This case study offers an alternative use of LibGuides beyond its intended purpose to offer course and subject guides. LibGuides have become an integral part of the virtual instruction landscape at Colorado State University (CSU) Libraries. We discovered that the LibGuides platform can also be effectively harnessed to provide support for…

The use of Facebook to share resources and engage patrons continues to gain acceptance within academic libraries. While many studies have analyzed the types of content academic libraries share on Facebook, there has not yet been a full examination of how this content is generated. This article examined the posting methods, the user responses, and…

Academic library websites contain a vast amount of complex content and, all too often, there is a lack of established process for creating, updating, and deleting that content. There is no clear vision or purpose to the content, and numerous staff members are expected to maintain content with little guidance. Because of this, many library websites…

In 2010, after two previous unsuccessful attempts at electronic resources management system (ERMS) implementation, Texas A&M University (TAMU) Libraries set out once again to find an ERMS that would fit its needs. After surveying the field, TAMU Libraries selected the University of Notre Dame Hesburgh Libraries-developed, open-source ERMS, CORAL…

Although still a relatively new technology with less than 10 years of history, YouTube's extensive reach and integration in mainstream society as well as lifelong learning habits of online users cannot be understated. This article examines how the YouTube collection at the University of British Columbia Library's Irving K. Barber Learning Centre…

This article presents reports from the 2011 Missouri Library Association Annual Conference held on October 5-7, 2011. The first report, entitled "Online Information Literacy Instruction: Challenges and Strategies," was presented by Kristine Stewart and Kyle Denlinger, University of Missouri-Columbia. Stewart and Denlinger talk about their…

Cross-campus collaboration for library website design and management can be challenging, but the process can produce stronger, more attractive, and more usable library websites. Collaborative library website design and management can also lead to new avenues for marketing library tools and services; expert consultation for library technology…

Presented with an opportunity to improve Wesleyan University's dated library home page, a team of librarians employed ethnographic techniques to explore how its users interacted with Wesleyan's current library home page and web pages in general. Based on the data that emerged, a group of library staff and members of the campus' information…

Libraries spend countless hours developing websites to connect users and resources. However, how much do we really know about what website terminology and features are meaningful to our patrons? And how can we best organize websites to facilitate access to resources? This article examines these questions by presenting a case study of a…

A critical part of electronic resources management, the electronic resources evaluation process is multi-faceted and includes a seemingly endless range of resources and tools involving numerous library staff. A solution is to build a Web site to bring all of the components together that can be implemented quickly and result in an organizational…

According to the "Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections," a good collection is broadly available and avoids unnecessary impediments to use. Two challenges, however, are the constant change in users' expectations and the increasing volume of information in local repositories. Therefore, as academic and research institutions…

Librarians have long struggled to find user-friendly mediums to provide meaningful information to patrons using bibliographies, pathfinders, and subject guides with varying degrees of success. Content management systems, such as Springshare's LibGuides, have recently been developed to facilitate the creation of online subject guides. Special…

Western Illinois University Libraries has cut online serials subscriptions in the past 2 years. The librarians were guided by the statistics for downloads provided by the publishers of the journals. However, questions were raised by both professors and librarians regarding the exact meaning of the statistics. This caused the electronic resources…

Social networking tools have been getting quite a bit of press in libraryland for the past couple of years. It is considered to be one of the key aspects of a library joining what is referred to as the Library 2.0 movement. In this context, social networking is seen as a library service or library outreach mechanism that utilizes popular social…

Designed to assist with the management of e-resources, electronic resource management (ERM) systems are time- and fund-consuming to purchase and maintain. Questions of system compatibility, data population, and workflow design/redesign can be difficult to answer; sometimes those answers are not what we'd prefer to hear. The two primary functions…