Theses and dissertations (T/Ds) and electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) present scholarly research and thus warrant access through quality cataloging. Continuing budget constraints, however, necessitate cataloging T/Ds in the most efficient manner possible. What are libraries' actual practices in their attempt to provide quality cataloging within the constraints of ever-shrinking budgets? To examine these practices, a survey was designed to find out how theses and dissertations are currently being cataloged in the United States. Participants were asked about their practices regarding classification, provision of access points with special emphasis on subject headings, keywords, and the involvement of paraprofessionals and other personnel in the cataloging process. Other treatment/handling procedures such as establishing and checking format standards were also studied. The survey was emailed to all 258 institutions

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The perception that advanced information technology necessarily improves the effectiveness of scientific and scholarly research overlooks serious weaknesses in the scholarly communication circuit of scientists. By examining models of the scholarly communication circuit of scientists developed in communication science, and models of information flow developed in the fields of library and information science, bottlenecks in the flow of information between scholars can be identified and possible solutions to underlying problems can be considered.Significant potential bottlenecks to the flow of information become especially evident upon close examination of certain key roles of the scientific literature in the scholarly work of scientists. By considering the essential types of information that scientific literature is meant to communicate, and by examining strengths and weaknesses of the scholarly communication circuit in communicating that information, information specialists can consider alternative and more effective approaches to meeting the scholarly information needs of scientists.Examination of such issues as the role of scientific documents in social processes of scientific scholarship, the problems associated with how meaning is represented by documents, the problems associated with the fragmentation of scientific literature as a result of the growth of literature, and the difficulties associated with the use of information retrieval systems, highlight the serious limitations of the scholarly communication circuit, irrespective of the use of advanced information technology.Implications of these issues for the librarian and the scientific scholar are discussed.

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