End-user services in academic libraries: a 1999 perspective

This article updates a national study undertaken in 1985 to assess the status of end‐user search services in academic libraries (results were presented at the fourteenth annual LOEX conference in Ypsilanti, MI). Although today’s academic libraries now include Internet accessible and Web‐based resources, many of the same challenges exist as in the past: user education, convenient and timely access to information from any place, consistent administrative support, recognition of technology as a change agent, and reaffirmation of the important teaching role that librarians have in an evolving information society.