The National Research Libraries Alliance (NRLA) (often pronounced NAR-la) was formed in 1997 by four US Government research libraries in order to "provide their research communities with a common core of scientific information." To this end, the libraries of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), National Science Foundation (NSF), and Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) sought and licensed consortium use of Science Citation Index Expanded via Web of Science, produced by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI).
As new members joined, the NRLA expanded its goals in order:
1. To broker the best prices for products and services for NRLA members and to allow members a better return on investment.
2. To improve information services and support through increased resource sharing among NRLA libraries.
3. To ensure that all NRLA members have seamless and timely access to procured information resources and services regardless of their geographic location.
4. To develop and maintain the necessary technical and administrative infrastructure for improved and timely access to NRLA resources.
5. To promote, through innovative leadership, creative approaches to acquiring and sharing information products and services among NRLA libraries.
The core of shared scientific information for NRLA remains the TORPEDO Ultra digital library system of millions of licensed journal and conference articles hosted at NRL.
The National Science Library (NSL), formerly known as the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information or CISTI, began in 1917 as the library of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). NRC is the Government of Canada's premier research and technology organization (RTO), working with clients and partners to provide innovation support, strategic research, scientific and technical services. The library took on the role of national science library unofficially in 1957 and became the official National Science Library in 1966.
Michael Gorman is a British-born librarian, library scholar and editor/writer on library issues noted for his traditional views. During his tenure as president of the American Library Association (ALA), he was vocal in his opinions on a range of subjects, notably technology and education. He currently lives in the Chicago area with his wife, Anne Reuland, an academic administrator at Loyola University.
A law library is a special library used by law students, lawyers, judges and their law clerks, historians, and other scholars of legal history in order to research the law. Law libraries are also used by people who draft or advocate for new laws, e.g. legislators and others who work in state government, local government, and legislative counsel offices or the U.S. Office of Law Revision Counsel and lobbying professionals. Self-represented, or pro se, litigants also use law libraries.
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.
The Göttingen State and University Library is the library for Göttingen University as well as for the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and is the state library for the German State of Lower Saxony. One of the largest German academic libraries, it has numerous national as well as international projects in librarianship and in the provision of research infrastructure services. In the year 2002, the SUB Göttingen won the German Library of the Year award. The directors are Thomas Kaufmann, Bela Gipp and Kathrin Brannemann.
The National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources (NISCAIR), located at New Delhi, India, was an information science institute in India founded in 2002. In 2021, the institute was merged with National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies to form National Institute of Science Communication and Policy Research (NIScPR). It operated under the umbrella of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) that comprise 38 other labs and institutes in India. The institute published several academic journals and magazines.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to library and information science:
The California Digital Library (CDL) was founded by the University of California in 1997. Under the leadership of then UC President Richard C. Atkinson, the CDL's original mission was to forge a better system for scholarly information management and improved support for teaching and research. In collaboration with the ten University of California Libraries and other partners, CDL assembled one of the world's largest digital research libraries. CDL facilitates the licensing of online materials and develops shared services used throughout the UC system. Building on the foundations of the Melvyl Catalog, CDL has developed one of the largest online library catalogs in the country and works in partnership with the UC campuses to bring the treasures of California's libraries, museums, and cultural heritage organizations to the world. CDL continues to explore how services such as digital curation, scholarly publishing, archiving and preservation support research throughout the information lifecycle.
Research data archiving is the long-term storage of scholarly research data, including the natural sciences, social sciences, and life sciences. The various academic journals have differing policies regarding how much of their data and methods researchers are required to store in a public archive, and what is actually archived varies widely between different disciplines. Similarly, the major grant-giving institutions have varying attitudes towards public archiving of data. In general, the tradition of science has been for publications to contain sufficient information to allow fellow researchers to replicate and therefore test the research. In recent years this approach has become increasingly strained as research in some areas depends on large datasets which cannot easily be replicated independently.
