Stating that comic books are an effective way to present instructional materials, the authors sent food and nutrition subject matter using characters in a daytime television serial in a set of comic books to a sample of extension homemakers. Survey results and implications for extension education are discussed. (MF)

Data from a comparative study of media use and preferences in two Tennessee towns reveal significant differences in media preferences and challenge some lingering stereotypes about the homogeneity of a small town's use of its daily newspaper. (GT)

Reports the results of a faculty self-study conducted at Louisiana Tech University's College of Education regarding faculty use of technology in planning and instruction; required student use; perceived obstacles to increased use; and faculty interest in professional development in technology. Strategic planning to increase faculty use of…

Structured abstracts containing several subheadings (background, aim, method, results, and conclusions) have replaced traditional abstracts in most medical journals. The results of 2 studies, the first of 52 readers using an electronic database and the second of 56 readers using a printed database, suggest that it is easier for readers to search…

Conducted at two British universities in 1993, a year-long trial service study of 20 bio-scientists using GRATEFUL MED software access to National Library of Medicine databases, principally MEDLINE, found that the users approved most of the service's ease, convenience, and time saving features and disapproved of its susceptibility to network…

Presents preliminary results from a study of an information need identification system for interactive information retrieval for undergraduates researching a history topic. Concludes that the query taxonomy must include levels of topic specificity because while general topic-based queries are inappropriate as query terms, more specific topic-based…

Describes Web conferencing in a staff development program for lecturers at the University of Southampton (United Kingdom), designed to enhance the quality of learner support in higher education through the use of learning technologies. Highlights include use of the Web conference; perceived usability; appropriate use; and whether it influenced…

Analyzed annual electronic journal usage data for the NorthEast Research Library (NERL) consortium. Discusses the high degree of skew in journal use; describes results of a cluster analysis that revealed three distinct groups of institutions based on journal use; and recommends that institutions consider their consortial membership and organize…

Researchers studying subject searching distributed an online questionnaire to users who access the University of California's online public access catalog, MELVYL, from public access terminals in the libraries of the University of California at Santa Cruz. This article discusses the results of transaction log analysis, comparison of in-library and…

Argues that evaluating a library's collection is not an acceptable substitute for evaluating the collection development process and its developers. With increasing materials costs, overselection can be much more serious than underselection. Several useful methods for evaluating collection development incorporate statistics regarding proportional…

Collection development for interdisciplinary areas is more complex than for traditionally well-defined disciplines, so new evaluation methods are needed. This article identifies variables in interdisciplinary fields and presents a model of their typical information components. Traditional use-centered and materials-centered evaluation methods…

Describes the management and collection of standardized educational and psychological tests at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and analyzes the use patterns of patron request cards. Current electronic test locators and evaluation services are indicated as well. (Author/LRW)

Discusses the use of e-mail by humanities faculty based on an e-mail survey of faculty at Brigham Young University (Utah) and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Results indicate that humanities faculty are significantly heavier e-mail users than previously reported. (LRW)

Reports on two studies that compared adult students' responses to, and recall from, hypermedia materials with and without integrated video segments. Results suggest that embedded video can enhance learning from hypermedia: (1) video adds an affective dimension that makes hypermedia materials more meaningful; and (2) video is presented in a more…

This is the second part of a descriptive survey that analyzed the behavior of students and faculty in three high school library media centers in the Dallas-Fort Worth (Texas) area. It reports on the nature and extent of faculty use of library media centers and describes their perceptions of service, and compares data with an earlier study.…