Understanding faculty work practices can translate into improved library services. This study documents how education and behavioral science faculty locate, retrieve, and use information resources for research and writing and how they publish and store their research materials. The authors interviewed twelve professors using a structured interview instrument and analyzed the data. Findings cover the role of library services in scholarly research processes, as well as the use of software and technologies and the challenges faculty face.
This article discusses the accessibility of two content management systems, Berkeley Electronic Press's Digital Commons and OCLC's CONTENTdm, widely used in libraries to host institutional repository and digital collections content. Based on observations by a visually impaired student who used the JAWS screen reader to view the design and display of digital objects in both systems, we provide a general overview of the accessibility of each system. We discuss potential suggestions for accessibility-related improvements, and we offer ideas for library administrators of these systems about how to maximize the back-end configurations for accessibility.
The life of a cataloger today is in a state of flux; as libraries continue to transition from a predominately print world to a digital one, cat alogers need to secure a functional future. To do so catalogers must change their mental models to stay flexible and pertinent in an ever-changing information environment. A recent digital project undertaken at the University of Montana provides an example of how research and developments in the area of metadata and bibli ographic control have influenced cataloging and metadata work flow integration.
Collaboration is a necessity in the current library environment where time, money, and resources are limited. This is particularly noticeable for institutions housing federal government documents. In addition to keeping up with the influx of current publications, federal depository libraries must address historical documents for which bibliographic records are not readily available. This report discusses how the United States Government Printing Office and the University of Montana Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library are working together to increase access to pre-1976 United States Forest Service publications and gray literature within the same subject area.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.