The Survey of Academic & Research Library Journal Purchasing Practices presents data about the journals acquisitions and management practices of an international sample of academic and research libraries. The study reports on a broad range of issues, including: spending trends, use of print vs. electronic access, purchases in ¿bundles¿, purchases through consortia, the role of subscription agents, use and plans for use of open access, attitudes towards the pricing practices of a range of major journal publishers, sources of funding for journal purchases and relations with academic and administrative departments of library parent organizations, and the practical management of the journal acquisition process, among other issues.

This special report looks at the efforts of ten leading art libraries and image collections to digitize their holdings. The study reports on the efforts of The National Gallery of Canada, Cornell University?s Knight Resource Center, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, The Illinois Institute of Technology, The National Archives and Records Administration, McGill University, Ohio State University, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the joint effort of Harvard, Princeton, The University of California, San Diego, the University of Minnesota and others to develop a union catalog for cultural objects. Among the issues covered: cost of outsourcing, cost of in-house conversions, the future of 35 mm slides and related equipment, use of ARTstor and other commercial services, ease of interlibrary loan in images and the creation of a union catalog, prioritizing holdings for digitization, relationship of art libraries to departmental image collections, marketing image collections, range of end users of image collections, determining levels of access to the collection, digitization and distribution of backup materials on artists lives and times, equipment selection, copyright, and other issues in the creation and maintenance of digital art libraries.

This special report looks at the management and development of America[alpha]s thriving special collections in .lm and photography. The report pro.les the following collections: The University of Louisville, the Photographic Archives; the University of Utah[alpha]s Multimedia Collection; The American Institute of Physics[alpha] Emilio Segre Visual Archives; The News.lm Library at the University of South Carolina; The University of California, Berkeley Paci.c Film Archive; the UCLA Film and Television Archive, the Vanderbilt University Television News Archive; The National Archives and Records Administration[alpha]s Special Media Preservation Laboratory; the University of Washington[alpha]s Digital Initiatives. The report covers digitization of photographs and .lm, special collection marketing, collection procurement, funding and .nancing, approaches for optimizing both sales revenues and educational uses, development of web-based sale and distribution systems for photography and .lm, systems to assure copyright compliance, the development of online searchable databases, and many other aspects of .lm and photography special collection management.

Libraries & the Mega Internet Sites: A Survey of How Libraries Use and Relate to Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, eBay, Amazon, Facebook, YouTube & Other Mega Internet Sites.

Data in the report is based on a survey of 75 academic, public and special libraries. Librarians detail their plans on how they plan to develop their e-book collections, what they think of e-book readers and software, and which e-book aggregators and publishers appeal to them most and why. Other issues covered include: library production of e-books and collection digitization, e-book collection information literacy efforts, use of e-books in course reserves and inter-library loan, e-book pricing and inflation issues, acquisition sources and strategies for e-books and other issues of concern to libraries and book publishers.

This special report examines the management practices and business decisions of special collections libraries with a focus on rare books, manuscripts, maps, and other historical documents. The report profiles the John J. Burns Library of Rare Books and Special Collections at Boston College, the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, the L. Tom Perry Special Collections at Brigham Young University-Provo, the Huntington Library, the Newberry Library, the San Antonio Public Library, the Watkinson Library at Trinity College, the Special Collections Research Center at the University of Southern Illinois-Carbondale, and the Bancroft Library at the University of California-Berkeley. Interviews were conducted in November and December of 2007. Additional information through an online form was provided by San Jose State University Kent State University Map Library AGS Libraries, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and California State University-Chico.

Of main findings -- Departmental assessment -- Standardized testing -- Assessment office -- Student assessment of instuctors -- Evaluation of adjunct faculty -- Faculty involvement in assessment -- Tutoring -- Assessing student services -- Assessment environment -- Curriculum changes -- Use of benchmarking data -- Use of consultants and services -- Post graduation assessment -- Assessing assessment.

Of key findings. Description of university, library, and staffing -- Cataloging productivity -- New technologies, enhancement of online catalogs -- Transition to metadata standards -- Cataloging of web sites and digital, special collections -- Library catalog/ metadata training and presentation -- Database maintenance, holdings, and physical processing -- Relationship with acquisitions departments -- Staff education -- Other issues facing library cataloging staff -- Curry College -- The University of North Dakota -- Haverford College -- University of Washington -- Yale University -- Brigham Young University -- Illinois State University -- Louisiana State University -- Pennsylvania State University.

This report presents approximately 70 tables of data exploring how full time college students in the United States view and use their college library¿s e-book collection. The data in the report is based on a representative sample of more than 400 full time college students in the United States. Data is broken out by 16 criteria including gender, grade point average, major field of study, income level of students and type, size of college, and mean SAT acceptance score of colleges, among other variables. The report is designed to give college librarians, educational researchers, publishers and others critical demographic information on the student use of college library e-book collections. Just a few of the report¿s many findings are that:¿30.42% of the students in the sample say that they have received any form of in or out of class training from a college librarian in how to use the library¿s e-book collection. ¿Only a sixth of students in colleges with a mean SAT score greater than 1950 say that they have received e-book collection training from college librarians. ¿Less than 17% of community college students found library e-book collections useful or very useful.