Discusses library archival information as an essential element in librarians ability to establish themselves as competitive providers of information; describes problems with conventional archive storage methods; recommends recordable CD-ROMs for an electronic archiving media; and gives an example of document management software used with…

Presents a cut-and-paste turkey puzzle for students to use that combines the use of card or automated catalog records with the Thanksgiving theme. Students are given Thanksgiving topics and asked to find subjects, titles, authors, or keywords in order to assemble the puzzle. (LRW)

Encourages the library manager to develop a facility for "reframing," or seeing a situation from several viewpoints in succession. This technique can aid in problem solving and in effecting change in organizational culture. Frames listed include structural, human-resource related, political, or symbolic, and practical considerations…

Provides three responses regarding an article, "Choosing Our Futures": (1) disagrees with how much and how fast change in academic libraries should be made, arguing that reorientation not revolution is needed; (2) sees it as a foundation for dialog and action; and (3) notes the article's lack of supporting research, questions its vague…

Examines strengths and weaknesses of organizational systems developed to organize and access electronic resources available via the Internet. Highlights include library online catalogs; cataloging rules and MARC records; text encoding initiative (TEI) headers; the Internet union catalog; browsing lists; robot-generated indexes; a core data set of…

Sources of comparative salary data for librarians are evaluated in relation to selected criteria that are particularly useful to small college and university librarians. External criteria include type of institution, enrollment size, budget, geographic region, job title, and gender/minority status. Internal considerations include contracts, degree…

A survey of faculty information gathering at the State University of New York, College at Fredonia found that formal sources (personal and college libraries, and interlibrary loans) were more important than informal sources (colleagues, and attendance at professional meetings) and that sciences relied more on journals and humanities more on books.…

Discusses the role of librarians in knowledge management in terms of designing information systems, creating classification systems and taxonomies, and implementing and operating the systems. Suggests the need for librarians to be involved in user education and training, including database searching, using current awareness services, and using…

Describes the School Libraries Online Web site, created as the Web site of the International Association of School Librarianship to help improve library and information services in schools by helping school librarians to locate appropriate resources. Discusses current events and news; resources to support professional practice; professional…

Discusses the teaching of elements of law within the Library and Information Studies curriculum, using the programs at the University of Brighton as an example. Describes a small-scale pilot research project which sought to characterize senior library and information service managers' views about legal knowledge and expertise. (Author/LRW)

Examines data on prize-winning books during the 1990s from the American Historical Association, American Musicological Society, the College Art Association, and the Modern Language Association. Suggests that studying awards from the leading humanities scholarly associations can tell much about the disciplines, publishing industry, and library…

Describes a survey of science faculty and researchers at the University of Michigan that investigated their information needs as well as resource use and preferences in diverse research contexts. Discusses speed, convenience, familiarity, currency, authoritativeness, reliable availability, and barriers in information-seeking. (Author/LRW)

Offers tips for how school library media specialists attending conferences can make the most productive use of their time. Discusses three aspects of conferences: the professional aspects; the social aspects; and vendors' displays. (LRW)

Discussion of the tension between students and teachers regarding understanding in information tasks focuses on the role the teacher-librarian can take to help boost student achievement and to help teachers create information tasks. Topics include curriculum goals; integrating information literacy skills; facets of understanding; and the…

In this interview Professor Stuart Sutton discusses proliferation of metadata schemas as an outgrowth of various discourse communities as they find their niche on the semantic Web. Highlights include interoperability; cataloging tools, including GEMCat; and the role of librarians and information science education in the development of Internet…