The goals of this SPEC Kit were to report on the extent to which ARL (Association of Research Libraries) libraries provide electronic reference services and to offer a snapshot of the types of users reached, questions received, policies established, data-gathering techniques utilized, and innovations implemented. The first section of the kit…

This document reports the 2001-2002 salary data for all professional staff working in ARL (Association of Research Libraries) libraries. Data for 9,198 professional staff members were reported for the 1,130 ARL university libraries, including their law and medical libraries (859 staff members reported by 69 medical libraries and 724 staff members…

This paper discusses the reorganization of libraries in order to adopt new techniques and to incorporate the electronic library, focusing on the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. The first section addresses manpower and the electronic library, including processing electronic journals, justification for the traditional library organization…

This annual report from the Colorado State Library describes highlights of developments that took place in the past year. Discussion includes Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) administration; school library media development; programs to promote library literacy and diversity; the State Publications Library; StateLINC distribution program…

Reports the results of a study that surveyed online vendors of both large and microcomputer based library management systems to examine patterns of system installation in public, university, college, special, and government libraries in Canada. A directory of online vendors is provided. (CLB)

Provides a brief overview of Tanzania; describes the infrastructure of the Tanzania Library Service, including public, school, government, special, and academic libraries, rural library service, training and staffing, professional organizations, and publishing; and reviews recent literature on Tanzanian libraries. (26 references) (LRW)

Social and economic issues affecting the vitality of public libraries in California are discussed. A 1993 study by the California State Library identified diminishing reference skills and reference collections, reduced funding which impacted staffing, increased demand, technology change, and language/culture issues as contributing factors to…

Discusses the rise in circulation in the Douglas Public Library District (Colorado) due to expanding educational options. Highlights include the Charter Schools Act, library skills instruction, home-schoolers' use of the library, materials availability, year-round reading programs, Internet benefits, and staffing increases and changes. (AEF)

Intellectual pursuit and the recognition of ideas is a central concept. Copyrights protect the rights of intellectual creators while balancing those rights with the needs for access. As technologies have expanded, and production has become more sophisticated, the legal regulations surrounding their use have become more complex. With the advent of…

The category of Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) accounts for almost 50% of the students identified for special education services in America (U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education, 2010). The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which the participating school system's (PSS) Special Education Procedural Guide…

Wikis are a supporting tool for pupils' learning and collaboration. Tasks such as cooperative authoring, joined workbooks creation, document review, group assignments, reflection notes and others have been tried out using wikis as a facilitating tool [1]. However, few studies have reported how students actually perceive some well-claimed benefits.…

Purpose: The paper's aim is to propose a core journal decision method, called the local impact factor (LIF), which can evaluate the requirements of the local user community by combining both the access rate and the weighted impact factor, and by tracking citation information on the local users' articles. Design/methodology/approach: Many…

Libraries spend countless hours developing websites to connect users and resources. However, how much do we really know about what website terminology and features are meaningful to our patrons? And how can we best organize websites to facilitate access to resources? This article examines these questions by presenting a case study of a…

Meaningful use (MU) of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) is an important development in the safety and security of health care delivery in the United States. Advancement in the use of EHRs occurred with the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which provides incentives for providers to support adoption and use of EHRs.…

This paper reports on a joint proof of concept project undertaken by researchers from the Flinders University Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in partnership with information managers from the Education Network Australia (edna) team at Education Services Australia to address the question of whether artificial intelligence techniques could be…