ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

Fast Facts

Ann Viles

→ Public access to government information on the Web

A recent U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) report on the quality and availability of online government information found that “not all materials required by e- FOIA [the 1996 Electronic Freedom of Information Act] were available on line as of May/June 2002. Further, certain information was difficult to find and was not always continuously available on Web sites.’’ The GAO review of Web sites in 2002 found that seven of the 25 government agencies were not providing online access to all six of the information elements required by e-FOIA—“Agency final opinions, Policy statements/ interpretation, Administrative staff manuals, Frequently requested records, Index of frequently requested records, FOIA annual reports.”

U.S. General Accounting Office, Information Management: Update on Implementation of the 1996 Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments, GAO-02-493. Washington, D.C.: August 2002. http://www.gao.gov/ new.items/d02493.pdf. Oct. 30, 2002

→ State library agencies fiscal year 2001

The State Library Agencies Survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics for fiscal year 2001 reports eight state libraries with more than 100,000 total circulation transactions: Vermont, Montana, New Mexico, Maine, Virginia, Michigan, Tennessee, and Washington.

Elaine Kroe, Data File: State Library Agencies Survey, Fiscal Year 2001, NCES 2003-342, U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, D.C.: 2002. http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2003/2003342.pdf. Oct. 29, 2002

→ Usage of scholarly information on the Web

Almost one-quarter of the “659 data tables” from a major study of the “scholarly information environment’’ recently completed by Outsell, Inc. for the Digital Library Federation (DLF) and Council of Library and Information Resources (CLIR) are now available on the CUR Web site. According to a summary report of the findings by Amy Friedlander, “33-3 percent of the entire study sample [3,234 faculty members, graduate students, and undergraduate students] identified the library as one of the sources they consulted [for keeping current with developments in their field], and 32.8 percent rated it as the ‘most important’ source.”

Amy Friedlander, Dimensions and Use of the Scholarly Information Environment: Introduction to a Data Set, Version 10/14/02. Washington, D.C.: Digital Library Federation and Council on Library and Information Resources, October 2002. http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub110abst.html. Oct. 30, 2002

→ ARL libraries resources per student

The latest annual statistics report for the members of the Association of Research Libraries shows an average yearly increase of 7 percent in interlibrary loans per student from 1986 to 2001. In contrast, many other resources decreased during this period. Monograph acquisitions per student were 26 percent lower in 2001 than in 1986, and serials subscriptions per student fell 11 percent. The median number of total staff per student decreased from 16 per 1,000 in 1986 to 13.7 in 2001.

"Research Library Trends," Association of Research Libraries, October 4, 2002. http://www.arl.org/stats/arlstat/01pub/ intro.html. Nov. 1, 2002

Ann Viles is coordinator of reference and instruction at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, e-mail: vilesea@conrad.appstate.edu