Consumers are becoming more actively involved in making decisions about health care, but librarians have had difficulty providing them with current, authoritative, and readable information. Medical databases provide the best reference to information on most health questions, from the latest breakthroughs to information on treatment methods and…

The Insurance Division of the Special Libraries Association began an index to insurance magazines, the "Insurance Periodicals Index" (IPI), in 1962. This study examines its historical development. The index was published monthly in an insurance trade journal and then cumulated into an annual edition. Part of the background for its…

Arguing that recommended lists for hospital libraries are too general, this use study evaluated the journal collection of a small hospital library. It is noted that the literature on use studies indicates that, with the availability of resources through computer searches, interlibrary loans, consortiums and networks, journal evaluation is no…

A meta-analytical literature review was performed on the literature in which computerized and paper based information retrieval systems were compared. Specifically, online catalogs were compared with card catalogs, and online bibliographic retrieval was compared with searching printed indexes. Studies which included information on relevance,…

This study examines the Online Computer Library Center's (OCLC's) CJK350 system with which one is able to input and retrieve Chinese, Japanese, and Korean bibliographic records containing both alphabetical and vernacular characters. In order to study the effectiveness of the system from the Chinese language users' point of view, a field test was…

The information needs of a small liberal arts library whose curriculum does not support a science or technology research program will differ from the information needs of a major research institution. Likewise, periodical usage will also differ with the two types of libraries. This investigation examines the patterns of periodical usage identified…

As part of graduate work for a specialist in education degree, this study examined the literature review process of doctoral students in education at the University of Kansas (UK) and Kansas State University (KSU) examining several student variables. In particular the study sought to clarify the response of students to the variety of bibliographic…

The purpose of the project described in this paper was to gather information about online/CD-ROM database systems that would be useful in improving the services offered at the University of Findlay, a small private liberal arts college in northwestern Ohio. A survey was sent to 67 libraries serving colleges similar in size which included questions…

The experience of novice users searching SilverPlatter's ERIC CD-ROM on the Macintosh was studied. Ten students from an introductory master's level course in library and information science were recruited as volunteer subjects. Subjects were asked to complete a search on the ERIC CD-ROM; and data were collected via observations, a think-aloud…