Electronic performance support system (EPSS) technology provides a powerful mechanism for helping end-users operate complex systems. This article describes and discusses some research we have undertaken to explore their potential within academic library systems. Based on a needs analysis, an EPSS for supporting library users was designed and…

This examination of the OCLC serials control sub-system points to positive and negative aspects of the OCLC system as they relate to serials, and evaluates the system's serials cataloging capabilities. While this report assumes a knowledge of the basic operations of OCLC, it describes the system in general, its function in cataloging, and its…

Conducted to gather information on the practical impact of implementing either the Washington Library Network (WLN) system or one of two versions of the DOBIS system in British Columbia Union Catalogue (BCUC) member libraries, this study addressed four questions: (1) the effect the introduction of the new system would have on workflows; (2)…

Describes the background of the Linked Systems Project, which is designed to link existing bibliographic utilities into a national system of machine-readable bibliographic data and discusses directions being taken by the library community and why the OSI architecture was selected as the system protocol. (CLB)

Provision of information for research and development in science and technology in Ethiopia was studied by 50 participants in a seminar on evaluation and analysis of a national information policy and plan. Policy makers and planners, users, producers and suppliers of information, information specialists, and representatives of Unesco (United…

Providing the chief state school officers of the Northwest and the Pacific states with information on the policy options they face in establishing an electronic communication system, this paper is divided into four sections. The first section describes potential uses of electronic communication networks in education for correspondence, management…

A distributed union catalog is a network of bibliographic systems that cooperate to enable their users to discover sites that hold copies of known items. Some participating systems will be traditional union catalogs, others will be single sites with comprehensive collections, and others will be local or regional resource sharing systems. A…

The virtual Canadian union catalog (vCuc) project is a project among Canadian libraries to use Z39.50 (an information protocol standard) for searching distributed individual library catalogs and union catalogs. This paper summarizes the major technical, vendor, bibliographic data, and administrative issues that must be resolved before the…