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Academic librarians have been creating Web‐based tutorials in support of their institutions’ distance education course and remote students for some time. For‐credit, distance education, information literacy classes for undergraduate students, however, have not yet begun to appear in significant numbers. In creating such a course, LIBY 3200, California State University, Hayward, sought to meet the needs of its students better and to explore the potential of distance education. Findings from experience teaching LIBY 3200 suggest that many students are less prepared to function – technologically and cognitively – in a Web‐based distance education environment than might be predicted. Design and delivery of course content proved time‐consuming, with few possibilities for short‐cuts, and teaching methods had to be adapted to help the students become autonomous learners, meaningfully capable of self‐directed learning in a Web‐based environment.

Usability studies are a form of library evaluation that are often passed off as research. However, at its core, usability is an evaluation method, not a research method. The goal is to make an argument that usability studies can be a valid form of scholarly research if certain limitations inherent in usability studies are addressed in the research design.

Through evaluating literature in the social sciences, this paper makes an argument for usability as a research method if certain limitations inherent within usability testing are addressed.

Usability is not only an evaluation method, but when limitations are addressed; it can be considered an important research tool within libraries.

No other article in the library and information sciences literature talks about methodologies for usability. Most usability articles do not address methodologies utilized in a way that would be considered research in a broader social sciences context. This article bridges the gap from when usability is considered evaluation to when it is considered research within library science.

Today, libraries within all institutions of higher education are viewing serials collection development in a new light. This paper looks at the issues revolving around these new dynamics, including distance education, electronic serials and how librarians should proceed in the near future. Much change is expected in US Copyright law. At the time of writing the US Register of Copyright issued a substantial report on how copyright will be viewed in our new digital era. This paper aims to provide new answers, and ask new questions the library literature has yet to examine.

For more than 25 years, the National History Day (NHD) program has a number of distinctive features that make it a uniquely powerful collaborative vehicle for information literacy instruction. By requiring that student participants do in‐depth research using primary source materials, NHD strongly encourages integrated learning of historical content and information‐seeking processes, and thus partnerships between history teachers and librarians. Because few middle and high schools have extensive collections of primary source materials, NHD also promotes partnerships between K‐12 schools and academic libraries, public libraries, and museums in making primary source materials available to students. This case study aims to draw on one academic library's three‐year experience of partnering in NHD events in its community.

Describes the NHD program, highlighting the commonalities between NHD learning goals; the National Standards for History: Historical Thinking Standards (Grades 5‐12); the American Association of School Libraries' Information Literacy Standards for Student Learning; and the Association of College and Research Libraries' Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.

Shows how one academic library was able to successfully implement NHD programming, especially in the area of library instruction, to engage students in their own learning.

NHD participation by higher education librarians, collaborating with their K‐12 counterparts, can be a powerful learning vehicle for elementary and secondary students to learn historical content knowledge, historical thinking skills, and information literacy skills.

The purpose of this paper is to document the strategies adopted at The University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign's library to improve open workshops in which digital tools are used to teach two digital databases. Workshops that were not geared toward one particular group of people required different marketing, design and teaching strategies from those developed for one particular patron class.

To demonstrate the difference in both marketing and teaching strategies for such workshops, both were offered multiple times over the course of both semesters of the academic year 2005‐2006. All workshops were advertised to the campus community via multiple marketing outlets and registration was limited to 20. The instructors gathered information from both observation and post‐workshop evaluation forms.

The key finding of this work was a formula for successful digital workshops offered to a large and diverse academic community. With thoughtful advertising and course design and creating a learning‐centered environment, such workshops could be successful.

Best practices and other tips for creating successful workshops for digital tools provide a formula for other librarians to use as they begin to teach digital tools on a more regular basis. As the number of digital resources continue to grow, so too will the need to teach users how to use them effectively and properly.