Many scholars and professionals have noted in recent years that the United States is experiencing a transformation to an economy based upon knowledge. However, researchers have only begun to explore how the essence of such an economy, the creation of wealth by organizations through their use of information, works empirically. This study provides…

Reports on a program held at the 1986 American Library Association Conference which offered a model for locating and evaluating existing research on libraries. Six guidelines for evaluating research are provided, and small group sessions which evaluated actual research and talked directly with researchers are described. (EM)

This essay suggests that conversation, crucial for human life in society and intrinsic to nature of libraries, may be the appropriate model for providing guidance, means, and context for change in academic librarianship. The business model, missions and goals, collection development, bibliographic instruction, and organizational considerations are…

Although libraries offer equal information access, they need to be proactive to reach minority populations. This article describes efforts in Colorado to provide improved library services to African-American, Asian American, Latino, and Native American minorities and mentoring programs for minority library science students. Includes a model ethnic…

Public librarians in Quebec were surveyed to compare their orientation toward a field-specific model of professionalism with their orientation toward a traditional model based on traits derived from other professions. Results indicate that they had a stronger orientation toward the field-specific model to measure the level of professionalism in…

Describes a strategy for query negotiation, based on a sense-making approach, which enables librarians to understand queries from users' viewpoint. The results of tests of the neutral questioning approach in workshops for librarians are discussed along with participating librarians' responses to this technique. (MBR)