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The article announces several grants and acquisitions awarded to academic libraries throughout the United States as of July 2015, including an infrastructure grant to New York University (NYU) Libraries by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, a donation of Western Shoshone records to the University of Nevada-Reno Library, and the donation of the personal materials of jazz pianist Erroll Garner to the University of Pittsburgh Library System.

Provides background information on the 1999 `Guidelines for Media Resources in Academic Libraries,' adopted by the Association of College and Research Libraries. Purpose of the guidelines; Evolution of the guidelines between 1987 and 1999; Efforts to develop the guidelines; Members of the committee behind the guidelines' development.

Features the seminar `Europe East & West: New Resources for North American Libraries,' sponsored by the Western European Specialists and the Slavic and East European sections of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). Speakers; Topics discussed.

Reports on the sponsorship of four speakers by the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). Names of the speakers; Topics on library collections discussed.

The article discusses the highlights of the American Library Association's (ALA) Virtual Town Hall on Ebooks held on October 23, 2013. ALA President Barbara Stripling discussed ALA's successes from the past two years and the plans to address the challenges ahead. ALA Immediate Past-President Maureen Sullivan recounted the bleak situation for libraries seeking to grow their ebook collections in 2011-2012. It also points out libraries' problems like high prices and limited availability of titles.

The article announces that the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) will host several online seminars in 2012 including "Environmental Control and Monitoring," "Collections Security," and Care and Handling of Paper-Based Materials."

The article looks at the increasing prices of academic journal subscriptions, focusing on how university librarians are forced to either renegotiate with scholarly publishers or discontinue their subscriptions. The author notes that price increases for academic periodicals have surpassed the level of inflation in previous years.

This section offers news briefs relating to issues in higher education. A correlation between investments in university library collections and grant income is discussed in an independent study led by Carol Tenopir and funded by the journal publisher Elsevier. A report from the Open University in Wales calls for the Welsh government to reduce business rates for companies that help to pay for their employees to study. A legal framework has been approved to allow the London Universities Purchasing Consortium (LUPC) to maximize members' purchasing power.

Increasing demand for biotechnology and biomedical resources prompted the Engineering Library at the University of Colorado at Boulder (UCB) to complete a collection assessment of the journals, books, and other resources provided by the University Libraries. This paper presents a variety of methods for evaluating library collections and describes several online collection analysis tools that can facilitate the process. UCB's collection was compared to other university libraries and several bibliographic review sources. Various collection analysis tools including the Journal Citation Reports Science Edition 2006, Ulrich's Serials Analysis System, and Spectra Dimension were used to evaluate the collection. This collection analysis fostered awareness of the resources that UCB already owned and informed the University Libraries about gaps in the existing collection. The findings led to the revision and expansion of the collection development policies for several subjects related to biotechnology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the plan of the University of Oxford in England to establish a storage facility for low-demand publications near Swindon in 2009. The city council refused to grant permission to build a book depository on Osney Mead in 2008. Bodley's librarian and library services director Sarah Thomas cited that Oxford could now proceed with its plans for renovation of the New Bodleian and modernisation of library services. The university seeks to turn the New Bodleian into a library and research centre focusing on modern special collections.

This article announces the launch by Boise State University of the Albertsons Library Digital Collections website in late February 2009. The collections currently included in the site are Historic Boise State, Len Jordan Collection, and the Western Writers Series Digital Editions. Particular focus is given to the impetus of building publicly accessible digital collections. There is a plan to add photograph collections formed around the lives and careers of Senator Frank Church, Idaho explorer Robert Limbert, and silent filmmaker Nell Shipman.

We report on a citation analysis of Ph.D. dissertations in plant biology and zoology at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, undertaken to test the common assumption that scientists favor current research to such an extent that journal backfiles can be de-emphasized in academic library collections. Results demonstrate otherwise. The study is reproducible for any institution, and can help to evaluate 1) the value of electronic journal backfiles and 2) the need to maintain print backfiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article features Jenica Rogers-Urbanek, author of the blog Attempting Elegance. She is the collection development coordinator and technical services team leader for the College Libraries at the State University of New York-Potsdam. She has been a regular Computers in Libraries conference-goer for years, and in 2008 she is thrilled to be presenting as part of the Academic Libraries 2.0 Preconference. She hopes to share some of what she has learned, hear some interesting presentations, connect with old friends, make some new ones, and try to find the technology application that will make her library's services better.

