This paper examines the experience of one institution, the University of Maryland Libraries, as it made organizational efforts to harness existing workflows and to capture digitization done in the course of responding to patron requests. By examining the way this organization adjusted its existing workflows to put in place more systematic methods…

This study examines local research guides created by academic business librarians to assist patrons with researching the communities (towns, cities, and regions) where their schools are located. A key finding is that only 33% of the libraries surveyed provide guides to local research, while 80% provide guides to international research. (Contains 2…

A Class Performance System (CPS) is applied as an assessment tool to assist in determining the level of information literacy knowledge already possessed by adult students enrolled in a graduate Educational Leadership and Technology program. The CPS data collected reveals that students possess varying degrees of technology expertise and information…

This article aims to assist information professionals in developing a resource collection that serves Wind Energy students in academic settings. Traditional as well as Internet resources should be utilized in order to meet the needs of this unique student population.

This paper investigates bibliographic control of government publications and gray literature in Turkey, in order to determine what further measures are needed to support researchers in both Turkey and abroad. It reports the circumstances surrounding the creation of "The Bibliography of Government Publications" prepared in 1971, and outlines how…

Primary source research requires students to acquire specialized research skills. This paper presents results from a user study testing the effectiveness of a Web guide designed to convey the concepts behind "primary source literacy". The study also evaluated students' strengths and weaknesses when conducting primary source research. (Contains 3…

Using data collected via a Web survey instrument, this study examines the leadership engagement of new professionals in Canadian libraries and explores their interest in and willingness to take up leadership roles as well as the barriers and opportunities to leadership that they perceive to exist within the workplace. (Contains 7 tables.)

As academic library functions and activities continue to evolve, libraries have broadened the traditional library model, which focuses on management of physical resources and activities, to include a digital library model, transforming resources and services into digital formats to support teaching, learning, and research. This transition has…

Librarians and archivists can gain insight into the disciplinary culture of historians, and history doctoral students in particular, by examining the acknowledgment sections of these students' doctoral dissertations. This paper is an exploratory analysis of the 219 history dissertations written at the University of Oklahoma between 1930 and 2005.…

In an exploratory study, participants (n = 18) completed 11 usability tasks to assess ease of use of two Web sites, and then a Web site perception questionnaire for each. Participants rated both Web sites positively, but 25% and 36% could not complete all tasks; doing so required more than a minute to complete. (Contains 2 figures and 7 tables.)

Most academic libraries do not yet have gaming collections, let alone gaming services and facilities that support the unique and growing teaching and research needs of campus environments. Academic libraries in particular need to start thinking about developing the next generation of gaming collections and services. This article examines the…

This study aims to develop a systematic patent training program using patent analysis and citation analysis techniques applied to patents held by the University of Saskatchewan. The results indicate that the target audience will be researchers in life sciences, and aggregated patent database searching and advanced search techniques should be…

The central argument of the article is that while the building, the collection and the staff were inseparably linked, in a digital environment these facets of the library are diverging. This divergence clouds the process of envisioning a future for the library, but, if properly defined, it is a source of clarity, which sheds light on strategic…

An online survey was sent to academic libraries and consortia with an integrated library system (ILS) migration project, based on review of press releases from major U.S. ILS vendors. This study takes a systematic approach to provide a snapshot of the academic ILS market and key factors affecting the outcome of an ILS migration project. It reveals…

A checklist evaluation on thirty-seven Women's Studies programs conducted using the individual institutions' online public access catalogs (OPACs) is presented. Although Women's Studies collections are very difficult to build, an evaluation of existing programs shows that collections, for the most part, have managed substantial coverage of the…