Academic libraries must provide accessible electronic and information technology to patrons using assistive technology to access library materials. Accessibility of scholarly material is particularly important in the STEM disciplines, where attrition rates of students with disabilities is higher than in other fields. In this study, the…

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Integrated Data Systems Link Schools and Communities: Researchers Combine School and Non-School Data to Inform Interventions and Policy (Patti Hartigan);…

This study evaluates two databases, "Historical Abstracts" and REESWeb, to determine their effectiveness in supporting academic social science research. While many performance evaluations gather quantitative data from isolated query and response transactions, this study is a qualitative evaluation of the databases in the context of…

The emphasis of this text is that the problems of information retrieval are the intellectual ones of subject analysis and description. These problems are not easily solved by technology alone, although certain inroads are being made by knowledge-based expert systems and other computer aids to indexing. Linguistic approaches are also showing…

Discussion of information retrieval highlights DalText, a prototype information retrieval system that provides access to nonindexed textual data files where the mode of access is determined by the user based on the task at hand. A user study is described that was conducted at Dalhousie University (Nova Scotia) to test DalText. (Contains 23…

An evaluation approach using the mathematical method of the Hasse diagram technique is applied on 20 environmental and chemical Internet resources. The data for this evaluation procedure are taken out of a metadatabase called DAIN (Metadatabase of Internet Resources for Environmental Chemicals) which is set up by the GSF Research Centre for…

This review of the literature on full-text databases provides information on search strategy, performance measurement, and the benefits and limitations of full text compared to bibliographic database searching. Various use studies and uses of full-text databases are also listed. (21 references) (LAE)

Describes an investigation of tools, techniques, and methods for the evaluation of interactive library catalogs, with emphasis on diagnostic methods and on use of the catalog in the wider context of user information-seeking behavior. A front-end system (Olive) developed to test various enhancements of traditional transaction lodging as a…

This paper outlines the use of computer resources to conduct a literature search. While the phrase "computer archives" can refer to all computerized materials, for this discussion it is limited to textual information available online. Both commercial online services and organizations on the Internet offer files to search and download. In addition,…

Discusses collection management in academic libraries in light of computer-mediated access to remote electronic databases and online resources. Topics include the library collection, ownership of versus access to information, the selection process, collection evaluation, collection development policies, materials budget, serials, and user liaison.…

Includes six articles that discuss a digital library for astronomy; comparing evaluations of digital collection efforts; cross-organizational access management of Web-based resources; searching scientific bibliographic databases based on content-based relations between documents; semantics-sensitive retrieval for digital picture libraries; and…

This curriculum guide was prepared as a tool for teaching students the purpose and function of the ACCESS PENNSYLVANIA database in the total concept of information literacy. The database on compact laser disc contains information about the holdings of hundreds of school, public, academic, and special use libraries. The database can be searched at…

Parents of children with autism face many challenges that arise from the practical, day-to-day issues of living with autism. The specific goals of this guide are to help parents: (1) Find information about autism; (2) Distinguish between research-based and non-research-based information; (3) Become savvy consumers of information by giving them the…

The Brick & Click Libraries Symposium is a one-day conference that focuses on providing library resources and services for students who are either on-campus learners or off-campus learners. It is sponsored by Northwest Missouri State University in order to offer academic librarians a forum for sharing practical information. The subjects and…

The IADIS CELDA 2012 Conference intention was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There had been advances in both cognitive psychology and computing that have affected the educational arena. The convergence of these two disciplines is increasing at a…