Summarizes the two recent studies of interest to the library community: (1) an A. D. Little analysis of past and present systems for dissemination of scientific technical information, and (2) Fritz Machlup's economic profile of key disseminators of scholarly, scientific, and intellectual knowledge. (FM)

Surveys the current state of minicomputer-operated information systems capable of incorporating linguistic features, focusing on the Minicomputer Operated Retrieval (Partially Heuristic) System. Consideration is given to the automation of the indexing process and to available search strategies. (FM)

Describes ways of using Boolean questions with a clustered information file, and reviews an experiment studying the effect of such a retrieval method. (FM)

Illustrates the special considerations of using European search systems from North America: steps in establishing a telephone link with the European Space Agency's system, lack of availability to North Americans of some European databases through this system, user reaction, and costs. Brief descriptions of some European databases and a connect…

Europe's lag in databanks and online commercial availability is contrasted to its lead in numbers of bibliographic files. Intelligent use of new technologies such as Viewdata and the European Communications Satellite are expected to correct this imbalance. (RAA)

Reexamines the feasibility of automatic thesaurus generation by establishing a framework for analyzing the degree of correspondence between automatically generated thesauri and a thesaurus of the same terms constructed by subject specialists. (Author/FM)

Examines the fragmentation, political control, and paternalism involved in communications policy making in Western Europe. These characteristics are evident in broadcasting, the postal service, telecommunications, and the press. (JMF)

Describes limitations inherent in traditional computerized information systems in school districts. Characteristics of more flexible, humanistic systems are described, and techniques for utilizing new technology to establish such systems are discussed. Emphasis is placed upon the changing role of nontechnicians with respect to direct communication…

Examines the relationship between librarians and information industry professionals, and outlines the types of systems and services which characterize the growing role of the information industry in contemporary society. (FM)

Describes a conceptual framework for the development of a management information system including performance assessment components for linking institutional goals, library performance, and library management decision making. The operational methodology required to evaluate resource allocations consistent with aggregate user needs and delineated…

The four primary functional areas served by a word processor are discussed. They are data entry, data storage and file manipulation, text editing, and reporting. (MP)

U.S. federal and state legislative and regulatory information is increasingly available electronically. This article provides descriptions of source providers and lists all major commercial dial-in services and Internet sources, providing alphabetical tables of 55 information categories and noting the names of each file covering a category and…

Principals should consider whether their school's student information system is performing all the needed functions. A typical SIS addresses the following broad categories: biographical, demographic, and health records; attendance records; student and resource scheduling; grade reporting; and discipline reporting. Advice for integrating systems…

Proposes a summarization system for multiple documents that employs named entities and other signatures to cluster news from different sources, as well as punctuation marks, linking elements, and topic chains to identify the meaningful units (MUs). Using nouns and verbs to identify similar MUs, focusing and browsing models are applied to represent…