This book offers a completely new approach to the measurement of academic library effectiveness. Based on a significant empirical investigation, it contradicts established practices such as the measurement of outputs as indicators of effectiveness and the tendency to focus the evaluation of library effectiveness on the success of isolated activities. The book also explores in detail the fundamental inadequacy of library-based bibliographic instruction and information-seeking skills development. It argues that a student learns in order to become information literate and does not become information literate in order to learn. In so doing, it challenges much of the accepted wisdom in libraries and information technology.

JOSEPH A. McDONALD is Associate Professor and Director of the Library at Fontbonne College. An authority on information systems design and management, his work has been published in journals such as Drexel Library Quarterly, Library Software Review, and The Reformed Journal.

LYNDA BASNEY MICIKAS is an independent consultant in learning and information in Denver. She is also Director of The Human Genome Project: Information Access, Management, and Regulation for the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study at Colorado Springs, Colorado. She was formerly an Associate Professor and Chair of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at Holy Family College.