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In today's digital and distributed information environment, engaging with users is imperative for the success of liaison librarianship in the academy's learning and research environment. Such associations require the liaison's personal approach for connecting and building relationships with clients. This paper addresses the main factors for sustaining or improving ties with users as well as the prospects for individualized working relationships by liaison librarians. It examines the validity of and rationale for adopting a more personal type of engagement to improve and extend client connections in the long term. This article also looks at how such an approach by liaisons is reflected in best practices, guidelines, and articles in the library literature. In addition, it traces literature that helps establish grounds for personal or individualized engagement in the workplace. The paper concludes with some important practical considerations and calls for more in-depth research into the liaison librarian's personal approach as an essential step for understanding and assessing the quality of liaison librarianship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As libraries experience changes in their environment, communicating to stakeholders about the changes as well as the library's mission, strategies, and responses to the changes is critical. Such communication serves well to inform how the change management integrates with the mission of the library so that stakeholders have a shared understanding of the changes taking place, as well as to build and develop their support and confidence in the organization. This study discusses findings of an exploratory analysis in which 111 Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Web sites were surveyed to gain insights into the academic library's current practices of communicating the library mission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Outpost Services Team was created at Rutgers University Libraries by the New Brunswick Libraries' Information Services Steering Group to study the demand for services at locations outside the physical library buildings. Upon the recommendation of the group, the team planned an exploratory pilot study to investigate the need for library services at campus centers --places where students and faculty members regularly gather for eating, socializing, and using other available services. A part of the main information desk of Rutgers University's Busch Campus Center was used to set up the outpost. Traditional reference-desk type of service was offered using networked digital resources. Reference statistics and feedback surveys were collected, providing data for evaluation. The pilot study was a unique endeavor to reach out to less frequent users of libraries, learn about the expectations of students and faculty, and communicate to them about how they can benefit from using library resources and services. This article presents the details of planning the pilot study and a summary of findings and conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Users often express confusion and frustration in trying to locate the full-text availability of a journal and having to check multiple it-sources and interfaces on a library' s Web site. The challenge was to seek an interim practical solution which would address this need effectively. The Social Science Journals Database and Search Engine (Soc-dbase) project demonstrates a low-cost one-stop search solution that can be easily and quickly adopted and implemented. The project involves creating a single Web interface to search a database of selected social science and sociology journal titles that include full-text online availability information. This paper presents the design and creation of the social sciences journals database that can be searched to find a journal's full-text avail- ability at the Rutgers University Libraries or on the Web. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]