The May, 2011 Issue of C&RL News is Now Available Online (Free)

From a Blog Post/Introduction:

The May 2011 issue of C&RL News is now freely available online. In the nearly four years since ACRL published Studying Students: The Undergraduate Research Project at the University of Rochester, ethnographic research in academic libraries has grown in popularity. In this month’s issue, Gina Hunter and Dane Ward, anthropologist and librarian respectively at Illinois State University, outline their “Students research the library” project and discuss how formal ethnographic research can inform library spaces and services.

Not all student-centered projects need to be formal research studies however. Librarians from the University of Maine discuss their more informal methods of gathering information from students for marketing and planning in their article “Imagine: A student-centered library.” Student input can also come in handy in evaluating library services. Candice Benjes-Small and Elizabeth Kocevar-Weidinger reveal that student help is one the “Secrets to successful mystery shopping” in the library context.

Many libraries are experimenting with reaching out to students through social media efforts such as video. But producing video that both appeals to students and gets across the library’s message can be difficult. Anali Maughan Perry provides great tips for video production in her article “Lights, camera, action!”

E-books continued to be a hot topic of conversation at the recent ACRL 2011 conference in Philadelphia. In this month’s Scholarly Communication column, Ellen W. Faran, director of the MIT Press, discusses an AAUP report on “Sustaining scholarly publishing” in the era of new online publishing models for monographs.

Make sure to check out the other features and columns this month, including an essay on “Lifelong learning” beyond the library degree, Internet Resources on human rights, and the second installment of our profiles of the 2011 ACRL award winners.

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