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To provide a case study focusing on efforts Lied Library has undertaken in collection development and management, space utilization, electronic access, web site revisions, and staff training in government publications.

The construction of and move into Lied Library have coincided with major developments in the production and dissemination of federal, state and local government publications and other information products. Among them is a trend away from print publications and toward “born‐digital”, electronic‐only publications. At the same time, space utilization issues have become even more critical in the new building. This article will explore the ways in which these developments and the new technologies available both within Lied Library and elsewhere are shaping the management and use of the print collections, collection development practices and bibliographic control of government information and public access.

This article highlights activities that have been undertaken over the past two years in Lied Library to make the government information collection more user‐friendly.

The article only highlights activities that have been undertaken at UNLV Libraries regarding government information resources, not on developments and challenges in other parts of the UNLV Libraries.

This article provides a useful case study focusing on one academic library's attempt to make government information resources more accessible to both library staff and users.

This article highlights and identifies Lied Library's experiences in making government information more accessible to both staff and patrons and discusses issues such as storage, evaluating the collection, cataloging, training staff and users, and revising the government information web site. Libraries may be able to use similar techniques in making their government resources more accessible to clientele.

This paper seeks to provide a model for creating podcasts to promote academic library resources and services, with an emphasis on government documents collections.

This paper describes the Mississippi State University (MSU) Libraries' project to develop podcasts that promote the Libraries' numerous resources and programs to the University's students, faculty and staff. Specifically, the paper discusses the Government Documents and Microforms Department's involvement in this project.

The Government Documents and Microforms Department's three podcast links received a total of 64 hits during the first three months the MSU Libraries' podcasts were available (September 2006‐November 2006). This is in comparison with the 4,318 hits the Department's six major online resources received during the same period.

This paper will allow academic librarians to gain a basic knowledge of the podcast technology, identify possible resources from their own libraries to advertise via the podcast medium, and learn strategies for creating podcast scripts to promote both government and non‐government information resources.

By subscribing to podcast feeds that describe library resources or events, patrons can learn more about these resources, and receive instruction in how to use them, at their convenience. By promoting the use of government documents in particular, librarians can connect students, faculty and other researchers with information materials that are applicable to a wide range of academic disciplines and to daily life.

Reviews the history of political and professional debates on the optimum size of public library authorities in the UK. Discusses conclusions on size in the major legislation and reports on public library policy prior to local government reorganization in 1974. Considers the effects of the 1974 local government reorganization and examines the subsequent continuing debate. Concludes that in the light of further impending modification of the UK local government system, further research is required into the structure and size of a public library service.

This research focused on the management dynamics between library districts' discretion and privatization of library management. Previous research has reported conflicting effects of this dynamic. However, few studies have investigated privatization of library management by library districts. Additionally, previous research has accepted the premise that when public libraries change from general-purpose government to library districts, they will not implement privatization prior to forming districts. Therefore, this study aimed to determine whether conflicting effects arise in the dynamics between library districts' discretion and privatization in library management.

To address research gaps, an in-depth case analysis was conducted of the Jackson County Library District in Oregon, where library management has been privatized both before and after library district formation. The analysis divided the study period into three phases, which differed by legal basis and operating body. To clarify the characteristics of library management in each phase, changes in finances, staff hiring and library services were analyzed.

In Phase 1, privatization was implemented in response to the financial difficulties of the public library run by the county government. In Phase 2, the library district was formed with the aim of stabilizing revenue and securing management autonomy. During Phase 3, the library district and operating body were both operated by a private company. Although the financial resources of the library district were stable, it was unable to implement autonomous library management. This demonstrates that privatization cannot facilitate autonomous management, an advantage of library districts.

By investigating the conflicting effects of the dynamics between library district discretion and privatization, this research contributes to greater understanding in the fields of public management and library science.

The Queensland Government Libraries Consortium can claim to be one of Australia's more successful special library consortia in recent years, with a stable core membership of 14 library services, and combined savings to the Queensland Government of over A$1M in the 2002‐2003 financial year. This paper identifies critical success factors for the consortium to date, and looks to present and future challenges at a time when no organisation can afford to take continued existence, let alone success, for granted. In 2002, consortium members began looking strategically at how their organisation should be working to future‐proof services, and expertise. This process of internal review is still very much a work in progress, and continues to pose as many questions as it answers. It has, however, focused the attention on four issues of critical concern to the consortium: corporate governance, size, scope of functions, and recognition. Solutions implemented to date may serve as useful case studies for other consortia.

