Traditional story times begin with "The author of this book is..." and "The illustrator of this book is...". Although library media specialists emphasize the role of an author and an illustrator in creating a book, students often have difficulty making the connection between the name and a real person. Learning involves making connections and…

This article presents a plan of having a new facility for the library of Valparaiso University. The authors, as dean of library services and assistant university librarian for access services at Valpo, discuss their plan of building a Center for Library and Information Resources that would house more books while also providing computing centers,…

Chris Dodge, a renowned alternative pressologist and the librarian at "Utne" magazine, has been known to say, "Every library should be a special library." In order to meet this challenge, the librarians at Barnard College decided to start a collection of underground publications known as zines. In this article, the author describes how librarians…

In the early 1990s, Northern Michigan University started distributing laptop computers to its faculty and students. Soon, a taste for technology developed and the university community craved more. Having tempted their taste buds, they quickly found that patrons were no longer satisfied with traveling to the library and asked that they bring…

Twenty-one scholarly papers and fifteen abstracts comprise the content of the tenth annual Brick and Click Libraries Symposium, held annually at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. The peer-reviewed proceedings, authored by academic librarians and presented at the symposium, portray the contemporary and future face of…

The Student Evaluation of Instruction (SEOI) was administered to all full-time and part-time faculty. Approximately 97,160 surveys were sent out in 5,320 envelopes; 60,206 surveys were returned to the Office of Institutional Research. The return rate for the SEOI packet envelopes was 84%. The Instructors' reports were provided to academic,…

The "Student Evaluation of Instruction" (SEOI) was administered to all full-time and part-time faculty. Approximately 90,045 surveys were sent out in 4,433 envelopes; 54,174 surveys were returned to the Office of Institutional Research. The return rate for the paper surveys was 60%. Instructors' reports were provided to academic,…

The Contra Costa County Library is located within the greater San Francisco Bay Area. With 26 physical locations and a virtual branch, it has more than 400,000 cardholders and serves a population of almost 1 million. As part of developing a strategic plan to meet the needs of the public in the 21st century, the library hired a consultant to gather…

Beyond collecting traditional circulation statistics, tracking in-house use of library materials is a significant measure of how patrons use our resources. In our pilot project, Lending Services staff members conducted nightly pick-ups of library materials left on tables, in carrels, in study rooms, as well as books cast aside in the stacks areas…

The Penn State Libraries' Open House activities for incoming students find Access Services staff extending beyond their everyday routines to creatively help relieve students' fears of the library and understand how Access Services can help them. Serving on the Access Services Open House Committee offers staff many opportunities for development as…

This article recounts successful strategies for increasing student staff commitment to the organization's vision and deadlines, inviting "buy in" for projects, and enhancing staff work relationships. The discussion will outline activities that have resulted in increased employee satisfaction with work, smoother interactions between coworkers,…

With the expansion in quantity of full-text content material made available through online database subscriptions, aggregator services, and over the Internet, the need for print materials seems to have diminished over recent years. Growing, too, are the numbers of students taking advantage of distance learning opportunities, scattered miles and…

The purpose of traditional copyright law was to encourage the creation of works based on and to ensure reasonable access to original thought. Despite this harmonious intent, an intrinsic tension exists between libraries and copyright holders, as the former promotes "free" access to information that ultimately reduces the income of the…

Personal Digital Assistant serials are not just a subset of electronic serials from an acquisitions/collection development point of view because of their total dependence on patron-owned technology. Even if viewed as a "free" resource there are issues of expense and effort involved in gathering, classifying, and providing access and awareness of…

The provision of equitable library services to distance learning students emerged as a critical area during the 1990s. Library services available to distance learning students included digital reference and instructional services, remote access to online research tools, database and research tutorials, interlibrary loan, and document delivery.…