As individuals become more and more comfortable mediating all kinds of situations online and through various technologies, their virtual selves increasingly overlap their "real" lives. Posting a "happy birthday!" message on Facebook is as automatic as dropping a card in the mail. E-mailing relevant links to co-workers happens as naturally as…

The Thesaurus for Education Systems in Europe (TESE-2009 edition) is a multilingual thesaurus and a robust information retrieval tool focusing on European education systems and policies. It is specifically designed to cover the indexation needs of the Eurydice network and to facilitate information retrieval on Eurydice's central website. It can…

A reference guide for online bibliographic searchers introduces and explains the major computer-searchable fields of the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) database, presents field access labels or commands of three online ERIC database vendors--BRS, DIALOG, and ORBIT--and lists the codes necessary for searching particular ERIC…

Presents a dBASE III searching/micro tip that will reveal whether any journals listed within a capture log file are in local holdings. An example gives the commands needed to use the ISSN field in the citations to search a local holdings database. (DB)

Compares results of traditional Boolean searching with those of Freestyle, LEXIS/NEXIS's natural language application. Study found that though the Boolean searches had better results more often, neither method demonstrated superior performance for every query, suggesting that different queries demand different techniques. Concludes that further…

The authors adapted Web usability techniques to assess student awareness of their library's Web site. Students performed search tasks using a Web browser. Approaches were categorized according to a student's preference for, and success with, the library's Web resources. Forty-five percent of the students utilized the library's Web site as first…

Compares OCLC's competitively priced online search services--EPIC, designed for librarians and experienced searchers, and FirstSearch, designed for end-users. Discussed are databases offered, ease of searching, holdings information, training needs, and pricing. Appendices of available databases and indexes for each service are included. (four…

The Internet is becoming an increasingly important medium of electronic information dissemination, and thus an increasingly important library reference tool. This study examines the Internet skills of a sample group of 15 public reference librarians in the Adult Services Department at the Cleveland Heights Public Library. The Internet skills that…

Human intermediation is the central issue for information professionals who have been striving to provide better services in ever-changing environments. This document reports on an empirical study of human intermediation to explore patterns of relationships between user situations and tasks they request of intermediaries using the AskERIC Q&A…

Examines online searching done for public libraries during October 1984 at The System Reference Service of the multitype North Suburban Library System. Highlights include total requests searched online, total public library requests searched online (by subject category), samples of successful and unsuccessful public library searches, databases…

Compares online literature retrieval with traditional reference services. Discusses the reasons for and against adding online reference services to two-year college libraries and the unique applications online search services may have in the community college environment. (CBC)

Describes how online searchers can use a software tool based on back-of-the-book indexes to assist in dealing with search engine databases compiled by spiders that crawl across the entire Internet or through large Web sites. Discusses human versus machine knowledge, conversion of indexes to mind maps or mini-thesauri, middleware, eXtensible Markup…

This study was designed to be a state-of-the-art survey and investigation of intelligent "front end" design approaches and software for improving subject access and subject searching in today's large online bibliographic retrieval systems and online public access catalogs (OPACS). The report begins with an illustrated overview of…

A random-sample survey of 100 faculty members at Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania was made to determine how online reference services and library automation affect the attitude of faculty toward several variables: (1) centralization or decentralization of online reference services; (2) willingness to learn to use and to pay for the…

Transaction-log data for total, author, title, and subject searches were collected for three semesters at Southeast Missouri State University to ascertain whether total searches, subject searches, and subject percentage of total searches have any predictive value for marshaling personnel resources for reference-desk service. Findings raise…