This chapter presents results of a survey conducted over the summer of 2009 to 1485 libraries that serve populations of 25,000–100,000 in the United States about Internet connected public access computers and e-government. The methodology used was a mixed-methods questionnaire using 33 closed ended and three qualitative questions. The main finding was that public library staff do not have enough training in e-government and government documents to help patrons with their questions on these topics. Another aspect of the survey was to find out whether public libraries plan, fund, and allocate monies for computer hardware and software in their budgets.

The limitation of the research was the size of the libraries and the results can only be generalized to this group of libraries. There could be a bias by size of library and the way the questions were worded. The practical implications of the research indicate that future librarians in library and information science programs are unaware of the need to take either government information or e-government courses. Recent emerging roles for the public library includes being the freely available place to access e-government information in lieu of the actual federal, state, or local agencies.

Historically, library usage has increased during economic downturns. In the pre-Internet era, this meant increased usage of print materials and reference services. In the Internet era, however, the number of roles that public libraries can play in serving their communities has expanded greatly. This chapter provides insights into the ways in which American public libraries are using the Internet to meet patron, community, and government needs in this time of economic crisis. Drawing from the data and findings from the 2010–2011 Public Library Funding and Technology Access national survey, this chapter examines key issues at the intersection of public libraries, the Internet, and economic uncertainty and library/e-government partnerships that have resulted from the economic situation. In these difficult economic circumstances, US public libraries have been able to use the Internet to meet many vital patron and community needs, but they still face numerous economic difficulties in responding to these requests.

The libraries of Government departments are receiving increasing attention in professional literature, and informative papers have been published by Mr. A. Agard‐Evans (1948), Mr. D. W. King (1949), and Dr. A. J. Walford (1950). In this short paper I intend to refer briefly to the contribution of Government libraries to our national system of libraries and information services, and to describe some features of librarianship in a Government research library.

Academic library consortia activity has become an integral part of academic libraries’ operations. Consortia have come to assert considerable bargaining power over publishers and have provided libraries with considerable economic advantage. They interact with publishers both as consumers of publishers’ products, with much stronger bargaining power than individual libraries hold, and, increasingly, as rival publishers themselves. Are consortia changing the relationship between academic libraries and publishers? Is the role of academic library consortia placing academic libraries in a position that should and will attract the attention of competition policy regulators? Competition policy prohibits buying and selling cartels that can negatively impact the free market on which the Canadian economic system, like other Western economies, depends. Competition policy as part of economic policy is, however, only relevant where we are concerned with aspects of the market economy. Traditionally, public goods for the greater social and cultural benefit of society are not considered part of the market economic system. If the activities of academic library consortia are part of that public good perspective, competition policy may not be a relevant concern. Using evidence gained from in-depth interviews from a national sample of university librarians and from interviews with the relevant federal government policy makers, this research establishes whether library consortia are viewed as participating in the market economy of Canada or not. Are consortia viewed by librarians and government as serving a public good role of providing information for a greater social and cultural benefit or are they seen from a market-economic perspective of changing power relations with publishers? Findings show government has little in-depth understanding of academic library consortia activity, but would most likely consider such activity predominantly from a market economic perspective. University librarians view consortia from a public good perspective but also as having an important future role in library operations and in changing the existing scholarly publishing paradigm. One-third of librarian respondents felt that future consortia could compete with publishers by becoming publishers and through initiatives such as open source institutional repositories. Librarians also felt that consortia have had a positive effect on librarians’ professional roles through the facilitation of knowledge building and collaboration opportunities outside of the home institution.

The Depository Library Program was established to provide government information to the general public. The libraries that are appointed to this program assume complete fiscal responsibility for providing this service. Recent policy decisions within the federal government evidence a trend toward a continuing decline in the availability of nonelectric government information. Depository libraries need to increase their budgets to maintain bibliographic, physical, and intellectual access to this information as costs rise.