Discusses how collection-development librarians can customize their workstations by building a Web page to cover public service and outreach efforts to constituencies, links to tools to enable selectors to use the Web and work more efficiently, and selection of Web resources. Describes Web sites in the three categories of communication with…

Argues that the difficulty and expense of preserving digital information is a potential impediment to digital library development. Discusses the present state of digital preservation, articulates requirements for users and custodians, and suggests research topics in storage media, migration, conversion, and overall management strategies. (DSK)

Reviews the professional status of information scientists and reflects on the 40th anniversary of the Institute of Information Scientists. Topics include the information age in the United Kingdom, information services, essential personal competencies, intensifying competition, accelerating change, communication and information technologies, future…

Defines virtual documents and categorizes them, roughly, on how they are created, such as using templates, from computations, as composites, and as metadata. Describes the following information retrieval problems with virtual documents: search, revisiting, authentication, reference, version control, and annotation. (AEF)

Introduces the concept of the virtual library and explores how the increasing reliance on computers and digital information has affected library users and staff. Discusses users' expectations, democratization of access, human issues, organizational change, technostress, ergonomics, assessment, and strategies for success and survival. Contains 35…

The University of North Texas (Denton) and the African American Museum (Dallas, Texas) are partners in a program designed to produce expert managers of digital images and information. The class was divided into five teams assigned to five tasks relating to equipment, Web, database, image, and policy. The project design is described, and…

To facilitate an integrated 10-year development plan, a Colorado Girl Scouts council collaborated with an architecture firm to create computer-generated maps of its camp properties, with links to relevant information. Maps and software provided unprecedented accuracy and access, were easily updated, and facilitated funding presentations. Sidebars…

To make rational choices about educational technology, educators must examine the place of technology in institutional change. Technophiles predict a revolution in education, but it is important to separate this enthusiasm, and misconceptions that accompany it, from the realities of higher education. Democratic values should be allowed to operate…

Discusses three emerging trends on the affect of information technology on institutional research (IR), examining the following: information technology as a catalyst for change; pressures of access and accountability and challenges of open access to information, and the new informational professional. Offers a vision of technology's…

Discusses the merger of FARNET (Federation of American Research Networks), a clearinghouse for tracking the development state-by-state of an information infrastructure, and NTTF (Networking and Telecommunications Task Force), which helped colleges and universities identify strategic networking and telecommunications policy issues, into a new…

Charts the trends and challenges that 1998 has brought to popular search engines such as AltaVista, Excite, HotBot, Infoseek, Lycos, and Northern Light. Highlights testing strategies used, use of real (not artificial) intelligence, innovations, online market pressures, barriers to use, and tips and recommendations. (AEF)

Describes wearable computers, or information and communication technology devices that are designed to be mobile. Discusses how such technologies can enhance computer-mediated communications, focusing on collaborative working for learning. Describes an experimental system, MetaPark, which explores communications, data retrieval and recording, and…

Describes performance alignment--ensuring that all things work together in an organization to achieve its external goals--as the ultimate goal of the human performance technologist's profession. Discusses the three areas where performance is in business, three dimensions of performance alignment, and how to achieve performance alignment. (AEF)

Presents a list of pre-conditions--or readiness criteria--that must be in place before a higher education institution can successfully implement an information technology-based redesign effort and thus see a return on its investment. Includes examples of the ways that different institutions have met these criteria. (AEF)

Describes the Language Learning Network, a course for distance second-language learning that attempts to bridge the gap between autonomous distance study and traditional face-to-face location-restricted classes. Underlying pedagogical principles, course structure, and the course pilot project are examined. (MSE)