This article reports on a survey of historians and a citation analysis undertaken to revisit the questions treated in Margaret F. Stieg’s 1981 article published in College & Research Libraries. It examines which materials historians consider to be the most important and how they discover them. Their attitudes toward and use of electronic materials were also studied. Many characteristics of historians’ information needs and use have not changed in a generation: informal means of discovery like book reviews and browsing remain important, as does the need for comprehensive searches. Print continues to be the principal format. What has changed is that the advent of electronic resources has increased historians’ use of catalogs and indexes in their efforts to identify appropriate primary and secondary sources of information.

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Historians and Their Information Sources

This 2002 report offers a survey of the methods deployed at leading digital libraries to assess the use and usability of their online collections and services. Focusing on 24 Digital Library Federation member libraries, author Denise Troll Covey conducted numerous interviews with library professionals engaged in assessment.

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Usage and Usability Assessment: Library Practices and Concerns

Critically assesses the value of the Internet to the library and information science profession by examining its role in three areas: the impact on academic and scholarly periodical publishing and the dissemination of information; the contribution to reference work; and the impact on recreational reading. Concludes that the Internet will be most useful in the publication and distribution of scholarly electronic journals and reviews recent trends in Internet published electronic periodicals and the problems requiring solution, particularly those relating to bibliographic description. Commercial publishers are taking a keen interest in these developments but it remains to be seen how the academic community will react, given their past criticisms of periodical publishers. The design of electronic periodicals will probably be brought more into line with their printed counterparts. Screen layouts and display features will need to be improved to facilitate skimming and browsing and, if the hypertext linking fac...

Electronic technology and its impact on libraries

ing and indexing information management classification electronic publishing online information retrieval knowledge management

Evidence‐based Practice for Information Professionals:A Handbook

Voluminous databases contain hiddenknowledge, i.e., literatures that are logicallybut not bibliographically linked. Unlinkedliteratures containing academically interestingcommonalities cannot be retrieved via normalsearching methods. Extracting hidden knowledgefrom humanities databases is especiallyproblematic because the literature, written in“everyday”rather than technical language, lacksprecision required for efficient retrieval, andbecause humanities scholars seek new analogiesrather than causes. Drawing upon an efficaciousmethod for discovering previously unknown causesof medical syndromes, and searching inHumanities Index, a periodical index included inWILS, the Wilson Database, an illuminating newhumanities analogy was found by constructing asearch statement in which proper names werecoupled with associated concepts.

Discovering Hidden Analogies in an Online Humanities Database.

As outsourcing becomes more commonplace in libraries, the need for a authoritative guide becomes indisputable. This book, designed to give librarians a broad understanding of outsourcing issues in academic libraries, synthesizes prevailing theories on the topic and describes current outsourcing practices in all areas of librarianship. After a historical overview and a detailed analysis of the pros and cons of outsourcing, the authors outline the steps for planning and implementing a successful outsourcing program. Individual chapters cover collection development, acquisitions and serials management, cataloging, retrospective conversion, authority control, preservation, and public services and systems. A special feature of the book is a detailed survey of more than 200 academic research libraries and other academic libraries about outsourcing practices.

Outsourcing Library Operations in Academic Libraries: An Overview of Issues and Outcomes

This report summarizes the presentations that deal with issues concerning authority control in the Web environment that were given at the International Conference on Authority Control: Definition and Experiences, held in Florence, Italy, in February 2003.

Report on the “International Conference

The cataloging profession has not defined quantitative standards by which cataloging output can be uniformly measured and compared among libraries. In today's climate of decreasing budgetary resources, increasing service demands, and the need to do more with less, how do cataloging departments quantify performance expectations? In an effort to determine what cataloging production standards exist in academic libraries, a survey of selected ARL and non-ARL libraries was conducted. The survey covered library characteristics, staffing patterns, cataloging tasks, production standards, and the effect of technology on productivity. The survey revealed a lack of production standards in many libraries and a variety of standards among those that have them.

Cataloging Production Standards in Academic Libraries

The changing role of paraprofessional catalogers in academic libraries is described vis-a-vis their counterparts, the professional catalogers. Today paraprofessional catalogers are getting involved in what used to be considered "professional work." The issues of educational requirements, cataloging duties, training, and lack of acknowledgement are brought forward. The barriers encountered by paraprofessionals are presented and the changing dynamics within cataloging departments are explored.

The academic paraprofessional cataloger : underappreciated?

While Gutenberg's invention is likely to endure for some time, it is indisputable that the prominence of print is diminishing. The recently published Mellon report University Libraries and Scholarly Communication highlights the symbiosis between the humanities and the print medium. It maintains that electronic media will ultimately change the nature of the humanities and spawn a new kind of discourse with fundamentally different features. The report asserts that the shift from print to electronic media, which began in the late twentieth century, will have widespread consequences on the intellectual experience of modern society, reaching beyond print and libraries.

Claire-Lise Bénaud

Papers

Outsourcing Library Operations in Academic Libraries: An Overview of Issues and Outcomes

Report on the “International Conference

Cataloging Production Standards in Academic Libraries

The academic paraprofessional cataloger : underappreciated?

Electronic resources in the humanities