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This inspiring book will enable academic librarians to develop excellent research and instructional services and create a library culture that encompasses exploration, learning and collaboration. Higher education and academic libraries are in a period of rapid evolution. Technology, pedagogical shifts, and programmatic changes in education mean that libraries must continually evaluate and adjust their services to meet new needs. Research and learning across institutions is becoming more team-based, crossing disciplines and dependent on increasingly sophisticated and varied data. To provide valuable services in this shifting, diverse environment, libraries must think about new ways to support research on their campuses, including collaborating across library and departmental boundaries. This book is intended to enrich and expand your vision of research support in academic libraries by: Inspiring you to think creatively about new services. Sparking ideas of potential collaborations within and outside the library, increasing awareness of functional areas that are potential key partners. Providing specific examples of new services, as well as the decision-making and implementation process. Encouraging you to take a broad view of research support rather than thinking of research and instruction services, metadata creation and data services etc as separate initiatives. Dynamic Research Support in Academic Libraries provides illustrative examples of emerging models of research support and is contributed to by library practitioners from across the world. The book is divided into three sections: Part I: Training and Infrastructure, which describes the role of staff development and library spaces in research support Part II: Data Services and Data Literacy, which sets out why the rise of research data services in universities is critical to supporting the current provision of student skills that will help develop them as data-literate citizens. Part III: Research as a Conversation, which discusses academic library initiatives to support the dissemination, discovery and critical analysis of research. This is an essential guide for librarians and information professionals involved in supporting research and scholarly communication, as well as library administrators and students studying library and information science.

Mastering the skills necessary for clear, effective writing can make writing tasks flow more easily. This book helps academic librarians who are new to the profession or new to a supervisory or management position, as well as those who want to be more productive and make the their writing for work go more smoothly. From progress reports to project plans, cover letters to case studies and book reviews to blogging, readers will find examples and how-tos for most of the types of writing they need to do in their academic library careers.Discusses the importance of style and audienceAnalyzes and guides the reader through the types of writing that academic librarians use in their everyday workIncludes information on presenting data: specifically, tables, graphs and charts

This book explores some of the roles and challenges that academic libraries face in the 21st century. Developments in certain software programs are examined, particularly as they enable library patrons to access, download, retrieve and import bibliographic records from the databases of academic universities and manage their bibliographies more efficiently and conveniently. The important roles of academic libraries in promoting the use of such bibliographic management software by providing needed facilities and organizing training courses for faculties, students and researchers are also discussed. Furthermore, today's academic libraries are often forced to enter into a significant number of licensing agreements every year for access to electronic resources. As a result, libraries may find themselves unable to provide the level of intended access to electronic resources in accordance with their goals or mission statement. This book discusses how libraries may become more cognizant of the implications that license agreements have to limit their ability to provide access to their patrons. An overview of current trends, legislation, and litigation related to fair use of intellectual property is also provided as it impacts academic libraries in the United States. Recent developments in fair use issues are explored as well, such as scholarly publishing and library electronic reserves, and examples of initiatives currently being used on campuses to retain, secure, and exercise fair use rights in the twenty-first century are given. Finally, Library of Congress subject headings (LCSH) have been a very important component of bibliographic records for many years. The use of tightly controlled vocabulary to create specific subject headings provides greater precision in subject searches to help direct patrons to the most relevant materials. The authors of this book provide feasible suggestions for future improvements in assignment and usage of LCSH to make them easier to use, understand, and apply.

Academic Library Research: Perspectives and Current Trends updates traditional topics that have undergone exceptional, and in some cases, unexpected change since 1990 as well as reaching into new areas that have developed. It combines theoretical scholarship as well as research designed to inform practice, including case studies and user surveys. Part I highlights significant perspectives and trends in five chapters including reference service, information literacy, collection management, knowledge organization, and leadership. Part II features two chapters on recently developing evaluation methods including usability testing and measuring library service quality through LibQUAL+.