Reference transactions in academic libraries have been on the decline since mid-1990. The Academic Library Survey from the National Center for Education Statistics shows an average drop of 25% in reference use from 1996-2004 with higher numbers at some institutions such as the University of Maryland which plummeted 47% (Martell, 2008). The…

The growing pressures and the complex conditions which now bear upon research libraries are not adequately reflected in the development of policies, plans or current service activities. In the place of current, reliable, and extensive information which might be reflected in decisions and actions, librarians seem to operate normally on the basis of…

To what extent is the print reference collection being used? Use of the print collection at a small private university was tracked for a four-month period. The results suggest that the reference collection is too big and underused.

This study examines the holdings of ARL libraries for core reference titles to see if there is a trend towards canceling the print in favor of electronic, and discusses the implications of duplication of titles in both formats. It also looks at the issue within the context of several areas of study including general reference, arts and humanities,…

Various normalization techniques to transform journal impact factors (JIFs) into a standard scale or range of values have been reported a number of times in the literature, but have seldom been part of collection development librarians' tool kits. In this paper, JIFs as reported in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) database are converted to…

To date, only a small number of articles have been written about the information literacy needs of social work students. This is a topic that needs to be addressed more among librarians because of the emergence of the evidence-based practice paradigm within the social work profession. Now more than ever, social work students need to know…

A guide to educational research and reference materials is presented for use at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, library. The materials covered include guides, overviews, dictionaries and encyclopedias, bibliographies, periodical indexes and abstracts, book reviews, unpublished research, tests and measurement tools, research reviews,…

Offers principals practical advice about writing for audiences other than the school community. Aspiring authors should look at hobby-related magazines and consult reference sources such as "The Writer's Market,""The Writer,""The Writer's Digest," and "The International Directory of Small Presses" for valuable writing and publishing tips. (MLH)

An evaluation of the Shock bibliography, which appears regularly in the Journal of Gerontology was conducted in two modes: first, a survey of use and satisfaction of user needs among a 25 percent random sample of teaching and research faculty of the Faye McBeath Institute on Aging and Adult Life at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and second,…

This study investigated the accuracy of these services: whether they excluded sources in which a journal was actually indexed; and whether the journals accurately reported which services indexed them. (Author/JAB)

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…

Describes and discusses an experiment in the teaching of social sciences bibliography which focuses on the scholarly research process and involves the students directly in the research activities and bibliographic requirements of individual scholars. (Author/LS)

This annotated bibliographic guide to basic reference sources for the study of the history of the United States up to the mid-20th century concentrates on the traditional disciplines of history, such as constitutional, diplomatic, economic and social history, and biography. Annotated entries appear in one of five sections of sources: (1)…

A study to determine which reference works are most widely held, the age breakdown of reference holdings, and the relationship between size of school and size of reference holdings in a sample of schools with centralized media programs in Illinois. (Author/LS)

Education majors are shown how to utilize library resources. (MF)