New Releases from ARL

• Graduate Student and Faculty Spaces and Services, SPEC Kit 308 – this SPEC Kit “explores the variety of resources and services being delivered to or envisioned for graduate students and faculty by ARL member libraries. Recently, ARL libraries have begun to experiment with an enriched set of spaces and services to meet the complex teaching, learning, and research needs of graduate students and faculty. Some libraries have introduced small sanctuaries (study rooms or lounges) for graduate students and faculty as distinctly separate from undergraduate spaces. Others are providing new suites of services, such as dissertation support, curriculum design, and learning-object design. In some cases, the services are offered in collaboration with other campus units--perhaps the Faculty Development Office, the Learning Technology Office, or Campus Computing. The new services and spaces may be localized in a discrete area (sometimes called a "Research Commons" or "Faculty Commons") or opportunistically distributed across the library system.” The table of contents and executive summary from this SPEC Kit are available online at http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/spec308web.pdf
• Research Library Virtual Resources and Instructional Initiatives: Survey Results – “the results of a survey that explores ARL member libraries' innovations in virtual resource development and instructional programming. ARL libraries are setting a rapid pace for experimentation as they replace or supplement traditional information literacy classes with a variety of library engagements in classrooms, through course management systems, and in the virtual spaces inhabited by students and faculty. Respondents to this survey conducted by ARL during the late winter and early spring of 2008 described a widely varied landscape of instruction initiatives. … The complete survey responses are available on the ARL Web site, organized (1) by subtopics that emerged in the responses and (2) alphabetically by institution; see http://www.arl.org/rtl/roles/vrii/. Please note that key-word searching can be applied to the PDF of the complete survey results. A summary of the responses is also available as "Research Library Instruction Initiatives: Varied, Evolving, Shaped by Local Cultures," by Crit Stuart, in ARL: A Bimonthly Report, no. 261 (Dec. 2008): 5-8, http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/arl-br-261-vrii.pdf."
• Mobile Technologies, Mobile Users: Implications for Academic Libraries – “The implications of mobile technologies and mobile users for academic libraries is highlighted in the current issue of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Bimonthly Report, no. 261.” http://www.arl.org/resources/pubs/br/br261.shtml
• The Global Economic Crisis and Its Effect on Publishing and Library Subscriptions: ARL Issues Statement to Scholarly Publishers and Vendors – “a statement on the current global economic crisis and its effect on publishing and library subscriptions. The ARL statement, which is aimed at scholarly publishers and vendors, reinforces some of the key points in a recent statement by the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) and offers additional observations and recommendations from the perspectives of ARL member libraries.” http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/economic-statement-2009.pdf