Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Future Is Now: Introducing Ereaders To Cuny Libraries, Stefanie Havelka, Jennifer King, Rebecca Arzola, Alevtina Verbovetskaya

Publications and Research

Amazon.com’s announcement in July 2010 that eBooks out sold print books for the previous three months indicates that eBooks are here to stay. What effect will this have on teaching and learning? Will ease of access and portability facilitate cheating and plagiarism? How will eBooks and eReaders work in an urban academic environment? Are eReaders and eBooks the new digital divide?

Faculty from the Leonard Lief Library at Lehman College will share their experience with Sony eReaders and downloadable eBooks via OverDrive. Following this presentation there will be a guided discussion on eReader and eBook issues, such as:

• How do …

The Evaluation Of Use Of Electronic Resources And Services In Academic Libraries: A Study Of E-Metrics And Related Methods For Measurement And Assessment, Kanu A. Nagra

Publications and Research

This paper presents a review of literature for the evaluation of use of electronic resources and services in Academic libraries. E-metrics and similar methods for evaluation are discussed in detail. The paper highlights how some libraries approached e-metrics to start useful evaluations and dealt with technicalities to achieve better decision making for e-collection, services and infrastructure for their library users. The evaluation of use of e-resources and services is discussed in five parts explaining application of e-metrics, different methods to capture usage data in different settings, types of data requirement by libraries, complexities and technicalities involved in measurement of usage …

Digital Repository Adoption In New York City Research Institutions, David J. Williams

Student Theses

As more scholarly and research materials are created in digital formats, institutions charged with managing, preserving, and disseminating these materials are increasingly adopting specialized software tools and environments created to fulfill these functions. Concurrently, subscriptions to serials databases provided by academic publishers are increasingly prohibitive and problematic. This paper surveys the adoption of digital institutional repositories by research institutions in the New York City region as of the Spring of 2009, and concludes that in spite of their potential advantages these systems are still not widely applied toward addressing the issues of preservation and access to their fullest potential.

Academic Libraries In Poland University Of Warsaw Library As An Example Of Library Transformation In Post-Communist Poland, Ewa Dzurak

Publications and Research

This article examines the complex changes that have occurred in Polish academic libraries, especially the University of Warsaw Library (UWL), after the fall of communism in 1989.Shortly afterwards, thanks to grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, an accelerated transformation in all library practices began. In preparation for automation, the authority file was created, introducing the process of applying international standards in bibliographic description in a new climate of interlibrary cooperation. The Library of Congress classification and access to open stacks were introduced for the first time in Poland in a newly constructed UWL building. A crowning achievement of the …

Lis Open Access E-Journal -Where Are You?, Izabella Taler

Publications and Research

Access to published information is of interest to many users. Library and information science (LIS) professionals are especially interested in gaining access and guiding users to all available information. Though they are often dependent on traditional subscription-based library resources, moving away from the costly ones and replacing them with usage of available open access sources, presents practitioners with a significant budget consideration in today's shrinking economy. This paper examines the availability of current LIS open access e-journals; their presence in well- and less-well known abstracting and indexing sources, their inclusion in standard library bibliographic tools as well as coverage by …

Selection Criteria For Academic Video Game Collections, Elisabeth Tappeiner, Kate Lyons

Publications and Research

As higher education begins to take games and gaming seriously, academic libraries will begin to build video game collections to support research and learning on campus. This article discusses their relevance in academia and proposes useful criteria for building video game collections in academic libraries.

The authors outline selection considerations for developing video game collections and propose the following criteria for selecting games: physical characteristics, teaching and learning principles present in the games, subject matter and content, and the cultural and historical value of a game.

Scholarly Monographs On Rock Music: A Bibliographic Essay, Monica Berger

Publications and Research

Purpose This article is an overview of scholarly monographs on rock music from 1980 to the present. It provides an overview to the literature for practical purposes of collections development as well as giving the reader insight into key issues and trends related to a interdisciplinary topic that attracts scholars from many disciplines in the humanities and social sciences.

Design/methodology/approach This bibliographic essay, focusing on works related to American culture and of a general nature, includes an overview and historical background; a discussion of how music and ethnomusiciological scholars approach the topic; geographic approaches; literature on four key icons (Elvis, …

From The Ubiquitous To The Nonexistent: A Demographic Study Of Oclc Worldcat, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

Analysis of a random sample of bibliographic records from OCLC WorldCat finds that the great majority of items in WorldCat are held by very few participating libraries, and that an inverse geometric relationship exists between the number of libraries holding an item and the number of items with a given level of shared holdings. The findings provide a context for interpreting holding levels in WorldCat with regard to the proportion of widely shared items and the characteristics of items at various ranges of holdings. Used with other quantitative and evaluative measures, these findings will assist libraries in assessing their collections.