This article describes my efforts in organizing the "National Center for Biotechnology (NCBI) Field Guide" workshop in March 2006 and four NCBI mini-courses in April 2007 at Iowa State University. It also includes an overview of academic libraries that are providing bioinformatics support and summarizes library involvement in hosting NCBI courses. A discussion of how hosting the NCBI courses has influenced my collection development, instruction, and liaison activities and suggestions to librarians about how to get involved with bioinformatics is also included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides an overview of the digital collections development in the University of Washington (UW) libraries. The author describes the materials used in the UW libraries digital collections, including digitized photographs, exhibits, and essays. According to the author, the collections include information about Native Americans.

The article reports that the Libraries Department of Special Collection, Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas (KU) has acquired the Collmer Collection. The collection features more than 700 works of Christian writer and preacher John Bunyan and was assembled by Professor Emeritus Robert Collmer of Baylor University. Meanwhile, former KU librarian Barbara Backus McCorkle has donated geography texts, gazetteers, and geographical dictionaries related to the Collmer Collection.

The article reports on several grants and acquisitions in academic libraries. The California State University-Northbridge library received a grant of $39,000 in order to digitize its collection of classical guitar scores. The Comic Arts Collection at the Virginia Commonwealth University has acquired the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards Archives. The papers of the Joseph E. Persico, author of several influential books on American politics, have been acquired by the University at Albany, State University of New York.

This article reports that the James Stevens-Cox STC-SIGLA collection of 16th- and 17th-century books, offered by the Maggs Bros Ltd., was acquired by the Ohio State University's Rare Books and Manuscripts Library. The 49 titles of the collection represent the most rare volumes of Stevens-Cox's total collection and those for which he is listed as private owner in the revised edition of the “Short Title Catalogue”. These volumes include mainly theological and religious works plus some history, politics, and cartography. The acquisition is significant because of the extreme rarity of most of the collection's titles, which represent popular or ephemeral works in small-format editions that typically do not survive.

Reports that the Lilly Library at Indiana University has acquired the literary papers of Kurt Vonnegut, author of `Slaughterhouse Five' and `Player Piano.' Comments of Lilly librarian Lisa Browar on Vonnegut's literary contributions.

Reports on the endowment received by Anglo State University from Eva Camunez Tucker for the West Texas Collection of its library. Use of the gift to start an endowment fund; Use of fund interest to supplement the salary of the person in charge of collection development.

Reports on the acquisition of a collection of 17th and 18th-century astronomy books by the Milton S. Eisenhower Library at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Collection highlights.

Reports acquisition of two collections reflecting the experiences of Japanese American community in Sacramento region by the library at California State University, Sacramento. Information on the Florin Japanese American Citizens League Oral History Project.

Information about the Friends of Centenary College, a group organized to foster interest in the Library of Centenary College, Shreveport, Louisiana is presented. Information about membership in the organization is given. The article also reports on the group's efforts to promote acquisitions of books and archival materials, sponsor exhibitions and lectures, and form endowments.

Several letters to the editor are presented in response to the article "The Case for Textbooks," published on the website of the publication on February 17, 2010.

The article reports on the release of the UM Digital Collections Portal, a repository that serves the teaching and research mission of the University of Maryland Libraries in College Park. The release of the repository also marks the integration of electronically available finding aids, ArchievesUM, into the repository architecture, creating a framework for digital objects to be dynamically discovered from finding aids. It is also based on the Fedora platform, uses Lucene for indexing, and Helix for streaming video.

The article discusses the upgraded library facility of the University of Melbourne in Australia through the Metalsistem Super 1/2/3 Series Storage System from Metalsistem Australia. It states that the multi-tier storage module was built and designed by architects and engineers to meet the university's requirements. Moreover, it says that the installed Super 1/2/3 Series two-tier module is consists of 1,300 bays of shelving with an approximate covering of 14,400 square meters floor space.

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "The Case for Textbooks," published February 17, 2010 in the publication's online version, AL Online.

In this article the authors argue for the inclusion of college textbooks in academic library collections. They respond to a case presented against their inclusion in an article by Bonnie Imler in the November, 2009 issue. They remark on topics including textbook shortages in college bookstores and the importance of responding to the needs of library patrons.

The article reports on the agreements signed by BookSurge in June 2006 that will increase the selection of historical contents available to the users of Amazon.com. Both Cornell University Library and Thomson-Gale will join the University of Michigan Library Scholastic Publishing Office as organizations participating in Amazon's Print-On-Demand program. The program aims to empower libraries, museums, and archives to publish their collections. Furthermore, the program removes the economic barriers linked with traditional book publishing.

Presents information about archives and collections. Collection of materials, including photographs, letters and newspaper clippings relating to American poet Ezra Pound, which will be stored at St. Andrews Presbyterian College, Laurinburg, North Carolina; Agreement between the Frick Foundation and University of Pittsburgh to make the university a preferred site for a portion of the archives relating to Henry Clay Frick.