Ellysa Stern Cahoy

Meeting the needs of remote library users

Many higher education institutions now offer virtual delivery of academic programs via the Internet and the World Wide Web, and cater to the needs of growing numbers of distance education students. Before an academic library can adequately address the needs, preferences, and expectations of its remote patrons, however, it needs to understand the peculiarities and challenges of serving patrons at a distance. Penn State University’s World Campus (a virtual campus) is one of the leading distance education institutions in the USA, and its libraries are among those actively engaged in ascertaining the needs of remote library users and developing services and resources to meet these needs. A portrait of library resources and services available to World Campus students is presented, and results of a survey conducted to assess Penn State World Campus students’ perceptions, expectations and use of Web‐based library resources are reported. A key finding is that students are pleased with the quality and availability of library services, but not fully partaking of the vast array of services and collections.

Personal Library Curation: An Ethnographic Study of Scholars' Information Practices

This paper presents findings of a Mellon Foundation–funded study conducted at Penn State University in University Park during Fall 2012 that explored scholars’ information practices across disciplines encompassing the sciences, humanities, and social sciences. Drawing on results of the Web-based survey and ethnographic interviews, we present findings related to academics’ practices in discovering, storing, citing, and archiving information, as well as their views on the role of library in the digital age. The paper harvests a comparative multidisciplinary perspective of our study, identifying principles and technical architecture that support digital scholarship and facilitate the development of literacies for faculty personal information management.

Library use in the E-learning environment : A profile of Penn state's world campus faculty and students

ABSTRACT Are the library needs and expectations of students and faculty at a distance different than those of on-campus students and faculty? This article details and synthesizes the results of two studies conducted to assess Penn State Universitys World Campus students and faculty perceptions, expectations and use of Web-based library resources and services. The results provide insight into challenges and issues surrounding service to a virtual academic community. This article will highlight which library resources and services were rated as being the most valuable and important to World Campus users, and how the combined results of the two studies illuminate a widely applicable path for further development of library services to patrons at a distance.