This study evaluates whether or not community college libraries have in place the characteristics necessary to develop digital branch libraries to meet the expanding and changing needs of their publics. Using Hon and Grunig's (1999) relationship building criteria as a framework, 98 community college library websites were analyzed to determine…

When looking for ways to improve library services, we considered what data sources were readily available to us and how we could harvest and use this data. We investigated three years of chat reference statistics at Central Michigan University, a large research institution, to gain a better understanding of our patrons' chat behavior. We then…

This study uses three cohorts of first-time, full-time undergraduate students (N = 8,652) at a large, metropolitan, public research university to examine the impact of student use of three library resources (workstations, study rooms, and research clinics) on academic performance. To deal with self-selection bias and estimate this impact more…

This study surveyed librarians and staff at Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member institutions to determine who assembles social justice guides (that is, LibGuides), what motivated the creation of such guides, and how these guides are deployed. Additionally, the survey gauged employee perceptions of library and institutional responses to…

Birmingham City University's Library and Learning Resources' strategic aim is to improve student satisfaction. A key element is the achievement of the Customer Excellence Standard. An important component of the standard is the mapping of services to improve quality. Library and Learning Resources has developed a methodology to map these…

The attractiveness of social networking sites (SNSs) has extended to almost all professionals in numerous human organizations including the library. Librarians as a result of this development are now making use of these sites to connect to other libraries and librarians both within and outside their environment. However, it is observed that the…

In September 2011, Flinders University Library launched FindIt@Flinders, the Primo discovery layer search to provide simultaneous results from the Library's collections and subscription databases. This research project was an exploratory case study which aimed to show whether students were finding relevant information for their course learning and…

Reference librarians are constantly balancing their reference duties against other duties, for example, collection development and departmental liaison. The author works as a reference librarian at Texas A&M University-Commerce Libraries in Commerce, Texas. The university has approximately 11,000 students, a large number of whom are…

The word "evaluation" often strikes fear in people, but the author is different. She has always been a person who thought of evaluation, in any form, as a way to make her better and help her strive for excellence. So naturally when her library supervisor announced at a meeting that they were going to do the American Association of School…

The academic library profession is being redefined by the shifting research and scholarly landscape, the transformation in higher education, and advances in technology. A survey of librarians working in Canada's research-intensive universities was conducted to explore new and emerging roles. This study focuses on librarians' activities in:…

As Vietnamese universities have gradually shifted their investment into research development, the roles and duties of librarians have also changed. Academic librarians not only provide research support but also can contribute to the research performance of their university. This study explores the research participation of librarians at Vietnamese…

Higher education libraries have traditionally sought to be able to demonstrate the impact their services have on student attainment. This is particularly important in the current economic climate where libraries frequently have to defend their budgets in the face of financial constraints, whilst needing to demonstrate better value for money to…

The University of Michigan Library wanted to learn more about the kinds of searches its users were conducting through the "one search" search box on the Library Web site. Library staff conducted two investigations. A preliminary investigation in 2011 involved the manual review of the 100 most frequently occurring queries conducted…

Library 2.0 is a change in the way libraries interact with their users. Technological developments on the Web have had a major influence on these changes. The change also places new requirements on librarians' competencies and skills. This research investigates how librarians themselves see this change in terms of their work identity and working…

An analysis of Quebec academic libraries' direct reciprocal borrowing statistics from 2005 to 2010 reveals that the physical distance separating universities plays an important role in determining the amount of direct reciprocal borrowing activity conducted between institutions. Significant statistical correlations were also seen between the…