Data sharing is the practice of making data used for scholarly research available to other investigators. Many funding agencies, institutions, and publication venues have policies regarding data sharing because transparency and openness are considered by many to be part of the scientific method.
Music librarianship is the area of librarianship that pertains to music collections and their development, cataloging, preservation and maintenance, as well as reference issues connected with musical works and music literature. Music librarians often have degrees in both music and librarianship. Music librarians deal with standard librarianship duties such as cataloging and reference, which become more complicated when music scores and recordings are involved. Therefore, music librarians generally read music and have at least a basic understanding of both music theory and music history to aid in their duties.
CENDI is an interagency group of senior Scientific and Technical Information (STI) managers from 14 United States federal agencies. CENDI managers cooperate by exchanging information and ideas, collaborating to address common issues, and undertaking joint initiatives. CENDI's accomplishments range from impacting federal information policy to educating a broad spectrum of stakeholders on all aspects of federal STI systems, including its value to research and the taxpayer, and to operational improvements in agency and interagency STI operations.
The National Library of Economics is the world's largest research infrastructure for economic literature, online as well as offline. The ZBW is a member of the Leibniz Association and has been a foundation under public law since 2007. Several times the ZBW received the international LIBER Award for its innovative work in librarianship. The ZBW allows for access of millions of documents and research on economics, partnering with over 40 research institutions to create a connective Open Access portal and social web of research. Through its EconStor and EconBiz, researchers and students have accessed millions of datasets and thousands of articles. The ZBW also edits two journals: Wirtschaftsdienst and Intereconomics.
E-Science librarianship refers to a role for librarians in e-Science.
A library consortium is any cooperative association of libraries that coordinates resources and/or activities on behalf of its members, whether they are academic, public, school or special libraries, and/or information centers. Library consortia have been created to service specific regions or geographic areas, e.g., local, state, regional, national or international. Many libraries commonly belong to multiple consortia. The goal of a library consortium is to amplify the capabilities and effectiveness of its member libraries through collective action, including, but not limited to, print or electronic resource sharing, reducing costs through group purchases of resources, and hosting professional development opportunities. The “bedrock principle upon which consortia operate is that libraries can accomplish more together than alone.”
The UNC School of Information and Library Science(SILS) is the information school of theUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The school offers a bachelor's degree in information science, a master's degrees in library science and information science, a master's degree in digital curation, and a doctoral degree in information and library science as well as an undergraduate minor, graduate certificate programs, and a post-masters certificate.
Anita Coleman is an academic librarian, faculty and researcher in digital libraries. Coleman's research focuses on the design and organization, user behaviors and evaluation, of complex systems and interdisciplinary information infrastructures. These include digital libraries, knowledge organization systems, and open access digital repositories. Her research investigates the representation of anti-racism in Library of Congress Subject Headings and library catalogs. She is the founder of the interdisciplinary open access repository, dLIST - Digital Library of Information Science and Technology.
The German National Library of Science and Technology, abbreviated TIB, is the national library of the Federal Republic of Germany for all fields of engineering, technology, and the natural sciences. It is jointly funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the 16 German states. Founded in 1959, the library operates in conjunction with the Leibniz Universität Hannover. In addition to acquiring scientific literature, it conducts applied research in such areas as the archiving of non-textual materials, data visualization and the future Internet. The library is also involved in a number of open access initiatives. With a collection of about 8.9 million items in 2012, the TIB is the largest technology and natural science library in the world.
The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) is an American independent, nonprofit organization. It works with libraries, cultural institutions, and higher learning communities on developing strategies to improve research, teaching, and learning environments. It is based in Alexandria, VA, United States. CLIR is supported primarily by annual dues from its over 180 sponsoring institutions and 190 DLF members, and by foundation grants and individual donations.
Michael Alan Keller is an American academician and librarian. He holds an appointment at Stanford University as the Ida M. Green University Librarian and, until August 31, 2020, Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning (2018-2020).