Looks at the lessons to be learned from the failure of Questia, formed in 1999, which claimed to offer a revolutionary on‐line research service for college students, providing access to the full texts of hundreds of thousands of books, journals, and periodicals. However, the expected numbers...

When academic journals in electronic format were introduced, librarians eagerly anticipated a drop in wildly escalating journal prices. After all, publishers incur no paper costs, no mailing costs, and no significant additional production costs in distributing an electronic equivalent to their...

Perhaps the one constant in every business is the need to cope with technological change, and libraries are no exception. In fact, libraries may be one of the most affected industries – with technological change impacting not only how libraries do business, but also what services they provide...

Bibliographic instruction has evolved from classroom sessions to present‐day online tutorials that range from brief Web pages to fully‐functional distance‐learning modules. Though libraries use a variety of tools (video clips, games, built‐in quizzes, guided screen capture, cross links,...

Purpose – Due to the abundance of blog sites, which run a gamut of topics, from personal diaries to hobbies to legal matters and so on, it is desirable to know their relevance to librarianship. Design/methodology/approach – Surveys a number of library blogs and examines the content of each...

Purpose – To show that despite libraries' tendencies to focus all their efforts – even in the online environment – on developing tools, resources, and finding aids for their patrons, some have also used the web to develop resources for staff needs. Design/methodology/approach – Surveys a...

Purpose – To outline the various metadata schemes and digital initiatives undertaken by the library community to preserve material in digital formats. Design/methodology/approach – Surveys a number of library metadata initiatives and digital repositories to illustrate that, even in the...

Purpose – To present both the pros and cons that may come from Google's recent effort to digitize vast collections from five large research libraries. Design/methodology/approach – Presents several questions and issues relevant to libraries and suggests what impact Google Print may have in...

Purpose – This article aims to introduce the numerous library web sites devoted to the issue of plagiarism. Design/methodology/approach – Surveys several web sites devoted to the issue of plagiarism and compares them against each other. The author notes the intended audience and approach in...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to remind readers that library online catalogs should be simple, easy to use, and graphically appealing if they are to be successful. Design/methodology/approach – The paper lists and examines several issues relevant to web page design and online user...