Nutrition professionals within the Cooperative Extension system use the USDA's interactive online tool SuperTracker, which is designed to help individuals track diet and physical activity (PA) to apply healthy eating patterns and improve PA. An investigation of all 50 states' Extension websites and interviews of Extension educators…

Teacher candidates have few opportunities during their teacher preparation coursework to investigate practices associated with eliciting and responding to student writing. This article describes an attempt to address this problem with a searchable online digital archive of student writing, with and without teachers' written feedback, as well…

Discusses methods for designing search strategies for maximum recall, including minimizing the number of concepts intersected, isolating key subtopics, adapting the strategy to the database, and minimizing problems with search words and codes. (Author/RAA)

The first of two articles discusses virtual reality (VR) and online databases; the second one reports on an interview with Thomas A. Furness III, who defines VR and explains work at the Human Interface Technology Laboratory (HIT). Sidebars contain a glossary of VR terms and a conversation with Toni Emerson, the HIT lab's librarian. (LRW)

This article reports results of a case study of text-based online and CD-ROM databases that identified design characteristics that are important to high school students' use for higher-level learning as well as for information access and retrieval. Implications for the design of databases are suggested. (Contains 62 references.) (LRW)

Provides survey questions designed to be used to gather information required in library decision-making process for selection of automated circulation system. User library profile, system profile, hardware and software profiles, interactive workload, service, staff support requirements, educational support, bibliographic/item database, patron…

The results of personal interviews with 18 of the more experienced online searchers in Washington State are presented. A profile of respondents determines the experience of each in searching in years, number of searches per month, vendors used, and most used data bases. This information is used to analyze the answers given to questions about the…

Observations on impact of WILSONLINE (online access to H. W. Wilson's indexes) on the industry, library services, and end users are drawn from interviews with reference librarians, H. W. Wilson administrative staff, and monitors of database industry. Issues addressed include quality, thoroughness, ease of use, and marketing (demand, pricing,…

Describes DIALOG Web, DataStar Web, and highlights three other Knight-Ridder services: DIALOG Select, a service for high-tech, pharmaceutical, legal, consumer products, and media markets, KR@Site, which supports access to 80 databases, and DIALOG@CARL, which applies graphical interfaces to 300 DIALOG databases. Also includes interviews with…

Provides an overview of databases that include the best information about Latin America. Highlights include problems with using "Latin America" as a search concept; Latin American information on DIALOG; the dominance of TEXTLINE among the major newswires; comparisons between DIALOG and other online services; specialized Latin American…

Using the ERIC/ONTAP file, student searchers may improve their online skills by employing an 8-step search strategy technique. ERIC/ONTAP, now available through LRS/DIALOG, uses a subset of the ERIC file with built-in answer sets and a special evaluation command. The training procedure guides the student from the initial search interview to the…

Using data bases of the DIALOG system new teaching techniques and materials are presented to an audience of library educators. Included are search demonstrations, teaching approaches, sample exercises and instructional prolects, multidatabase searching methods, utilization of search aids and offline resources, the conduct of presearch interviews,…

Developed to orient the information seeker to the computerized literature search process, this guide provides background information that will help the user facilitate the search interview and the formation of a search topic, enabling him or her to focus on personal search needs and not on the fundamentals of online searching. Major purposes for…

Findings of focused-group interviews conducted for OCLC study of library users and online public access catalogs (OPACs) indicate users like OPACs, have problems finding right subject heading, envision features to improve subject access, want access to more than books, and want OPACs to provide new services. Eight references are listed. (EJS)

In order to understand how the database software or online database functioned in the overall curricula, the use of database management (DBMs) systems was studied at eight elementary and middle schools through classroom observation and interviews with teachers and administrators, librarians, and students. Three overall areas were addressed:…