Discusses technological developments in information distribution and management in relation to concepts of ownership. A historical overview of the concept of copyright is presented; licensing elements for databases are examined; and implications for gateway systems are explored, including ownership, identification of users, and allowable uses of…

This annotated bibliography lists 45 nondepository publications and CD-ROM databases disseminated by the National Technical Information Service (NTIS) during 1992. A brief history of recent federal legislation affecting the Government Printing Office (GPO) is provided. (LRW)

Discussion of relevance and the needs of the users in information retrieval focuses on a deductive object-oriented approach and suggests eight inference rules for the deduction. Highlights include characteristics of a deductive object-oriented system, database and data modeling language, implementation, and user interface. (Contains 24…

Explains what an education library is and describes methods used in seeking out such libraries on an international basis. Libraries in Sweden, Finland, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Canada are described, including address, World Wide Web page, mission, history, clientele, type of collection, services, publications, and databases. (LRW)

Presents a seven-step methodology for utilizing integrity constraint knowledge from heterogeneous databases. Describes generating a set of integrity constraints applicable at the integrated level from constraints specified on local databases. Introduces the concept of constraint-based relationships between objects in heterogeneous databases;…

Extension educators' need for food safety information that is accurate, timely, and accessible is being filled by North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service's Web site. The nationally recognized site features a database and links to over 600 publications and fact sheets. (SK)

Discusses structural components of databases that require data-mining algorithms and describes the SUBDUE system that is designed to discover knowledge in structural databases. Analyses the ability of SUBDUE to scale to large databases and describes parallel and distributed implementations to investigate methods for improving the scalability of…

Based on a database of lesson extracts, this article attempts to characterize task-based interaction in the second-language classroom as a variety, discusses its pedagogical and interactional advantages and disadvantages, and considers what kinds of learning it might be promoting. (Author/VWL)

Discusses evidence-based medicine (EBM) and the need for systematic use of databases like MEDLINE with more sophisticated search strategies to optimize the retrieval of relevant papers. Describes an empirical study of hospital libraries that examined requests for information and search strategies using both structured and unstructured forms.…

This study examined the quality of medical students' confidence estimates in answering questions in bacteriology based on personal knowledge alone and what they retrieved from a factual database in microbiology, in order to determine whether medical students can recognize when an information need has been fulfilled and when it has not. (Author/LRW)

Describes the development of electronic finding aids for archives at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign that used XML (extensible markup language) and EAD (encoded archival description) to enable more flexible information management and retrieval than using MARC or a relational database management system. EAD template is appended.…

Discusses indexing in large text databases, approximate text searching, and space-time tradeoffs for indexed text searching. Studies the space overhead and retrieval times as functions of the text block size, concludes that an index can be sublinear in space overhead and query time, and applies the analysis to the Web. (Author/LRW)

Discusses how to support effective interaction of users with heterogeneous and distributed information resources in a digital library environment. Compares usability, user preference, effectiveness, and searching behaviors in systems that implement interaction with multiple databases through a common interface, and with multiple databases as if…

Describes a database of information made available by the North Central Association Commission on Schools to assist schools with the tasks involved in the school improvement process. Discusses how to use this expert database. Provides suggestions for its use and an outline of 54 target areas. (VWC)

Indexing is the preprocessing of information to enable its retrieval, ranging from classification-based (precoordinate) to keyword searching (postcoordinate) approaches. This article describes a framework for modelling information retrieval systems in terms of sets of objects, relationships, and functions and discusses the application of indexing…