that describe and measure networked electronic resources and also to underscore the need for measuring the value of such resources. This article presents results from an ongoing iterative qualitative study with the following goals: (a) to…

Prior to 1997, the University of Oxford in Great Britain had approximately one hundred autonomous libraries with little coordination of services, collection development, or management among them. In that year a new director was hired with the mandate to integrate many of these libraries into one centralized system. Over the past seven years…

There are a number of important documents that provide guidance in the consideration of library services supporting nursing programs and students at a distance. Standards are available from the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission (NLNAC), the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), and the Commission on Collegiate…