This article presents an interview with Casper Grathwohl, VP and publisher of reference at Oxford University Press (OUP), regarding his background of reference publishing, his role in OUP, and his plans of moving on with Oxford Bibliographies Online (OBO). Over the past 12 years, Grathwohl, has led a successful transition of the venerable…

Gathering qualitative information about usage behavior of library Web sites is a time-consuming process requiring the active participation of patron communities. Libraries that collect virtual reference transcripts, however, hold valuable data regarding how the library Web site is used that could benefit Web designers. An analysis of virtual…

The need for information literacy continues to increase as colleges and universities begin to globalize their curricula and include global readiness in institutional missions. This article reports pretest and posttest data collected during a librarian-faculty collaboration to determine the effect of information literacy instruction on students…

Today's academic library provides resources that users can access both physically in the library and virtually from academic offices. This increasing availability of online access means that information resources are no longer confined within library walls and librarians need to rethink how their constituents' information needs are being met.…

Dealing with unaffiliated distance learning students can be a daunting task for many public as well as academic librarians. This article will discuss strategies for providing reference to these students by gathering information on what services they are offered via their home institutions, and helping them navigate the often confusing landscape of…

In September 2008, the Albert S. Cook Library at Towson University implemented an intranet to support the various functions of the library's Reference Department. This intranet is called the RefPortal. After exploring open source options and other Web 2.0 tools, the department (under the guidance of the library technology coordinator) chose…

Medical and health sciences libraries have incorporated the elements of evidence-based practice (EBP) into their reference services, instruction, and online resource development for years. While EBP focuses on the use of medical and health sciences literature in the clinical environment (i.e., making decisions about how to treat a particular…

Libraries nationwide are in yet another phase of belt tightening. Without an understanding of the economic factors that influence library operations, however, controlling costs and performing cost-benefit analyses on services is difficult. This paper describes a project to develop a cost model for collaborative virtual reference services. This…

Creating online options for students has become more of a focus with the growth of distance-education programs. It has also become necessary with the growth of online databases, electronic journals, and electronic books. Teaching classes is one of the few areas where libraries have not all switched to online access. Reference librarians still tend…

Fieldwork exists as a component of many library schools' curricula. Site supervisors, students, and the schools themselves all play a role. A final part of most fieldwork experiences involves the use of an evaluation form filled out by a site supervisor about the student. In this study, forty seven evaluation forms were collected and analyzed…

A reference/instruction librarian used targeted outreach to furnish library services to faculty and students while assigned to work in the College of Education during a library renovation project. Due to the success of this temporary assignment, the author has subsequently maintained regular office hours in the College to provide research…

New approaches to undergraduate history education rely on primary sources. This study, based on a 2008-2009 online survey of 627 academic historians and 25 follow-up interviews, captures a snapshot of the current use of online, published, and archival primary sources used in new teaching methods. It identifies three distinct ways faculty utilize…

Twitter. Facebook. These names stir up feelings, opinions, and experiences in just about everyone. As these services rise in popularity, libraries have begun to use them to reach out to patrons. Some libraries use Twitter but not Facebook. Some use Facebook but not Twitter. Some use both Facebook and Twitter, while others use neither. Yes, the…

Internet usage logs captured during self-directed learning sessions were used to determine how undergraduate medical students used five popular sites to locate and access biomedical resources. Students' perceptions of each site's usefulness and reliability were determined through a survey. Google and Wikipedia were the most frequently used sites…

This paper in the form of story discusses a college student's information search process. In this story we see Kuhlthau's information search process: initiation, selection, exploration, formulation, collection, and presentation. Katie is a student who goes in search of information for her class research paper. Katie's class readings, her interest…