While there is general agreement regarding the educational and cultural advantages of exhibits, research and academic libraries often adapt the operating guidelines and procedures of exhibit planning and installation from museums and other non-library institutions. To discover procedures and policies developed specifically for research libraries…

A mail survey of 1,682 graduate students and 758 faculty in the Colleges of Natural Science, Engineering, and Pharmacy, and in the School of Nursing at the University of Texas at Austin was conducted during February 1983 to ascertain the characteristics of the science and technology libraries user population, the type and frequency of library use,…

This Systems and Procedures Exchange Center (SPEC) kit on Bibliographic Instruction (BI) in Association of Research Libraries (ARL) examines current developments as well as anticipated trends based on a SPEC telephone survey of 25 ARL libraries with active BI programs. Two themes which ran through the mid-1985 interviews were the use of new…

This report summarizes research undertaken at the Sterling C. Evans Library, Texas A & M University to assess the impact that end user information retrieval systems may have on library staff and users. Two systems, BRS/After Dark and Search Helper, were made available in the library for end user searching at no cost. A total of 260 users…

Report on current state of research in academic and research librarianship in Federal Republic of Germany highlights projects concerning acquisition of books; work procedure investigations; personnel requirements; cost accounting; investigations of library use (user research, user education); public relations work; librarianship; and subject…

Examines the economic behavior of academic research libraries, arguing that academic research libraries seek to maximize universities' utility by expanding library collections. Findings are consistent with those from a previous study using a different ranking system and sample data and reconfirm that library collections contribute significantly to…

Discusses serials-related functions in academic research libraries, considers the operation of a separate serials department versus integration of serials functions within a general technical services department, and describes an analysis of advertisements for serials positions that was conducted to determine the need for serials specialists and…

This paper describes the process whereby a university library investigated the value of its subject guides to its users. A literature review and surveys of library staff, library users and other libraries were carried out. Existing library subject guides and those of other higher education libraries were evaluated. The project team reported…

This article describes the fundamental challenges to data curation, how these challenges may be compounded for smaller institutions, and how data management is an essential and manageable component of data curation. Data curation is often discussed within the confines of large research universities. As a result, master's and baccalaureate…

This unobtrusive study examined whether the accuracy of reference service provided by student reference assistants (SRAs) and full-time paraprofessional department assistants (DAs) at the Brigham Young University library had improved since 1987. The effects of the following factors on accuracy were also considered: (1) whether a question was…

The four papers in this collection consider the attitudes, concepts, and techniques involved in marketing for non-profit organizations, and explore how librarians in higher education can use these ideas to optimize the effectiveness of their service provision in a time of economic constraint. In "Marketing the Academic Library,"…

A study undertaken to find a satisfactory system of classifying and organizing materials for college or university learning assistance centers discovered that little information had been published. Further investigation revealed that the two major systems used in libraries, the Library of Congress (LC) and Dewey Decimal Systems, were found to be…

This unobtrusive study conducted at the Brigham Young University Library was designed to determine whether reference questions are appropriately referred by student and paraprofessional assistants. Issues addressed included: (1) the percentage of questions assistants cannot answer themselves that are referred to professionals; (2) the percentage…

Describes a four-step model for teaching the techniques of library research: book report and evaluation, comparison of two articles on the same subject by different authors, comparison of two points of view on four or five articles, and full research project. (TJ)

Argues that the academic goals and commitment to interdisciplinary research as a rationale for the new University of Chicago Graduate Library School as described by Douglas Waples in "Library Quarterly" (1931) have yet to be fully achieved. It is concluded that a new graduate library school ought to be reinvented. (Author/EM)