Background: There is a well-documented divide between education research and practice. In 2004, Mosteller, Nave, and Miech argued for a focus on the research abstract, particularly structured abstracts, to improve the translation of research into practice. Since their call, no study has systematically examined the quality of abstracts in education…

Veterinary medical research traditionally focuses on animal health and wellness; however, research activities at veterinary colleges extend beyond these traditional areas. In this study, we analyzed eleven years of Web of Knowledge-indexed peer-reviewed articles from researchers at the twenty-eight United States American Veterinary Medical…

The University of Michigan Library wanted to learn more about the kinds of searches its users were conducting through the "one search" search box on the Library Web site. Library staff conducted two investigations. A preliminary investigation in 2011 involved the manual review of the 100 most frequently occurring queries conducted…

The purpose of this study was to amass as comprehensive a collection of dissertations and theses in technology and engineering education as possible, and to conduct a modified meta-analysis of this body of research. The current study was limited to dissertations and theses completed between 2000 and 2009 that were identified using the ProQuest…

Experiences in researching the documentation of the intelligence (codename Ultra) produced by breaking Enigma at Government Code & Cypher School, Bletchley Park, 1939-45, are described. The major problems are identified and shown to lie in the obscurity of the associated processes, disguised as they were within general bureaucratic…

Investigated how health educators could improve literature searches and increase the accessibility of their research to others. A frequency count of databases indexed 84 health education journals and analyzed the 16 top indexes for journal coverage. Results indicated that selecting the appropriate indexes can help health educators more effectively…

Presents a methodology for studying indexing consistency in MARC records and describes a project that examined such consistency in subject cataloging practice between non-LC libraries and the Library of Congress. Patterns of indexing inconsistency are identified and suggestions are made for improving inter-indexer consistency. (seven references)…

Review of the 1987 literature on library technical services covers research on: (1) cataloging; (2) subject analysis; (3) authority control; (4) use of the online catalog; (5) acquisitions; and (6) library preservation. The review is limited to studies with a clearly defined research methodology, primarily field studies or survey research. (38…

Reviews major term-weighting theories, presents methods for estimating the relevance properties of terms based on their frequency characteristics in a document collection, and compares weighting systems using term relevance properties with more conventional frequency-based methodologies. Eighteen references are cited. (Author/FM)

This study surveyed abstracting policies and guidelines used by producers of bibliographic databases that aim to enhance free-text retrieval. Results indicate editors consider content of abstracts and their language as primary factors in retrieval enhancement. Most recommend that concepts and form be coordinated with controlled vocabulary…

Study of state of source indexing (indexing data published simultaneously with articles they represent) examines aspects of 685 science journals: science fields using source indexing; source indexing formats; assignment of indexing terms from controlled vocabularies; suppliers of indexing (authors, editors, indexers); use of source indexing by…

References indexed for Australian Education Index (AEI) were sampled and compared where possible with same references indexed for ERIC and Australian Public Affairs Information Service (APAIS) databases. An analysis of coverage of Australian references reveals indexing consistency figures of 22 percent for ERIC/AEI and 18 percent for AEI/APAIS.…

Group of 20 scholars attributed 29.3 percent of 437 references they had cited to one of seven motives, while describing motives for majority (70.7 percent) of references as combinations. Clustering of citer motives showed three groupings: (1) persuasiveness, positive credit, currency, social consensus; (2) negative credit; (3) reader alert,…

Reports findings of interindexer consistency tests--quantitative measure of degree to which indexers agree in assignment of terms representing subject contents of document--on print materials, which may be generalizable to indexing of visual materials. Results of interindexer consistency test on nonspecialists indexing pictorial art works are…

Analyzes associations among different role operators quantitatively by taking input strings from 200 abstracts, each related to subject fields of taxation, genetic psychology, and Shakespearean drama, and subjecting them to the Chi-square test. Significant associations by other differencing operators and connectives are discussed. A schema of role…