Sixteen scholarly papers and twenty abstracts comprise the content of the eighteenth annual Brick & Click Libraries Conference, held annually at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. The proceedings, authored by academic librarians and presented at the conference, portray the contemporary and future face of librarianship.…

Quora (www.quora.com) is a contemporary, web-based take on reference. Users post questions within Quora and other users answer the questions. Users can vote for and against answers (or not vote at all). It is users asking questions of friends and strangers and then sorting through the results. If the model sounds familiar, it's because it is.…

The paper describes the theory and definition of the practice of librarianship, specifically addressing how Web 2.0 technologies (tools) such as synchronous messaging, collaborative reference service and streaming media, blogs, wikis, social networks, social bookmarking tools, tagging, RSS feeds, and mashups might intimate changes and how…

The University of Minnesota-Duluth is the second largest campus in the University of Minnesota system. The UMD library, which serves more than 11,000 students and 500 faculty members, is primarily an undergraduate library. The reference team consists of eight librarians, including author Sunshine Carter, reference and electronics resources…

Librarians have long struggled to find user-friendly mediums to provide meaningful information to patrons using bibliographies, pathfinders, and subject guides with varying degrees of success. Content management systems, such as Springshare's LibGuides, have recently been developed to facilitate the creation of online subject guides. Special…

This paper will look at the services presently offered to distance students by libraries within the categories of professional staff, access to resources, reference assistance, and library user instruction. It will then offer the argument that these services could be improved by developing embedded librarians within online academic courses as a…

Whether a library's reference collection is large or small, it needs constant attention. Singer's book offers information and insight on best practices for reference collection management, no matter the size, and shows why managing without a plan is a recipe for clutter and confusion. In this very practical guide, reference librarians will learn:…

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…

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…

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…

Since its publication in 2005, Mark A. Greene and Dennis Meissner's "More Product, Less Process: Revamping Traditional Archival Processing" has led to much discussion and self-examination within the archival community about working through backlogs. This article discusses the impact of Greene and Meissner's work and considers the questions and…

The society relies on institutions of higher education to produce a literate workforce; one that is able to function in a dynamic, technological, information-overload environment. In support of this new thrust, most universities have incorporated the use of new media and ICTs in the teaching learning process resulting in a multi-modal approach…

Librarianship has experienced a few growing pains over the past several years as its relationship with technology matures into a productive partnership. Being overzealous to adopt new technology can sometimes lead to more setbacks than advances in the profession. However, a recent wave of research has been discussing the benefits of integrating…

The authors compare Spanish faculty use of library services and the interest they express in value-added services and improvement actions. The results are based on data from a survey of 546 faculty in the field of science and technology. The study differentiates between the areas of pure science, engineering and architecture, and life sciences.…