Embedded librarians, connected with students and faculty inside the classroom, lab and studio, have new opportunities for preparing students for research and for collaborating with faculty on course-integrated information literacy, research assignment design, teaching, assignment interpretation, and timely student assistance. What makes embedded…

This case study from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, University Libraries, which has one main library, three branches, and more than 110 staff, illustrates one approach to using new technologies as additional methods for internal communication. At large academic libraries, communication within the organization can be challenging. The…

Library intranets require flexibility and efficiency and enhance the internal communication and collaborative nature of creating and organizing the institution's information. At the University of Houston Libraries, the focus was on public services, so little attention was given to the intranet--the tool every department relied on for quick access…

This paper explores the numerous definitions of digital literacy, discusses its relationship to information literacy, and describes applications of digital literacy instruction in institutions of higher education. It also offers opportunities for academic librarians, and especially those in junior and community colleges, to enhance students'…

Today's undergraduates approach research with needs and expectations that challenge traditional library services. The foundation for leading an effective response is the ability to assess undergraduate needs and translate these needs into tangible strategic initiatives that contribute to student academic success. This paper describes the…

Librarians from Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) report on an empirical evaluation of the relevance and value of Infoasis (http://www.zu.ac.ae/infoasis), a Web-based information literacy tutorial developed and tailored to the Arab student population of the Emirates. After the successful implementation of this project, questions…

"ARL" is the bimonthly report on research library issues and actions from ARL (Association of Research Libraries), CNI (Coalition of Networked Information), and SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition). "ARL" reports on current issues of interest to academic and research library administrators, staff, and users; higher…

In light of numerous discussions about whether to follow Mark Greene and Dennis Meissner's suggestions to process lightly and broadly, valid reasons remain for continuing traditional practices for many literary correspondence collections. In this case study, the authors use the Kenneth Burke Papers in the Special Collections Library, Pennsylvania…

This article reports on patterns of links from and to the Web sites of 100 U.S. academic and public libraries with regard to the originating and targeted URL domain categories. Libraries, grouped into small and large by their collection size, were found to have numbers of inlinks proportional to their size, but public libraries, and particularly…

Purpose: The paper seeks to examine the health risks faced when using computer-based systems by library staff in Nigerian libraries. Design/methodology/approach: The paper uses a survey research approach to carry out this investigation. Findings: The investigation reveals that the perceived health risk does not predict perceived ease of use of…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to give a brief introduction to Second Life, and to provide an outline of how one academic librarian has got involved with using it and reviews the issues that have arisen from a library perspective. Design/methodology/approach: The paper offers a reflection on whether library activities in Second Life are…

As future professionals, graduate students must be information literate; however, information literacy instruction of graduate students is often neglected. To address this need, we created literature review workshops to serve graduate students from a wide range of subject disciplines at a point of shared need. Not only did this strategy prove to…

In summer 2008, a small group of Santa Clara University librarians were charged with exploring ways of making online library research guides more user friendly and interactive. In order to know how to enhance our guides, we first asked the question, "What makes a research guide useful?" What follows is a detailed process of discovery.…

When the electronic resource management system (ERM) at Kansas State University Libraries suffered a horrible data loss, the "contract db" presented a challenge for the librarians responsible for electronic resources. It was a decent data repository, but it had no ability to manage the tangled process of licensing, acquiring, activating,…

As colleges of education prepare to meet NCATE standards they will find technically savvy allies and willing partners at their campus libraries. The information literacy and technology targets in the standards of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) parallel the information literacy standards developed by the…