Academic institutions have long supported stand-alone branch libraries devoted to fine arts, architecture, and other allied fields. As subject specific collecting on campuses has been decentralized by collaborative collection development, consortial borrowing, and the quick availability of materials in both digital and print formats, the need for…

Eleanor (Edwards) Ledbetter, who served immigrant populations in Cleveland throughout most of the Progressive Era and the Great Depression, was one of the first librarians to advocate for multiculturalism (then called cultural pluralism) as opposed to Americanism. In providing multicultural and multilingual library services for immigrants,…

Games and other forms of play are used in today's libraries to attract underserved patrons, to introduce patrons to other library resources and services, and to facilitate engagement between library patrons. While many perceive gaming as a new library service, gaming services have been part of librarianship since the nineteenth century through…

For-profit schools constitute the fastest-growing sector of higher education institutions in the United States. Yet accompanying the phenomenal growth of these proprietary colleges and universities has been considerable controversy over the role that the profit motive should play in higher education. The literature of higher education contains…

In 2009, after a year of planning and preparation, the second generation of Ohio Memory was launched. A collaborative effort of the Ohio Historical Society (OHS) and the State Library of Ohio, Ohio Memory is a repository for more than 75,000 digital items, including photographs, journals, and other manuscript materials, as well as print documents…

As campus renovation projects go, the Ohio State University's plan to turn its main library into "a library for the 21st century" is ambitious. The author describes the decade-long, $109 million transformation of the William Oxley Thompson Memorial Library. The overhaul calls for a complete replacement of all mechanical and electrical…

Support staff of circulation, reference, interlibrary loan, media services, special collections, information, and reserves make up a large portion of library work forces, and each year are asked to take on more tasks, many requiring advanced skills. This study determined: (1) if there is an actual need for continuing education for support staff;…

Over the years, the Columbus Metropolitan Library (CML) has experimented with various continuous improvement initiatives. Some projects fizzled owing to the universal killers of grand ideas such as inertia, inconsistent implementation, lack of buy-in, "flavor of the month" attitude, and the all-time favorite: if they ignore this idea it…

Presents a model that can be used to develop or expand academic library services for international students based on survey results from Ohio academic libraries. Highlights include functional barriers, including critical thinking skills; cultural barriers; and model programs, including promotional, instructional, staff development, written,…

When Leslie Polott arrived at the Hudson Library and Historical Society in 1996. She headed out into the community to find out what people wanted from their library. After rounds of surveys, focus groups, and town meetings, she knew: a library that was the center of their educational and cultural lives, that provided more opportunities for…

This document chronicles the evolution of the Norwalk (Ohio) Public Library (established in 1866) from a small collection in an upper room in the Old Mansion Block building to a Carnegie facility which has been renovated to meet today's needs, including accessibility to the handicapped. Funding for the first reading room was provided by the Alert…

This paper focuses on how an academic library managed changes in services and space to meet customer needs for streamlined services, increasing efficiency for students, faculty and staff in finding, analyzing, sharing, and producing knowledge. The Ohio State University's John A. Prior Health Sciences Library (PHSL) has merged its circulation and…

Developed to promote excellence in Ohio's school libraries, this document is designed to: (1) provide a rationale for integration of the school library into the total education program; (2) delineate the dimensions of service of a dynamic K-12 library program; (3) identify essential components of an effective K-12 library program; (4) provide a…

This report is an interpretative review of the state laws and aspects of the general governing structure of Ohio public libraries that are important for development of a statewide library program in accordance with accepted professional standards. Library and municipal laws were analyzed, questionnaires were submitted to public libraries, and…

The Kent Free Library (Ohio) evolved from the Great Atlantic and Western Railroad Reading Room of 1875, into a municipal Carnegie library, and then grew to be a medium-sized public school district library, in the city of Kent, Ohio. Its original building has been enlarged through three separate expansion campaigns, in order to have space to house…