The shift from physical materials to digital holdings has slowly infiltrated libraries across the globe, and librarians are struggling to make sense of these intangible, and sometimes fleeting, resources. Materials budgets have shifted to accommodate large journal and database subscriptions, single-title article access, and most recently, e-book holdings. This analysis measures the impact of digital acquisitions in an academic setting during a highly transformative period of library practices. The study finds that both electronic and print books are valuable to the academic research community at GSE.

Background: The Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library serves a community of over 22,000 individuals primarily from the Yale Schools of Medicine, Public Health, and Nursing and the Yale New Haven Hospital. Though they are geographically close to one another, reaching these disparate populations can be a challenge. Having a clear and thorough communication plan has proved invaluable in transcending communication chasms, especially in recent times of crisis.Case Presentation: This article describes the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library’s methods for communicating and promoting its remote resources and services in response to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). It details our communication strategies and messages leading up to, and after, the Yale campus was closed and specifies how we pivoted from reaching users inside the library to reaching our audiences remotely.Conclusions: Our communication plan has provided the foundation for all of our messaging, be it print or digital media. In recent moments of crisis, it has been especially helpful for planning and executing large scale messaging. Similarly, knowing whom to contact around our organization to promote our message in different and broader ways has been extremely beneficial. This article has been approved for the Medical Library Association’s Independent Reading Program.

Crowdfunding leverages the opportunities of online social networks to share ideas and connect individuals by seeking small donations from a large number of supporters in order to complete a project or develop a product. Research crowdfunding is emerging as a dynamic alternative or supplement to grant-funded research, particularly for low-cost research, researchers at institutions without strong traditions of grants-funded research, and high-risk or unconventional research with few or no sponsors. For some researchers, crowdfunding enables new and novel collaborations between researchers, entrepreneurs, artists, social and environmental activists, as well as facilitating unexpected uses and expressions of research.Through the lens of three qualitative crowdfunding campaign studies this article explores how crowdfunding conventions and platforms influence and impact the way research is used, communicated, shared, and in some cases performed. Successful crowdfunding relies on engagement and audience support -- higher levels of support include exclusive affordances, including opportunities to participate in events, acknowledgement in publications, and access to the researchers via online or in-person meetings. Crowdfunding platforms offer researchers the framework to appeal for support and communicate the details and progress of their research in a personal, narrative style, often utilizing video and social networks. This article will examine the new opportunities for communicating, sharing, and using research that crowdfunding facilitates through a case study of three crowdfunding campaigns.

Resource Discovery for the Twenty-First Century Library: Case Studies and Perspectives on the Role of IT in User Engagement and Empowerment offers an engaging overview of the discovery landscape through case studies, vendor perspectives, and speculative fiction.

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