The Dilemma Of Access: Describing Open Access Journals With Marc And [Other] Metadata Schemes, Monica Berger, Gloria Rohmann

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Resources For Forensic Psychology., Ellen A. Sexton

Publications and Research

Libraries supporting a forensic psychology undergraduate and/or graduate level college program need to collect materials from a range of disciplines – psychology, law, psychiatry and criminal justice. In this guide I identify the major reference works, journals, databases and other resources that should be in a good forensic psychology collection.

Freshmen's Use Of Library Electronic Resources And Self-Efficacy, Michael Waldman

Publications and Research

To encourage students' use of the library, and in particular of its electronic resources, we need to understand what factors encourage students to seek out information in the library setting. Research has shown that self-efficacy influences academic achievement. This paper looks at the role self-efficacy plays in their search for information and use of the library's electronic resources, by surveying a class of freshmen at Baruch College. Their library and computer use were analyzed and correlated with their self-efficacy scores. Through statistical analysis, we found that use of the library correlated to the students' use of the library's electronic resources. …

Inventory At Brooklyn College, 1998–1999: An Original Method, Judith Wild

Publications and Research

This article discusses the development of an inventory project at Brooklyn College that entailed examining the collection and comparing it to the corresponding records in the online catalog. The procedure became necessary in large part due to problems resulting from the migration to a new, integrated cataloging system in 1987. We needed to deal with (a) books in the catalog that were not on the shelves, (b) books on the shelves that were not in the catalog, and (c) books that lacked circulation information (item records). We used the circulation module of our integrated system to discharge every book, thereby …

Holocaust Denial And Libraries: Should Libraries Acquire Revisionist Materials?, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Historical revision is a valid practice whereby historians reinterpret the past from different viewpoints and in the light of new documents or research. Those who deny the Holocaust, however, call themselves "revisionists" in an attempt to gain scholarly legitimacy, trying to align themselves with the' historians of the 1920s and 1930s who reinterpreted the causes of the first World War. Should libraries acquire materials that deny the Holocaust, whether through purchase or donation?

Electronic Stacks: Using Web Sources In Reference Service, Di Su

Publications and Research

The awareness of Web sources in reference service has risen in recent years, as many reference librarians have become more Internet-minded. During the reference process, we often ask ourselves: can this question be answered by using the Web? The use of Web sources is expanding the amount of available reference information, enhancing individual libraries’ collection, and hence, providing better user service. There are many benefits in using the Web sources in reference service. There are also some drawbacks. Some useful Web sources are reviewed. The Web, when used properly, provides reference librarians with a valuable resource option to help improve …

The American Institute Of Physics Pricing Policy, Philip Barnett

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, And Transgender, Polly Thistlethwaite, Daniel C. Tsang

Publications and Research

The proliferation of publications in the lesbian, Gay, bisexual, and transgender press has allowed the weaving of a well-informed network of previously isolated individuals and communities, empowering and unifying lesbian, gay, and other sexual minorities," Dan Tsang and Polly Thistlethwaite wrote in the introduction to the 'Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender' section of Katzes' 1995 edition of Magazines for Libraries. This title review of the queer periodicals of the day was intended to serve as a guide and justification for 'mainstream' libraries' collection building. The number and range of titles in Thistlethwaite and Tsang's collaborative entries (1989, 1992, and …

Lesbian And Gay, Polly Thistlethwaite, Daniel C. Tsang

Publications and Research

"The lesbian and gay press has shaped and reflected the rise of gay and lesbian liberation," Dan Tsang and Polly Thistlethwaite wrote in the introduction to the 'Lesbian and Gay' section of Katzes' 1992 edition of Magazines for Libraries. This title review of the queer periodicals of the day was intended to serve as a guide and justification for 'mainstream' libraries' collection building. The number and range of titles in Thistlethwaite and Tsang's collaborative entries (1989, 1992, and 1995) far exceeded any mainstream library collection known to either of the authors who were nevertheless hopeful that libraries would expand …

Representation, Liberation, And The Queer Press, Polly Thistlethwaite

Publications and Research

Lesbian and gay people lay special claim to the power of the printed word. It is through the printed word, consumed privately and anonymously, that we often first call ourselves queer. Coming out stories are thick with accounts of self-discovery through reading and exploration in libraries.

Lesbian And Gay, Polly Thistlethwaite, Daniel C. Tsang

Publications and Research

"The time is past when librarians can assume no patron is lesbian or gay, or that there is no interest in gay research," Dan Tsang and Polly Thistlethwaite wrote in the introduction to the 'Lesbian and Gay' section of Katzes' 1989 edition of Magazines for Libraries. This title review of the queer periodicals of the day was intended to serve as a guide and justification for 'mainstream' libraries' collection building. The number and range of titles in Thistlethwaite and Tsang's collaborative entries (1989, 1992, and 1995) far exceeded any mainstream library collection known to either of the authors who …