Purpose: The present study aims to investigate the experience, contribution and opinions of users of respective institutional repositories (IRs) developed in India. Design/methodology/approach: The survey method was used. The data collection tool was a web questionnaire, which was created with the help of software provided by surveymonkey.com…

For more than a decade, librarians have struggled to balance making the convenience of the ebook formats available while alleviating users' frustrations with the disparities between the myriad formats. This article tells the story of another area of ebook concern: How can independently published ebooks make it into a library's collections? The…

Homeschooling in Malaysia is a form of alternative education that emphasizes quality education based on moral values and belief in strengthening family ties. The purpose of this study is to produce a model of homeschooling technology-based learning activities in Malaysia as a guideline to improve the quality of education, curriculum and organize…

In its first decade (2001-2010) the OER movement has been carried by numerous relevant and successful projects around the globe. These were sometimes large-scale but more often not, and they were primarily initiated by innovating educational institutions and explorative individual experts. What has remained, however, is the quest for a sustainable…

This study investigated four elementary-level English language learners' (ELLs') use of strategies for reading computer-based texts at home and in school. The ELLs in this study were in the fourth and fifth grades in a public elementary school. We identify the ELLs' strategies for reading computer-based texts in home and school environments. We…

Many college students and their families are concerned about the high costs of textbooks. A company called Flat World Knowledge both gives away and sells open-source textbooks in a way it believes to be financially sustainable. This article reports on the financial sustainability of the Flat World Knowledge open-source textbook model after one…

If anyone had thought to recognize a K-12 educational buzzword of the year for 2012, it would surely have been "open educational resources" (OER). Ed tech media has fairly hummed with the topic, largely with exciting predictions: OER would give cash-strapped K-12 educators access to high-quality tools and content for their classrooms at little or…

The aim of this dissertation study was to identify and describe the use of electronic health records (EHRs) for information sharing between patients and clinicians in primary-care encounters and to understand work system factors influencing information sharing. Ultimately, this will promote better design of EHR technologies and effective training…

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…

Textbooks are a crushingly substantial portion of students' costs every semester, and they're getting more expensive every year. With the cost of some individual textbooks surpassing a monthly cable television bill, students are moving to relieve that economic pressure by renting textbooks instead of buying them new or used. The idea of renting…

The Open Access movement of the past decade, and institutional repositories developed by universities and academic libraries as a part of that movement, have openly challenged the traditional scholarly communication system. This article examines the growth of repositories around the world, and summarizes a growing body of evidence of the response…

Professors at higher education institutions often feel pressure to "publish or perish" in order to maintain their standing in the academic community, yet a large number of these publications languish in obscure technical journals or are presented only once at a conference or online journal. While these methods achieve the goal of…

School libraries are an essential part of a complete school program. They provide an equitable, fiscally responsible strategy for sharing resources across grade levels and the curriculum while addressing core reading, information, and technology literacies. Students are still voracious readers of books in print, and now they consume a variety of…

The level of job performance, international comparability and competitiveness of Nigerian university graduates are burning issues. Consequently, the academic quality of Nigerian universities has come under severe criticism. Since university lecturers are key players in quality assurance in universities, this study explored their perceptions of…

"Research Library Issues" ("RLI") is a quarterly report from ARL (Association of Research Libraries), CNI (Coalition of Networked Information), and SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition). This issue includes the following articles: (1) Digitization of Special Collections and Archives: Legal and Contractual Issues (Peter B.…