Tutorials and digital learning objects provide librarians a quick, concise mechanism for delivering information and training on a wide range of library topics. The semiotic theory promoted by Charles Sanders Peirce (Wiener, 1958) and Howard Smith (2005) contains implications for enhancing the effectiveness of library tutorials through the…

Ever since North Carolina State University Libraries launched their Endeca-based OPAC replacement in the beginning of 2006, the library world has been completely obsessed with ditching their old, tired catalog interfaces (and with good reason) for the greener pastures of more sophisticated indexing, more accurate relevance ranking, dust jackets,…

This presentation at a seminar for library staff and students describes the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) system as an information system designed to provide users with ready access to primarily English-language literature dealing with education by establishing a database, publishing abstracting journals, and reproducing…

The director of the Buros Institute of Mental Measurements describes the "Mental Measurements Yearbook,""Tests in Print," the institute's online database, its symposium, and symposium books. Suggestions to librarians for increasing effectiveness of service to users of tests are included. (Author/EM)

Describes H. W. Wilson's information retrieval system which provides access to such familiar printed indexes as "Social Sciences Index,""Humanities Index,""Education Index," and "Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature." Use of this flexible system is explained and illustrated. (CDD)

Describes how Murray State University Library, a medium sized academic library in Kentucky, made use of an IBM mainframe and SCRIPT, a text formatting program to index two local newspapers. The entire procedure is described, including indexing, authority lists, input techniques, editing, and production and distribution of the index. (CLB)

Intended to provide guidelines for similar future undertakings, this report provides a comprehensive record of a serials cataloging project undertaken by the General Reference and Periodicals Department of the University of Miami's Otto G. Richter Library between January 1985 and August 1986. The project was designed to catalog the department's…

Discusses design features of the Online Catalog of LS/2000, OCLC's enhanced version of Integrated Library System. This minicomputer-based system provides bibliographic file maintenance, circulation control, and online catalog searching. Examples of available displays--holdings, full MARC, work forms, keyword entry, index selection, brief citation,…

A laserdisc periodical index (InfoTrac) that offers relatively sophisticated search capabilities without librarian assistance or user training is now popular college library research tool. The index database consists of more than half million references to articles and reviews published since 1982 in 1,000 general interest, business, and technical…

Designed to help high school students develop critical thinking and writing skills, the "Clipping Thesis" project requires students to find newspaper and journal articles on a given topic through printed indexes or online searching, read the articles, write brief and final summaries of their readings, and compile a bibliography. (EM)

This detailed description of a fully integrated, turnkey library system includes a complete profile of the system (functions, operational characteristics, hardware, operating system, minimum memory and pricing); history of the technologies involved; and descriptions of customer services and availability. (CLB)

A brief history of "Psychological Abstracts" describes the development of this index over its nearly 100-year history. The various concerns and problems of both the publisher and users of the psychological literature are reported, and present and future solutions are discussed. Appended is an 18-item annotated bibliography. (Author/EJS)

Librarians use subject guides to introduce students to library materials. Surveys, usability tests, and usage statistics demonstrate that students do not relate well to subject guides. We suggest that library resources organized or delivered at a course level are more in line with how undergraduate students approach library research. (Contains 26…

Describes databases available on optical disks, compares the databases with their print and online analogs, and suggests that the librarian should call such products to the attention of users needing information available in CD-ROM format. Five features desirable to most libraries are listed. (Author/CLB)