Society judges the accountability and dependability of librarians and libraries. Reference librarians must collect and use as many facts as possible in measuring services. (KP)

The value of the verification of requests for periodical articles as recommended by the Interlibrary Loan Procedure Manual'' is brought to issue. (1 reference) (Author/NH)

Cost benefit accounting is not being used in academic reference libraries today but administrators are beginning to require quantitative evaluation of services provided. Several systems are described and evaluated. (35 references) (DH)

Discusses the controversy over whether or not libraries should charge fees for online bibliographic services, reviews the evidence for imposing fees, for maintaining free services, and outlines the relevance of certain sections of the United States Code to decisions concerning the provision of information. Twenty-four references are included. (JL)

Includes articles on the use of online databases for historical research, machine readable data sources for historical research, the librarian-historian interface in reference service, and a sampler of databases for searches in history as well as a selected list of guides to history databases and data archives. (JL)

Examines the commitment to bibliographic instruction in academic research libraries by comparing the existing instructional practices, clienteles, staff involvement, and support structure in those libraries having bibliographic instruction coordinators with those in which the instructional programs are still managed directly by reference…

Presents the results of a survey of academic libraries belonging to the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) concerning the availability and accessibility of OCLC (via dedicated or dial access terminals) for use by reference personnel. The methodology of the survey is described and data are presented in five tables. (JL)

Procedures for developing quantitative measures of reference service are described. Through individual interviews, researchers compiled a list of 93 activities performed by the staff. Each activity was evaluated by the staff in four categories: importance, interest, complexity, confidence. (JAB)

Today's library users prefer a less formal relationship with the reference librarian. Library schools are responding to this trend by offering courses in communications strategy. Library researchers recommend sensitivity training for librarians. (JAB)

The study reported here was conducted to determine whether local decision makers have information needs that can be elicited by direct contact, whether their questions could be answered through the resources of a research library, and, if so, whether the public library could have served as well. (Author/JAB)

Six decision-making steps of the reference process were isolated through development of a model reference query. Instructional modules for each of the steps are described. The program is suitable for library school students or library paraprofessionals. (JAB)

A survey of 34 of the largest public library systems, each serving at least 500,000 people, showed: (1) minority offer online database services; (2) cost is major prohibiting factor; (3) New York Times Information Bank is most popular database; (4) fee structures vary; and (5) business organizations are most frequent users. (JD)

A summary and four papers from a symposium, held at the 1974 American Library Association Conference, dealing with the feasibility and desirability of measuring reference service. (PF)

Discusses the results of an analysis of the reference process in which behavioral outcomes were distinguished from the causal factors that inhibit the delivery of reference service. Data on reference services in 16 libraries are analyzed and presented in five figures and three tables. A 26-item reference list is included. (JL)

Provides background on concept mapping and discusses concept maps drawn by library science graduate students in a reference and information services course. Applications of concept mapping of significance to librarians--in reference service, instruction, and research--are considered. Several sample concept maps are included. (19 references) (MES)