Describes the InfoMagic program at Chapman University (Orange, California), a three-part multimedia program for teaching information-access skills. Discusses the network simulations; automatic tracking and reporting; distributed versus centralized reporting; and student participation and feedback. Sidebars show examples of two student reports and…

An analysis of 79 K-12 Internet projects revealed seven common activities: pre-project activities; gathering information; sharing and communicating; data integration; constructing products; evaluating products; and demonstrating/teaching. Discussion includes learning models scaffolded and project difficulties/successes. (AEF)

This article studies the performance of online catalog user queries involving personal names and recommends system improvements based on the results. It examines various personal name queries, the construction of bibliographic data, and subject headings. Testing done on an experimental online catalog found search tree designs to reduce system…

Describes the EDUCATE program (End-User Courses in Information Access through Communication Technology), funded by the European Union for the education of information users. The aim is to produce a self-paced user education course in the selection and use of information sources found on the World Wide Web. (Author/LRW)

Forty-six panels address topics including women in information science; users and usability; information studies; reference services; information policies; standards; interface design; information retrieval; information networks; metadata; shared access; e-commerce in libraries; knowledge organization; information science theories; digitization;…

Presents an application of a model of user evaluation of four major Web search engines (Alta Vista, Excite, Infoseek, and Lycos) by undergraduates. Evaluation was based on 16 performance measures representing five evaluation criteria-relevance, efficiency, utility, user satisfaction, and connectivity. Content analysis of verbal data identified a…

Discusses how to find statistical data on the Internet, particularly with awareness of lag times associated with posted data and of the large quantity of university sources. Lists World Wide Web sites under the headings of metasites, agriculture, banking, business, crime, economics, education, energy, government, health, international, local…

Addresses the drudgery of entering long datasets at the keyboard before being able to begin each chapter of a book. Suggests that the publishers of statistics books make the datasets available for people to download onto their computers over the World Wide Web. (AIM)

Three studies examined public library reference services use by patrons in Anglo, Hispanic, and Vietnamese communities in California. Interview questions concerned search topics, use of staff help, perceived usefulness of search result, successful search strategies, reasons for not seeking help, foreknowledge of sources, reasons for using the…

Discusses data warehousing, which provides information more fully responsive to local, state, and federal data needs. Such a system allows educators to generate reports and analyses that supply information, provide accountability, explore relationships among different kinds of data, and inform decision-makers. (Contains one figure and eight…

This study made three comparisons: (1) online searching on a native command language vs. searching with a commercial front end system; (2) end user searching vs. mediated searching; and (3) searching an education database vs. an engineering database. The results show end user searching to be as satisfactory as mediated searching. (93 references)…

Describes an experiment that examined the relationship between successful searching of CD-ROM databases by undergraduate students and various types of instruction provided by the library staff. The findings indicate that the only level of instruction that resulted in a significant difference was a live demonstration of searches. (six references)…

Describes a prototype current awareness service for college faculty and staff which is based on online bibliographic databases and tables of contents from selected periodical holdings for the selective dissemination of information. The discussion reports patterns of use, types of documents selected, delivery patterns, and the overall effectiveness…

Discusses a variety of ways that teachers at all levels are using databases in their classrooms, how students respond to working with databases, the relationship of databases to inquiry learning, and how databases can be integrated into the curriculum. (RS)

Discussion of electronic libraries and networks as foundations for the delivery of information services highlights Project Mercury at Carnegie-Mellon University. Topics discussed include ease of use; standards for documentation representation and exchange, information retrieval, communication and networking, and computer display interfaces;…