As an alternative to large-scale outreach events, three public services librarians created a series of small-scale outreach events aimed at educating graduate students about library services and increasing positive perceptions of the library. The librarians ran five events with a 2:1 student-to-librarian ratio, and one event with a 13:1…

Sedentary behavior has increased over the last several decades, and this has led to major life-threatening health issues. Texas A&M University Libraries has introduced an innovative idea in three of their buildings. This case study highlights the implementation of Bike Desks at an academic library while offering strategies for other libraries…

As more students, faculty, and staff from traditionally underrepresented groups enter universities and colleges, academic libraries must find ways to reach out to these groups in order to better meet their unique educational needs. In this article, librarians from two large public universities describe how they used data about their communities to…

Today's academic librarian is frequently called upon to function as a subject specialist, with or without advanced degrees in other disciplines. One method of monitoring trends within a given field is to study its literature; another is to attend conferences in the discipline. Discipline-specific conference attendance by academic librarians…

In an attempt to gauge the effectiveness of their information literacy program, librarians at Stephen F. Austin State University began comparing average course grades in course sections that receive IL instruction to grades in sections that do not. The results varied, revealing no clear benefit to information literacy instruction. We discuss…

About a decade ago, a team of librarians and technologists at the University of Texas at Austin began development on a Web-based tutorial for undergraduate students. The tutorial used a range of technologies--HTML, Flash, javascript--to create four modules that emphasized information literacy concepts by using a mix of text, images, interactive…

The University of Texas at Arlington's Library began using an online chat reference in 2002. The service, called Collaborative Digital Reference Service, later became "Ask a Librarian." Slightly over one year later, the library joined the University of Texas System's "Ask a Librarian" service. Both services are powered by…

The incorporation of technology into library processes has tremendously impacted staff and users alike. The University of North Texas (UNT) Libraries is no exception. Sixteen years of reference statistics are analyzed to examine the relationships between the implementation of CD-ROMs and web-based resources and the number of reference questions.…