Reviews the scope and effects of distributed information management. Discusses cultural and social influences, including library and Internet culture, information and knowledge, electronic libraries, and social aspects of libraries; digital collections; indexing; permanent link systems; metadata; the Open Archives initiative; digital object…

Focuses on infusing technology and instructional strategies into a school library media program, aimed at K-5 students. Discusses a tool that fosters a pre-reader's independent access to resources; a button-based Web page that introduces the Internet; the "I Wonder Project"; a graphic organizer that helps students structure the collection of…

Describes the Oregon School Library Information System (OSLIS) project to provide access to online educational resources. An information literacy framework designed to promote a leadership role for school librarians as information experts is provided in addition to the instructional gateway for accessing selected databases. There are also two…

Describes a study that investigated the cognitive processes undergraduates used to select information while using a virtual library, GALILEO (Georgia Library Learning Online). Discusses higher order thinking processes, relevance judging, evaluation (critical thinking), decision making, reasoning involving documents, relevance-related reasoning,…

No Child Left Behind and state testing mandate the study of government officials, at local, state, and federal levels, in judicial, legislative, and executive branches. At Wattles Elementary School in Troy, Michigan, test scores indicated that this was a weak area--not surprising since this always has been primarily a high school subject. In this…

Students increasingly are comfortable on the World Wide Web and turn to online resources for many of their research needs. All students can benefit, however, from being shown how to find the most appropriate resources and evaluate what they find. Regardless of their own familiarity with the Web, instructors can apply their knowledge of their…

This article aims to provide a baseline for future studies on the provision and support for the use of digital or electronic information services (EIS) in further education. The analysis presented is based on a multi-level model of access, which encompasses access to and availability of information and communication technology (ICT) resources,…

In this article, the author discusses how assessment has taken a central role in library education, the concept of identifying and measuring the contributing factors toward effective learning in order to optimize course delivery has become a vital activity, with the incorporation of online course delivery as well as other technology-enriched…

An instruction program that covers search tools on the Web should incorporate a user's information need as the basis for teaching these tools. This article lays the theoretical groundwork for such a query-based approach, deriving its argument from the literature published in the early days of databases in libraries. A review of recent literature…

Widening participation initiatives have had a noticeable effect on universities: student support services, especially at the post 1992 universities, are at a level undreamed of in the past. This has opened up the benefits of a university education to students previously excluded by social class, disability or ethnic group. One aspect of key…

This article describes several sessions of a larger case study that examined cognitive categories for library information in a group of children in kindergarten through grade 4. While the initial motivation for the project was pragmatic in nature, theoretical issues relating to people's cognitive categories for information are examined as well.…

The purpose of this column is to provide government information scholars and students with a broad overview of recent publications about government information from the literature of librarianship, archives, information technology management, public policy and law. Given the volume of literature produced in this field, a columnist cannot claim…

This article considers the arguments used in support of private-sector educational establishments in post-Communist Europe and compares them with the observations and experiences of an academic librarian working in the field. The article uses as its case study a private-sector university in Slovakia and addresses the issues of quality and…

Accelerating global flows of people and information have formed new communities and networks across social and political borders. Higher education is one such globalised knowledge community in which new patterns of knowledge, accreditation, research alliances, and social and professional relationships are emerging. In this paper I outline the…

A quantitative study of a university chat reference service (online synchronous) addresses the following research questions: (1) What types of questions are being asked? (2) Who is asking the questions of the service? and (3) Did the customers get correct answers to their questions? All the transcripts (351) from January through August 2002 were…