Reports on findings from a survey exploring the information literacy of physical science graduate students. Describes the students' perceptions of the physical and psychological components that enhance or detract from their ability to find, appraise, and use information and how they feel during the various stages of an information search.…

Considers the beliefs, attitudes, and values of reference librarians. Highlights include the idea of personal assistance to someone who needs information; users' perceptions and use of information; librarianship as a profession; equitable access to information; users' information needs and goals; and nonverbal communication. (LRW)

Describes a study in New Zealand that examined the information behavior of people in daily life contexts. Results showed how users' expectations of the usefulness of information sources varied by gender and source characteristics, including accessibility, trustworthiness, and reliability. Suggests ways to encourage use of formal information…

Part of the response of many development cooperation agencies to the challenges of globalisation, ICTs and the knowledge economy is to emphasise the importance of knowledge for development. This paper looks at the discourses and practices of ''knowledge-based aid'' through an exploration of four agencies: the World Bank, DFID, Sida and JICA. It…

This article presents two reports on the interviews with school principals in Belgium and France. The first report presents the results of interviews with 5 Flemish secondary school leaders. The purpose of the investigation was to gain an explorative insight of their use of and their remarks on the recent initiated systems to provide schools with…

Introduction: This article results from a qualitative study of 1) information behavior in community problem-solving framed as a distributed information use environment and 2) approaches used by a best-practice library to anticipate information needs associated with community problem solving. Method: Several approaches to data collection were…

Self-assessment leads to stronger performance in the nation's colleges and universities. That's the premise of "Excellence in Higher Education," a model self-assessment program that has earned accolades from the higher education community. Based on the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award framework, the fourth edition of this bestseller is the…

To enhance the relevance and usefulness of social-science research, large-scale research grant-allocation policies are emphasizing, if not requiring, the formation of research partnerships between researchers and members of the community of practice. The emergence of a revisionist conception of traditional dissemination and utilization of…

This report summarizes the discussion and recommendations of a symposium which focused on issues addressing the collection, sharing, and use of information to improve transition services and supports to youth and young adults with disabilities. Participants included representatives from state agencies, advocates, family members, and Community…

A research study had three objectives: to identify the core journals in the agricultural and extension education discipline, determine the importance of journals as a medium of scholarly communication in agricultural and extension education, and determine the subject matter areas published in the field's "core" journal, the "Journal of…

A major statewide survey was conducted to establish comprehensive, baseline information regarding arts education in the public school districts of Arizona. This report documents the findings and serves as a standard against which to measure future changes as well as a guide or starting point for responsible planning in order to effect intelligent,…

The purpose of the hearings presented in this Congressional document was to highlight the enterprising, inventive, and imaginative ways that people use public information and ways that agencies disseminate it. Witnesses were called who could provide information about: (1) how federal data is used by people who make genuine contributions to the…

This paper reports the results emanating from the Dissemination, Utilization, and Assessment (DUA) project. Designed to shed light on factors that might facilitate or impede more effective and extensive use of audiovisual materials in higher education, this 3-year project focused on the use of the audiovisual materials produced by Annenberg/CPB.…

This study examined reasons why novice physicians, even after 6 years of medical education, are apparently unable to utilize a patient's contextual information (age, sex, profession, previous diseases, operations, and medical therapy) in the same accurate manner in disease diagnosis as their more experienced colleagues. Sixteen family physicians,…

The components of existing district instructional information systems are identified and illustrated by examples from field studies and descriptions of work with two districts in defining their instructional information systems and assigning costs. Instructional information systems are loosely organized methods of providing past and present…