As the cost of textbooks rises and discoverability of resources improves, students are turning more and more to interlibrary loan to meet their textbook needs. This article describes how systems can be utilized to streamline processes and allow for the canceling of textbook requests consistently and appropriately by taking full advantage of the…

Library public services staff have primarily focused on providing services through interactions with their users. Although service quality and customer satisfaction are important in the delivery of these services, the emphasis and nature of the work have often been influenced by a library-centric philosophy rather than a user-centric philosophy.…

In the summer of 2013, staff in the Access Services unit of an academic library began a cross-training and collaboration project in an effort to provide continued library service to the campus community. The cross-training was established in an attempt to address a shortage of staff as a result of budget cuts. The cross-training resulted in the…

The nature of academic librarianship is changing as librarians move away from the curation of material and into research support roles. Although this creates new opportunities it can be difficult for staff to learn the skills needed. The Office of Scholarly Communication at Cambridge University seeks to address this issue with the Research Support…

Studies of data-driven deselection overwhelmingly emphasise the importance of circulation counts and date-of-last-use in the weeding process. When applied to research collections, however, this approach fails to take account of highly influential and significant titles that have not been of interest to large numbers of borrowers but that have been…

In this paper, we explore how librarians can teach students to deconstruct the concept of authority using questions and considering contextual needs in STEM fields. We argue that examining the complexities of common signifiers of authority, such as peer review, citation rates, and types of sources, as well as exploring contextual factors such as…

This study investigated the application of web 2.0 tools for the provision of library services for teaching, learning and research in Polytechnics. The researchers employed a descriptive survey method and a questionnaire was used as instrument for data collection. The population of the study consisted of ninety one (91) library staff in…

This article discusses the history, purpose, and services that make up the Grand Valley State University Knowledge Market. The Knowledge Market is made up of faculty and staff directors leading four unique groups of specialized student-consultants who collaborate with their peers. While each service has a unique specialty, The Knowledge Market…

As localized assessments confirm national findings that undergraduates struggle to integrate resources into research-based compositions effectively, data at one comprehensive public university indicate library sessions improve students' ability to locate and evaluate information, but students continue to struggle with the "use" component…

Purpose: This paper aims to test a nudge, or intervention, designed through behavioral insights at a university campus to discover cost-effective means for increasing recycling participation and methods for estimating waste removal cost savings. Design/methodology/approach: A series of studies were conducted demonstrating the effectiveness of…

This study explores the library equivalent of the "towels on deck chairs" phenomenon of students reserving library seats: the practice of leaving personal belongings unattended at a library study space for long periods of time, rendering the desk unavailable for use by others. It presents highly inefficient use of high value academic…

Building effective communication and interdepartmental partnerships are essential components of strengthening services, policies, and procedures to meet the individual information needs of students, faculty, and the college community. Despite major advancements in library services for users with disabilities, there are ongoing challenges, which…

This article investigates citation and research collaboration habits of faculty in four engineering departments. The analysis focuses on similarities and differences among the engineering disciplines. Main differences exist in the use of conference papers and technical reports. The age of cited materials varies by discipline and by format.…

The results of this study illustrate that one-shot training sessions are effective in aiding librarians in academic libraries to engage with fair use. This study used testing both before and after an expert-led three-hour training session on fair use for academic librarians to measure their confidence and comprehension. The results, though limited…

Zines have begun to gain a place in higher education as pedagogical tools studied or made by students, and many academic libraries maintain zine collections. The library literature reveals little about how nonlibrarian faculty use zines in their classrooms. This paper describes the results of a survey of faculty from a range of academic…