Many librarians evaluate local Interlibrary Loan (ILL) statistics as part of collection development decisions concerning new subscriptions. In this study, the authors examine whether the number of ILL article requests received in one academic year can predict the use of those same journal titles once they are added as library resources. There is…

Database cancellation is one of the most difficult tasks performed by a librarian. This may seem counter-intuitive but, psychologically, it is certainly true. When a librarian or a team of librarians has invested a great deal of time doing research, talking to potential users, and conducting trials before deciding to subscribe to a database, they…

Academic libraries continue to face funding pressures compounded by the need to provide students with access to electronic resources, both in journal and book formats. With space constraints and the need to repurpose library space to other uses, libraries must carefully examine the move to e-only formats for books to determine if the format makes…

Today's electronic information landscape is growing exponentially with no signs of slowing. This poses a significant challenge for academic libraries. Librarians must continually learn and adapt to harness this explosion of resources. To fulfill their claim as the leaders in the information field they must be effective in providing access and…

The ebook ecosystem has experienced many changes recently--having both positive and negative effects for the school library. On the positive side, many publishers have stopped seeing ebooks as the coming of the Apocalypse; instead, they are seeing that the publishing business survives and, indeed, flourishes. The different actors in this arena are…

This bibliographic essay examines the difficulties associated with the selection, licensing, acquisition, and management of e-books in academic libraries. The potential advantages of e-book technology are likely to be realized only to the extent that they advance the economic goals of e-book suppliers and are consistent with the legal framework…

Librarians are familiar with the single-line form, the consolidated index, which represents a very large portion of a library's print and online collection. Their end users are familiar with the idea of a single search across a comprehensive index that produces a large, relevancy-ranked results list. Even though most patrons would not recognize…

In 2011 the University of Wollongong Library undertook a significant review of its Resource Sharing services. This was prompted by constraints in the systems supporting this service, changes to the Library's key suppliers, Infotrieve Australia and the British Library Document Supply Service, and the need to deliver effective library services…

A desire for more functionality seemed to clash with the fiscal reality of limited funds, but after investigating alternatives, Mount Saint Mary College was able to provide its faculty and students with a more useful and function-rich electronic resource management through a move to a hosted open source service. (Contains 8 figures.)

This article describes how York University analyzed the results from its 2010-11 implementation of the Measuring the Impact of Networked Electronic Services for Libraries survey to measure value of investments in e-resources. The results were assessed through two variables: e-resources used by faculty when carrying out funded and non-funded…

According to the recent survey of Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), one of the several top trends in publishing nowadays is the licensing liberalization among publishers. Licensing options now abound and there are various price points for libraries considering new collections. One such example is how SAGE offers…

Collection development librarians have long struggled to meet user demands for new titles. Too often, required resources are not purchased, whereas some purchased resources do not circulate. E-books selected through patron-driven plans are a solution but present new challenges for both selectors and catalogers. Radical changes to traditional…

Introduction: Our aim is to compare the advantages and problems of e-book acquisition identified in research literature to those experienced by two Swedish university libraries. Method: A literature review was used to identify the main issues related to acquisition of e-books by academic libraries. The data for comparison were collected through…

In 2005, the authors reviewed citation help in databases and found an error rate of 4.4 errors per citation. This article describes a follow-up study that revealed a modest improvement in the error rate to 3.4 errors per citation, still unacceptably high. The most problematic area was retrieval statements. The authors conclude that librarians…

Library staff members should ultimately base their purchasing choices on the mission statements of their employing institutions. Fortunately, library mission statements have much in common. Undoubtedly, for example, all libraries have a goal that includes "serve the information needs of the community," because on some level, all libraries are…