Reference Resources in Irish Literature

This essay divides Irish reference resources into a number of different categories. Given the advances in online reference tools, Internet resources, whatever their type, are treated in the first section. The next section looks at various kinds of reference tools traditionally available in print — handbooks, bibliographies, indexes, and so forth. The essay concludes with an extensive discussion of journals, which are valuable resources for up-to-date reference information as well as for criticism and researc

Teaching Tough Stuff: Teaching Students to Locate and Use Statistics on International Telecommunication Systems

The comparative study of national telecommunication systems requires up-to-date statistical information. These data might include the number of radio and television stations and receivers, daily and nondaily newspapers, scholarly and popular periodicals, telephones, and the like. The telecommunication scholar teaching a course on comparative national systems or independently researching this field and, of course, the librarian charged with providing the bibliographic support of either effort must necessarily develop ingenious strategies for obtaining recent statistics. Only the most comprehensive research collections will possess more than a handful of statistical compilations for the world's developing nations. Indeed, for many nations an equivalent to the Statistical Abstract of the United States might be unavailable or perhaps nonexistent

Profiling Vendor Performance

Giving a single wholesaler virtually all of the Knox College Library's firm orders, in return for promises of better delivery and discount, necessitated a change in the method of evaluating wholesaler performance. Unable to compare our vendor with his competitors, we instead attempted to profile the vendor's performance, coding the firm orders by response time in weeks and then arranging them by accounts (or subject areas) and by publishers. This method allowed us to identify specific strengths and weaknesses in our vendor's stock and to determine how well he could serve the particular needs of the library. About thirty-six hundred orders in twenty-nine accounts (or subject areas) and forty trade and academic publishers were analyzed, with the results indicating that, despite the vendor's claims for the comprehensiveness of his stock, in fact, only 40 to 50 percent of our orders could be filled from his stock, and, furthermore, his performance with regard to both subjects and publishers varied as much as 50 percent. The findings suggest that order periods should be shortened from twenty or twenty-four weeks to sixteen or twelve weeks to encourage delivery and that a vendor's performances with specific subjects and publishers should be considered before placing orders

Managing Collections Between the Chemists and the Consortium: Assessment, Engagement, and Creativity

Managing The Ohio State University Libraries' collection of chemistry journals within OhioLINK's consortial environment mixes objective assessment with engaging the chemistry faculty and the consortium. Basing collection decisions on hard facts has the immediate goal of cost-effectiveness. The most effective technique is a mediated three-party dialogue of the library managers, the chemistry faculty, and the consortium with the long-term goal of reforming scholarly communication. Many methods to assess electronic journals are available, such as article download statistics, impact factors, Eigenfactors, cost per article and cost per citation data, and engaging faculty input. The reality, however, is that high subscription costs do not diminish the importance of chemistry journals to the faculty. Assessment of consortial electronic journal subscription packages is crucial to managing collection content effectively, but library managers and chemistry faculty often disagree about the appropriate assessment method. The most effective approach is a combination of several assessment methods coupled with clear and open communication of the facts. Communicating the results of the assessment techniques is more than a matter of giving the faculty the bad news. The most effective and credible assessment methodology always includes communicating faculty input to the consortium. Difficult decisions are easier to make, announce, and live with when all stakeholders openly share information

Modeling an Academic Approval Program

The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of Robert S. Baker, Information Analyst at Oregon State University, in creating the illustrations for figures 1 and 2.A model for core-collection development appropriate for large and medium-sized research libraries is proposed. A strategy of mechanical selection is suggested that will ensure the quality of core selection as well as release selectors from the burden of core selection so they might spend more time identifying difficult material