A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users.
Elsevier is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as The Lancet, Cell, the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, Trends, the Current Opinion series, the online citation database Scopus, the SciVal tool for measuring research performance, the ClinicalKey search engine for clinicians, and the ClinicalPath evidence-based cancer care service. Elsevier's products and services include digital tools for data management, instruction, research analytics, and assessment. Elsevier is part of the RELX Group, known until 2015 as Reed Elsevier, a publicly traded company. According to RELX reports, in 2022 Elsevier published more than 600,000 articles annually in over 2,800 journals; as of 2018 its archives contained over 17 million documents and 40,000 e-books, with over one billion annual downloads.
MedlinePlus is an online information service produced by the United States National Library of Medicine. The service provides curated consumer health information in English and Spanish with select content in additional languages. The site brings together information from the National Library of Medicine (NLM), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), other U.S. government agencies, and health-related organizations. There is also a site optimized for display on mobile devices, in both English and Spanish. In 2015, about 400 million people from around the world used MedlinePlus. The service is funded by the NLM and is free to users.
The Special Libraries Association (SLA) is an international professional association for library and information professionals working in business, government, law, finance, non-profit, and academic organizations and institutions.
Digital reference is a service by which a library reference service is conducted online, and the reference transaction is a computer-mediated communication. It is the remote, computer-mediated delivery of reference information provided by library professionals to users who cannot access or do not want face-to-face communication. Virtual reference service is most often an extension of a library's existing reference service program. The word "reference" in this context refers to the task of providing assistance to library users in finding information, answering questions, and otherwise fulfilling users’ information needs. Reference work often but not always involves using reference works, such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc. This form of reference work expands reference services from the physical reference desk to a "virtual" reference desk where the patron could be writing from home, work or a variety of other locations.
A health or medical library is designed to assist physicians, health professionals, students, patients, consumers, medical researchers, and information specialists in finding health and scientific information to improve, update, assess, or evaluate health care. Medical libraries are typically found in hospitals, medical schools, private industry, and in medical or health associations. A typical health or medical library has access to MEDLINE, a range of electronic resources, print and digital journal collections, and print reference books. The influence of open access (OA) and free searching via Google and PubMed has a major impact on the way medical libraries operate.
Library 2.0 is a proposed concept for library services that facilitate user contributions and other features of Web 2.0, which includes online services such as OPAC systems. The term "Library 2.0" was coined by Michael Casey in 2006 on his blog Library Crunch.
Booklist is a publication of the American Library Association that provides critical reviews of books and audiovisual materials for all ages. Booklist's primary audience consists of libraries, educators, and booksellers. The magazine is available to subscribers in print and online. It is published 22 times per year, and reviews over 7,500 titles annually. The Booklist brand also offers a blog, various newsletters, and monthly webinars. The Booklist offices are located in the American Library Association headquarters in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood.
An academic library is a library that is attached to a higher education institution and serves two complementary purposes: to support the curriculum and the research of the university faculty and students. It is unknown how many academic libraries there are worldwide. An academic and research portal maintained by UNESCO links to 3,785 libraries. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there are an estimated 3,700 academic libraries in the United States. In the past, the material for class readings, intended to supplement lectures as prescribed by the instructor, has been called "reserves". Before electronic resources became available, the reserves were supplied as actual books or as photocopies of appropriate journal articles, whereas modern academic libraries generally also provide access to electronic resources.
Library instruction, also called bibliographic instruction, user education and library orientation, consists of "instructional programs designed to teach library users how to locate the information they need quickly and effectively. [It] usually covers the library's system of organizing materials, the structure of the literature of the field, research methodologies appropriate to the academic discipline, and specific resources and finding tools " It prepares individuals to make immediate and lifelong use of information effectively by teaching the concepts and logic of information access and evaluation, and by fostering information independence and critical thinking. Above all they are aimed at equipping library users with skills to locate library sources and use them effectively to satisfy their information needs.
The Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) is a representative leadership body for university libraries in Australia. The CAUL members represent 39 Australian University Institutions and 8 New Zealand University Institutions. Membership is restricted to library directors whose parent institutions are full members of Universities Australia.
American Libraries is the flagship magazine of the American Library Association (ALA).
Transliteracy is "a fluidity of movement across a range of technologies, media and contexts". It is an ability to use diverse techniques to collaborate across different social groups.
SIGUCCS is an association of professionals who support and manage the diverse aspects of information technology services at higher education institutions by providing professional development opportunities for SIGUCCS members and other individuals in the field. SIGUCCS is one of 34 special interest groups of ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society.
With over 17,000 libraries and 2.5 billion materials circulated annually in the United States alone, libraries are a ubiquitous part of the American landscape. However, as libraries modernize, they face an increasingly harsh budget environment, as well as technological disruption in media, scholarship, and education. The political, social, and technological environment is one of transformation and uncertainty.
Learning commons, also known as scholars' commons, information commons or digital commons, are learning spaces, similar to libraries and classrooms that share space for information technology, remote or online education, tutoring, collaboration, content creation, meetings, socialization, playing games and studying. Learning commons are increasingly popular in academic and research libraries, and some public and school libraries have now adopted the model. Architecture, furnishings and physical organization are particularly important to the character of a learning commons, as spaces are often designed to be rearranged by users according to their needs.
The Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) is a professional society, founded in 1978, dedicated to promoting and advancing communication and networking among all sectors of the scholarly communications community. It has approximately 1,100 members from 24 countries including publishers, service providers, librarians, researchers, and consultants.
A campus credential, more commonly known as a campus card or a campus ID card is an identification document certifying the status of students, faculty, staff or other constituents as members of the institutional community and eligible for access to services and resources. Campus credentials are typically valid for the duration of a student's enrollment or an employee's service.
NASIG is an independent professional association of librarians and academic publishing professionals, working to advance and transform the management of information resources in all formats and business models, with an emphasis on scholarly communications, serials and electronic resources. Founded in 1985, NASIG is registered in the state of New York as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
Located in London, Ontario, Canada, the Library and Information Science (LIS) program at the University of Western Ontario offers both Masters and PhD level programs through the Faculty of Information and Media Studies (FIMS). Its Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) program is one of seven Canadian MLIS programs currently accredited by the American Library Association (ALA). Both the PhD and Masters programs in Library and Information Sciences at Western FIMS emphasize research skills development, engagement with professional literature, information technology learning, and professional career preparedness.
