The academic library plays a crucial role in the higher education system. It is the heart of the institution and serves as the primary source of information and knowledge for students, faculty, and staff. The library is a place where people come together to learn, research, and grow. It provides access to a wide range of resources, including books, journals, databases, and other materials, as well as a variety of services, such as research assistance, instruction, and technology support. The academic library's primary mission is to support the teaching, learning, and research needs of the institution. It does this by providing access to a wide range of information resources and services, such as books, journals, databases, and other materials, as well as research assistance, instruction, and technology support. The library also plays a key role in developing and delivering information literacy instruction, which helps students to become proficient in finding, evaluating, and using information effectively.

The study profiles the interlibrary loan efforts of nine leading American colleges: the University of Texas at Arlington, Tulane University, the University of Minnesota, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Brigham Young University, the University of Tennessee, Colorado State University, Oberlin College and Stony Brook University. The libraries interviewed shared their thoughts on a broad range of topics including but not restricted to: workflow management, productivity measures, departmental organization, budgets and spending trends, service to distance learning students, copyright and licensing issues, measures for special collections, automation and software use, use of institutional repositories and open access publications, shipping costs and procedures, and many other facets of academic interlibrary loan management. The purpose of the report is to define and diffuse best practices by profiling measures taken by nine leading institutions of higher education. Although the report contains much useful quantitative information, especially relating to budgets and employment, the focus in this report is on a journalistic narrative explaining departmental goals, procedures and practices and evaluating results.

Written from the perspective of a librarian, this book offers a comprehensive overview of the impact of e-books on academic libraries. The author discusses advantages to both researchers and librarians and provides current examples of innovative uses of e-books in academic contexts. This book reviews the current situation in e-book publishing, and describes problems in managing e-books in libraries caused by the variety of purchase models and varying formats available, and the lack of standardisation. It discusses solutions for providing access and maintaining bibliographic control, looks at various initiatives to publicise and promote e-books, and compares e-book usage surveys to track changes in user preferences and behaviour over the last decade. E-books have already had a huge impact on academic libraries, and major advances in technology will bring further changes. There is a need for collaboration between libraries and publishers. The book concludes with reflections on the future of e-books in academic libraries. - Describes how e-books have changed library services and how they have enabled academic libraries to align with the e-learning initiatives of their universities - Discusses problems with e-book collection development and management and lists examples of solutions - Examines trends in user behaviour and acceptance of e-books

This new series presents and discusses new and innovative approaches used by professionals in library and information practice worldwide. The authors are chosen to provide critical analysis of issues and to present solutions to selected challenges in libraries and related fields, including information management and industry, and education of information professionals. The book series strives to present practical solutions that can be applied in institutions worldwide. It thereby contributes significantly to improvements in the field.

Access Services departments in libraries have become highly complex organizations responsible for a broad range of functions, often including circulation, reserves, interlibrary lending and borrowing, document delivery, stacks maintenance, building security, photocopying, and providing general patron assistance. This book offers effective solutions to familiar problems, fresh ideas for responding to patron needs, and informed speculation on new trends and issues facing access services departments. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Access Services.

Technical Services Quarterly declared that the third edition “must now be considered the essential textbook for collection development and management … the first place to go for reliable and informative advice." For the fourth edition expert instructor and librarian Johnson has revised and freshened this resource to ensure its timeliness and continued excellence. Each chapter offers complete coverage of one aspect of collection development and management, including numerous suggestions for further reading and narrative case studies exploring the issues. Thorough consideration is given to traditional management topics such as organization of the collection, weeding, staffing, and policymaking;cooperative collection development and management;licenses, negotiation, contracts, maintaining productive relationships with vendors and publishers, and other important purchasing and budgeting topics;important issues such as the ways that changes in information delivery and access technologies continue to reshape the discipline, the evolving needs and expectations of library users, and new roles for subject specialists, all illustrated using updated examples and data; andmarketing, liaison activities, and outreach. As a comprehensive introduction for LIS students, a primer for experienced librarians with new collection development and management responsibilities, and a handy reference resource for practitioners as they go about their day-to-day work, the value and usefulness of this book remain unequaled.

This 254 page report presents data from a survey of the cataloging practices of approximately 80 North American academic libraries. In more than 630 tables of data and related commentary from participating librarians and our analysts, the report gives a broad overview of academic library cataloging practices related to outsourcing, selection and deployment of personnel, salaries, the state of continuing education in cataloging, and much more. Survey participants also discuss how they define the catalogers¿ range of responsibilities, how they train their catalogers, how they assess cataloging quality, whether they use cataloging quotas or other measures to spur productivity, what software and other cataloging technology they use and why, and how they make outsourcing decisions and more. Data is broken out by size and type of college and for public and private colleges. Just a few of the reports many findings are presented below: ¿More than 70% of the libraries in the sample say that their catalogers have salary levels that are comparable to those of public service librarians at their institutions. ¿About 27.3% of the survey participants routinely use paraprofessional staff for original cataloging. Public colleges were more than three times more likely than private colleges to use paraprofessionals for original cataloging, and larger colleges were more than twice as likely as smaller ones to do so. ¿41.56% of the libraries in the sample outsource authority control, obtaining new and updated authority records. ¿About 15.6% of the libraries in the sample outsource the cataloging of e-journals; close to 28% of research universities do so. ¿20.78% of libraries in the sample use MarcEdit or other MARC editor to preview records and globally edit to local standards prior to loading. ¿29.7% of the libraries in the sample have technical services areas that track turnaround time from Acquisitions receipt to Cataloging to shelf-ready distribution. ¿About 24.7% of the libraries in the sample use paraprofessional support staff for master bibliographic record enrichment in OCLC. Most of those doing so were public colleges and offered beyond the B.A. degree. ¿Authority control experience was considered a very important criterion for hiring by only 8.11% of survey participants, while a bit more than 35% considered it important. 21.62% considered authority control experience not so important as a hiring criterion.

The International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries (ICADL) is an annual international forum that provides opportunities for librarians, researchers and experts to exchange their research results, innovative ideas, service experiences and state-- the-art developments in the field of digital libraries. Building on the success of the first six ICADL conferences, the 7th ICADL conference hosted by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the Shanghai Library in Shanghai, China aimed to further strengthen the academic collaboration and strategic alliance in the Asia- Pacific Region in the development of digital libraries. The theme of ICADL 2004 was: Digital library: International Collaboration and Cross-fertilization, with its focus on technology, services, management and localization. The conference began with an opening ceremony and the conference program featured 9 keynote speeches and 5 invited speeches by local and international experts. During the 3-day program, 40 research paper presentations were given in 3 parallel sessions. The conference also included 6 tutorials and an exhibition. The conference received 359 submissions, comprising 248 full papers and 111 short papers. Each paper was carefully reviewed by the Program Committee members. Finally, 44 full papers, 15 short papers and 37 poster papers were selected. On behalf of the Organizing and Program Committees of ICADL 2004, we would like to express our appreciation to all authors and attendees for participating in the conference. We also thank the sponsors, Program Committee members, supporting organizations and helpers for making the conference a success. Without their efforts, the conference would not have been possible.