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Westminster College Assistant Librarian Published

Posted on Tuesday, September 30, 2003

Erin Smith, assistant librarian at Westminster College, was recently published in the September issue of College & Research Libraries.

Her article, "Assessing Collection Usefulness: An Investigation of Library Ownership of the Resources Graduate Students Use," is based on research she did while a science reference librarian at the University of Georgia.

"I developed a methodology for investigating how well the library collection met the information needs of the graduate students," Smith said. "I looked at the bibliographies of a disciplinary cross-section of theses and dissertations published by UGA students, and then determined whether or not UGA owned each cited reference. The result was a snapshot of the overall usefulness of the library collection."

Smith was first published in the May issue of The Journal of Academic Librarianship under the title of "Changes in Faculty Reading Behaviours: The Impact of Electronic Journals on the University of Georgia."

"My first article was about the role electronic journals play in faculty's weekly scholarly reading habits," Smith said. "I surveyed the University of Georgia faculty in the sciences and social sciences, and found that electronic access to journals, particularly library-funded access, is integral to research activities. The majority of respondents, 74 percent, reported that they read at least one article from an electronic source every week."

Smith, who came to Westminster in 2002, earned her undergraduate and master's degrees from the University of Tennessee.

For more information, contact Smith at (724) 946-7327 or e-mail smithet@westminster.edu.