Book description
How do college students really conduct research for classroom
assignments? In 2008, five large Illinois universities were awarded a
Library Services and Technology Act Grant to try to answer that
question. The resulting ongoing study has already yielded some
eye-opening results. The findings suggest changes ranging from simple
adjustments in service and resources to modifying the physical layout of
the library. In this book Duke and Asher, two anthropological
researchers involved with the project since the beginning, * Summarize
the study's history, including its goals, parameters, and methodology *
Offer a comprehensive discussion of the research findings, touching on
issues such as website design, library instruction for faculty, and
meeting the needs of commuter and minority students * Detail a number of
service reforms which have already been implemented at the participating
institutions This important book deepens our understanding of how
academic libraries can better serve students' needs, and also serves as
a model for other researchers interested in a user-centered approach to
evaluating library services. Lynda M. Duke is an associate professor
and academic outreach librarian at The Ames Library, Illinois Wesleyan
University, Bloomington, Illinois. Her responsibilities include
coordinating assessment and marketing activities for the library, as
well as collection development and library instruction for the
departments of Hispanic studies, economics and business administration.
She served as Principal Investigator for the IWU research team of the
ERIAL Project. She has published on marketing topics in College &
Research Libraries and College & Undergraduate Libraries, and has
presented at ACRL, ALA, IASSIST, and NITLE. She earned her master's
degree in library and information science from the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her master's of urban planning from the
University of Michigan. Andrew D. Asher was the Lead Research
Anthropologist for the ERIAL Project. He holds a holds a PhD in
sociocultural anthropology from the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign and is currently a Council on Library and Information
Resources (CLIR) fellow for scholarly communications at Bucknell
University, where he is conducting research on faculty publication
practices and continuing his inquiries into scholarly search processes.
Dr. Asher has presented widely on using ethnography in academic
libraries (including ALA, ACRL, NITLE, ITHAKA, NERCOMP & ARL), and
teaches an ACRL seminar on ethnographic methods for librarians.
