This study investigated how school librarians perceive their status within the school by looking at factors suggested by the literature as either impacting on, or impacted by, status: their relationships with their colleagues and supervisors, their role within the school, job satisfaction, and views on their careers and their training. Most…

Reference service via instant messaging (IM) has significant potential to benefit distance learners. There has been wide experimentation with IM to expand reference services in libraries across the US, with mixed results. Concern has been expressed that IM cannot provide the same reference experience as face-to-face interactions. One academic…

A survey was conducted in Fall 2008 to determine the library use and needs of Master of Social Work students at Marywood University. Full-time, Part-time, Weekend, and Satellite students were surveyed. Survey results and implications for Marywood Library's service to nontraditional students and for the academic library community are discussed.…

This article considers two components identified as essential to effective academic library Websites--satisfaction of user needs and adherence to university Website guidelines--and how they sometimes contradict one another. A literature review is provided, followed by results of a survey the author created and distributed that measures a…

The LibQUAL+[TM] survey was conducted to determine user satisfaction and expectations concerning library service quality. The results of the "22 items and a box" constituted a rich source of information for the University of Idaho (UI) Library's strategic planning process. Focusing on graduate students, this study used three…

Reports results of a survey of 800 library staff members on aspects of library work that they find stressful. The findings include sources of satisfaction and stress for all participants, and sources of stress specific to public services librarians, technical services librarians, and support staff members. (CLB)

This study uses virtual reference transcripts for which patrons completed exit surveys to seek any correlations between user and librarian satisfaction within virtual reference transactions. By analyzing transcripts with a focus on three elements-technology performance, preferred reference practices, and the demonstrated communication levels of…

The Reference Department at the University of Colorado at Boulder provides a research consultation service to undergraduates enrolled in the mandatory introductory writing course. The Research Center is staffed by graduate students trained in providing reference assistance. Librarians in the Reference Department administered a patron satisfaction…

Student requests for online searching often show that faculty members have suggested inappropriate searches. A survey of faculty that examined their use of online searching in research and their communications to students about this research method is described, and ways in which librarians might improve the situation are suggested. The…

Analysis of user surveys at Texas A&M University indicated service is rated highest at the reference desk with 80.4% satisfied, while 55.3% found what they needed at the information desk and 55.3% in the database room. Although the information desk referred 62.5% to other sources, only 46.4% were satisfied with the referral. Includes survey…

This series of ten articles exploring users' reactions to optical data disk technologies, focuses on comparisons with online retrieval systems. The opinions of users and vendors on cost effectiveness, searchability, equipment requirements and performance, effectiveness, and efficiency are presented and discussed. (CLB)

This report on a funded project that established a chemistry research information service for researchers in the University of Houston's chemistry department provides detailed descriptions of the three objectives of the project, together with an explanation of how each objective was/is to be accomplished. These objectives were/are: (1) to document…