Search

Research libraries traditionally have focused their efforts on building local collections to support the research needs of their organizations and providing for the discovery and use of resources within these collections. The emergence in recent years of disciplinary and institutional digital repositories presents new challenges for research libraries. One of the most significant challenges will be the need for new types of statistical assessment based on the use of extra-bibliographic facets of the content in these repositories, such as usage data, impact factors, and contextual relationships. This article summarizes the success of U. S. research libraries in creating shared standards for electronic resources statistical assessment and argues that institutional repository implementers must develop similar evaluative metrics. (Contains 1 figure.)

Research libraries were among the first to embrace and exploit the potential of the World Wide Web after its debut in the 1990s. They quickly began constructing virtual information landscapes, including policies, services, and collections that not only shaped but also defined the realms of possibility within such terrain. In their roles as both terra-formers and cartographers of these spaces, libraries generally modeled the virtual terrains as electronic counterparts of physical libraries. In recent years, gaps have materialized in the virtual terrain, meaning the landscapes they constructed do not provide certain services, resources, or possibilities expected by emerging user populations like the millennial generation. These rifts often represent fundamental disconnects between the values of today's library users and the historical, core values of libraries that shaped the first generation of online information landscapes. In this article, the authors classify those disconnects into three categories--technology, policy, and unexploited opportunities--and discuss ways academic libraries can create next-generation landscapes to address these gaps. If academic libraries want to retain and expand their usefulness for online users in the next decade of the Web, these core disconnects must be addressed today. (Contains 4 endnotes.)

Assessing universities and faculty is a continuous struggle. Academic administrators must labor year after year to gather meaningful statistics for assessment exercises such as periodic institutional accreditations, program reviews, and annual funding requests. It is hard to overstate the difficulty and complexity of compiling such data. The professional literature of higher education administration contains frequent calls over the past several decades, for better ways to measure performance in colleges and universities. One way to accomplish this is through the work of research libraries and their use of institutional repositories. Developing a standardized way to assess a university's ouput through the use of digital repository metrics is one such method to assess and compare separate institutions. This paper looks at several models that could be of use in this process.

Describes bundling MediaWiki open source wiki software into the electronic resource access strategy to enable custom content that supports online training and course-based information literacy objectives. This article will demonstrate how Florida State University has customized MediaWiki to suit the needs of faculty, students, and librarians.

This article describes the bundling of MediaWiki into the electronic resource access strategy to enable custom content that supports online training and course-based information literacy objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the proceedings of the Computers in Libraries 2000 Conference held in Washington, DC, March 15-17, 2000 at the Washington Hilton Towers. Both the content and value of the conference presentations to librarians in general and to librarians who specialize in service to undergraduate libraries are discussed. The highlights of the conference presentations and exhibits, conference costs, conference organization, and pre- and post-conference activities are presented, as well as a view of emerging trends evident at presentations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]