This paper argues that medium for information access becomes central to library and information science. The author discusses the notion of medium, medium neutrality, and personalization and suggests that the dominating paradigm of providing fast, efficient, and neutral systems and services for retrieving information has sidetracked opportunities…

Some librarians embrace discovery tools while others refuse to use them. This lack of consensus can have consequences for student learning when there is inconsistent use, especially in large-scale instruction programs. The authors surveyed academic librarians whose institutions have a discovery tool and who teach information literacy classes in…

Librarians regularly encounter students who struggle to understand and apply information literacy concepts. A qualitative survey administered to information literacy practitioners asked about troublesome content and analyzed results using the threshold concepts pedagogical framework first described by Jan Meyer and Ray Land. A threshold concept…

This article summarizes the author's dissertation regarding search strategies of millennial undergraduate students in Web and library online information retrieval systems. Millennials bring a unique set of search characteristics and strategies to their research since they have never known a world without the Web. Through the use of search engines,…

As individuals become more and more comfortable mediating all kinds of situations online and through various technologies, their virtual selves increasingly overlap their "real" lives. Posting a "happy birthday!" message on Facebook is as automatic as dropping a card in the mail. E-mailing relevant links to co-workers happens as naturally as…

Web site usage statistics are a widely used tool for Web site development, but libraries are still learning how to use them successfully. This case study summarizes how Morris Library at Southern Illinois University Carbondale implemented Google Analytics on its Web site and used the reports to inform a site redesign. As the main campus library at…

ScanGrants (www.scangrants.com) is a free, online listing of grants, scholarships, and other types of funding in the health sciences. It is basically a launch pad for anyone looking for money to fund medical research or community/public health projects, or to finance their education in various healthcare fields. The goal is to enable researchers,…

Presents 10 tips librarians and media specialists can use in taking a query-based approach to teaching users how to search the Web. Steps for searching include: defining the nature of the quest; choosing the most useful tool; and constructing the proper search statement. A sidebar lists 17 search tools with their URLs. (AEF)

An instruction program that covers search tools on the Web should incorporate a user's information need as the basis for teaching these tools. This article lays the theoretical groundwork for such a query-based approach, deriving its argument from the literature published in the early days of databases in libraries. A review of recent literature…