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Having discussed amiably with the editor the importance of women in the American library field, he responded with a request for some of my memories of individual ladies whom I had known professionally and for whom I had high regard. First I must admit that my field has been the public library and the activities of state libraries and library commissions in the extension of public library service. Undoubtedly in university and endowed reference libraries the men in the field showed up more prominently just as they did in activities and decisions of the American Library Association. However, when John Cotton Dana spoke cogently at a conference we did not forget the equally forceful and intelligent Beatrice Winser who had so great a part in running the Newark Public Library of which Mr. Dana was director. This is but one example plucked at random and I do not like to have these indispensable co‐workers ignored.

The debate over quality versus demand in public libraries has been argued for some time, largely without resolution. In 1981 Nora Rawlinson wrote, “A book of outstanding quality is not worth its price if no one will read it.” The view espoused by Rawlinson and others gives a great deal of attention to best sellers, since it is demand which makes a book a best seller. This is not a new issue; Rawlinson quotes John Cotton Dana, writing nearly a century ago.

“A LOG of wood with a book at one end and a real librarian at the other is a library,” was repeated to me some thirty years ago by Miss Mary Eileen Ahern. This somewhat enigmatic aphorism did not seem to me to be adequate as a definition. It came, as I believe, from the great John Cotton Dana. The conversation at which it was repeated was my first with a live example of those American librarians of whom I had read as a youth, and whose lot was the envy of librarians everywhere. They seemed to have learned the art of “selling” libraries and librarianship to their public in a manner which over here appeared to belong to the region of dreams only. Partly, it might be hazarded, because, as one of them said, “When English librarians meet they talk library methods; when American librarians meet they discuss publicity.” How intensely alive Miss Ahern seemed, how full of ideas, ideals, enthusiasms, how enquiringly humorous! This was a fitting introduction, which still remains with me, though no doubt it faded long ago from her mind, to the librarian who, as she herself wrote, for “a glorious third of a century,” edited that lively periodical, Public Libraries,—Libraries as it afterwards became. It was fitting, too, because she was a woman and so something then new for us, but for America typical, of librarianship. Search has found me no collected volume of her essays, but in the ten years, 1921–31, I have noted fifteen papers from her pen, and these must be only a very few in comparison with her whole work. America has had many fine women to influence its libraries, but surely none finer than she.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how the authors gained a better understanding of the variety of library users' data needs, and how gradually some new data services were established based on current capabilities.

This paper uses a case study of the new data services at the John Cotton Dana Library, at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Newark campus, to demonstrate the possible ways to extend data reference services and provide data computing services. A content analysis of services records shows how each user group falls into the multiple data services levels and subcategories.

Library users can be classified into many different categories, and each of these may have different needs. Research centers might have big projects involving data gathering and applications where a librarian can mainly provide consultation; while an individual faculty member or student might need the librarians as research partners, with help for their specific problems. Computing data services can involve group training and statistical analysis assistance, where researchers need emergent help. Data librarians can take various opportunities for data management education, thereby gradually raising awareness and cultivating better research habits among researchers.

Library data computing services can make unique contributions to faculty and students' research and study. Institution, library and users' interaction determines the levels and extent of data services and is generalized from the description and analysis of typical data service examples. Classic concept of data services levels is applied to a concrete case of data services program, and sub‐categories of each data services level and user types are developed based on the authors' services record.

The purpose of this paper is to examine science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics (STEAM) efforts at Florida Atlantic University’s (FAU) John D. MacArthur Campus Library (JDM) to share methodologies and ideas with other academic libraries. Recently, there has been an emphasis on and push for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in colleges and universities across the USA as a means for training future work forces and for remaining competitive in global job markets (Land, 2013). FAU in South Florida is a big proponent of STEM and STEAM education (Florida Atlantic University, 2012; Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, 2013).

As many librarians and outreach staff strive to remain relevant to their faculty and students with changing technologies (Drewes and Hoffman, 2010), the FAU JDM outreach staff have developed several novel programs that are geared toward the STEAM initiative.

The Library Outreach Committee at FAU was committed to investigating how they could advance student success through visual arts programming. How can the library help contribute to STEAM education for the students and learning community as a whole? How can the library engage art students? Can the library promote dialogue in arts to the faculty and staff, regardless of their disciplines? This article will describe and discuss the various art outreach programs that the JDM has tested and their outcomes addressing goals toward STEAM education and academic libraries.

The objective in sharing the experiences at the JDM is to spark new and successful program ideas at other academic libraries across the country and abroad and create knowledge in this relatively new area.

The American library community is discovering small businesses and economic development. Individual librarians and libraries, of course, have provided effective information services to the business community for many years. Library service to businesses influenced John Cotton Dana to found the Special Libraries Association. Large urban library systems established “mercantile” libraries during the early years of their development. Within the past decade, however, the library community's service to the business and economic development sector has increased significantly. The reasons for this surge in service are simple. Service has been increased because of accountability, competition, opportunity, and evolution. It will be helpful to discuss each of these areas before presenting ten steps state library agencies can take to foster small business development and economic development because factors in each area need to be considered in order to establish a conceptual background for the recommendations.

The result of our enquiries (see April issue Library World) as to the present storage of local documents in Public Libraries or Museums, and the existing arrangements therein for their preservation is somewhat disappointing. Some librarians have not replied, and some give scanty information.

In this time of rapidly increasing journal subscription costs and shrinking (or stable) acquisition budgets, it is imperative to acquire materials as effectively as possible. One method of doing this is to use citation analysis of the scholarly literature as a guideline. Citation analysis is the analysis of the references from a set of documents (such as an analysis of all of the citations from five years of College & Research Libraries or of all citations from geology dissertations at a university). Information received from the analysis includes: languages of items cited, age of items cited (to calculate a half‐life for the field), and rate of self‐citations. Broadus reviewed citation analysis, its use, validity, and reliability. In the past, citation analysis has been used in collection development to decide on the suitability of specific items (both journals and monographs), such as mentioned in Buzzard and Whaley. The method introduced here is to use the percentage of publication formats cited in the research literature to serve as a guideline for acquisitions budget breakdowns, i.e., percentages allocated to monographs versus that allocated to other formats, for each discipline. The reasoning behind this is that an effective method of acquiring materials is to purchase the materials that the library's clients will use in the formats in which they will use them. The key assumption is that the citations in a scholar's paper reflect the literature the scholar used.

WE publish this issue on the eve of the Brighton Conference and our hope is that this number of The Library World will assist the objects of that meeting. Everything connected with the Conference appears to have been well thought out. It is an excellent thing that an attempt has been made to get readers of papers to write them early in order that they might be printed beforehand. Their authors will speak to the subject of these papers and not read them. Only a highly‐trained speaker can “get over” a written paper—witness some of the fiascos we hear from the microphone, for which all papers that are broadcast have to be written. But an indifferent reader, when he is really master of his subject, can make likeable and intelligible remarks extemporarily about it. As we write somewhat before the Conference papers are out we do not know if the plan to preprint the papers has succeeded. We are sure that it ought to have done so. It is the only way in which adequate time for discussion can be secured.

Telephone directories have been an integral part of most public and academic libraries for nearly a century. Telephone directories represent an anomaly among library collections; known to virtually all users, they nevertheless often go unrecognized when librarians discuss reference sources. The purpose of this study is twofold: first, to examine the history of telephone directory collections; second, to describe and analyze a survey of telephone directory collection use.