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A number of factors contribute to the need for collection developers to reexamine the use of British dealers for British books: fluctuations in the value of the American dollar, the absence of discounts from British dealers, the highly competitive nature of discounting among American dealers, the increased availability of British titles distributed or simultaneously published on this side of the Atlantic, timeliness of materials, and the differences in technical processing introduced by both avenues of acquisition. This case study describes actions taken over a two‐year period (mid 1983 to November 1985) at a medium‐sized research library to reexamine these issues.

The purpose of this article is to employ four library case studies to determine how changes can be made more successfully.

The article employs a list of five basic change management principles suggested by Team Technology to measure the effectiveness of what happened in our library.

The principles themselves are fairly simple and are not meant to be either qualitative or quantitative research tools.

It would seem that if the five basic change management principles were followed, libraries would be more successful in the management of those changes that they must pursue to keep vibrant and alive.

This paper is a personal view of the four changes which were successfully implemented but which did cause angst among staff members. The value of managers paying attention to the list of change management principles is demonstrated.

The paper aims to examine the change of University of Hong Kong Libraries from a mostly print collection to a mostly electronic collection.

The paper provides a description of the University of Hong Kong Libraries collection.

The paper finds that the change to a mostly electronic collection has been successful. It has brought new problems involved with keeping up with the technological issues. Both students and faculty are pleased with the new collection.

This change can make a large number of resources available to users at a reasonable price. There are, however, new jobs to do and new skills to learn.

This paper presents an excellent example of how a library can move to an electronic collection while continuing to provide quality services to its users.

The one component of collection development most difficult for librarians is the evaluation of the collection. Various methods can be employed to evaluate the collection including statistical analysis, list checking, user opinions, direct observation, and applying standards. All of these methods have strengths and weaknesses, and numerous opinions exist on the value of each method. However, almost all experts agree that libraries need to invest a great deal of time, staff, and budget for any evaluation to be considered valuable. The process becomes even more complex when evaluating interdisciplinary areas such as women's studies. Collection development issues for women's studies has been well covered in the literature, but very little exists on the evaluation of women's studies collections. This article will discuss one method for collection evaluation, the Research Libraries Group (RLG) Conspectus, and outline the process of using the Conspectus to evaluate the women's studies collection at the Pennsylvania State University Libraries. Given the importance of information needs for diversity materials and the number of librarians who select women's studies materials among their many other responsibilities, this information will be valuable for all librarians engaged in interdisciplinary collection development in both public and academic libraries.

Reference librarians in various library settings are often assigned responsibilities for training students, support staff, or other new professionals, a task for which they rarely have sufficient professional education. This bibliography recommends readings on topics that will assist reference librarians in understanding the philosophy of staff development. The readings listed here cover subjects such as: establishing an atmosphere that facilitates learning, assessing training needs, describing competent performance, writing clear and specific objectives, selecting appropriate training methods, maintaining skills and providing feedback, and evaluating the effectiveness of a training program.

The need for effective directories of networked information resources becomes more critical as these resources—online library catalogs, file archives, online journal article repositories, and information servers—proliferate, and as demand grows for intelligent tools to navigate and use such information resources. The existing approaches are based primarily on print‐oriented directories, but print‐oriented directories will not scale to support the future services that will help network users navigate tens of thousands of resources. The paper first explores the “user” perspective in various usage scenarios for employing a database of descriptive information to navigate or access networked information resources. It then considers specific data elements that will be required in a description of these networked information resources. Classification of networked information resources will ultimately rely on large‐scale prototypes, coupled with a new generation of advanced information‐seeking tools, and within the reality of economics.

The physics librarian today faces a complex and fast‐moving discipline and an almost overwhelming array of resources. Beginning selectors in physics are often perplexed. How does research in physics proceed? What kinds of information do physicists seek? Where can this information be found and what is the most effective way of providing it? How are increases in costs and volume of publication affecting collecting in physics? What do new technologies and cooperative arrangements have to offer the physics librarian? This essay, directed especially to the novice selector, seeks first to define physics research and the information needs of physics researchers. It then surveys the trends in technology and in the market‐place that are profoundly altering the way we build research collections in physics.