The director of facilities at a prestigious 75-year-old Delaware school located an easy-to-implement software program to computerize the schools's physical-plant system. The right software helps facilities managers oversee schools' physical plants, including budgeting and maintenance. (MLF)

Introduces new procedures being used to extract knowledge from databases and discusses rationales for developing knowledge discovery methods. Methods are described for such techniques as classification, clustering, and the detection of deviations from pre-established norms. Examines potential uses of knowledge discovery in the information field.…

Discussion of information retrieval and relevance focuses on mutual information, a measure which represents the relation between two words. A model of a natural-language information-retrieval system that is based on a two-level document-ranking method using mutual information is presented, and a Korean encyclopedia test collection is explained.…

Australia's new national course database OZJAC (Job and Career Explorer) is a directory of information on postsecondary education and training in over 10,000 courses and data on over 600 types of jobs. It is the culmination of 10 years of development of a national information system. (SK)

Discusses the control of digital content and the stakes for libraries and our democratic culture. Highlights include copyright term extension, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, use of contract law to limit the public domain, database legislation, trademarks versus the public domain, the void in our cultural vocabulary, and the concept of the…

A survey revealed best practices of state higher education agencies in the organization and use of transfer student information systems. The best practices fall within the areas of: purpose of the information system, its structure, assessing the educational progress of students, interactivity of the information system, and linking information with…

Discusses the changing relationship between information professionals (vendors, database producers, and searchers) and end users during the last three decades. Examines the concept of the end user, including professionals; libraries; end user searchers; DIALOG and BRS; ease of use issues; search intermediaries; menu-driven systems; and CD-ROM…

Presents four sets of natural language processing-based exercises for which error correction and feedback are produced by means of a rich database in which linguistic information is encoded either at the lexical or the grammatical level. (Author/VWL)

Describes the "Playing for Keeps" project of maintaining a comprehensive, categorized database summarizing current knowledge on play. Presents selected findings and information about: child development theories, studies about the developmental benefits of play, investigations into why play is useful for children, and documentation of the…

The best kind of performance-based funding system is that which encourages and rewards good practice. Any state incentive program should encourage colleges and universities to develop a comprehensive database, conduct more and better talent development assessments, increase student-faculty contact, and increase student involvement in learning.…

Discusses some problems in accessing the microform collection of the Research Libraries of the New York Public Library using the library's printed and online catalogs. Creation of an in-house automated microforms database is described, including software, selection and downloading of records, updating, and searching the database. (MES)

Describes archival, historical, and current government publications from Quebec that are available in microform, on computerized databases, and on diskettes. Government sources as well as private sector sources are cited; the requirements for legal deposit of government documents are discussed; and future prospects are suggested. (32 references)…

Discusses the role that information resource management (IRM) plays in educational program-oriented budgeting (POB), and presents a theoretical IRM model. Highlights include design considerations for integrated data systems; database management systems (DBMS); and how POB data can be integrated to enhance its value and use within an educational…

Describes a pilot project by the University of California to provide access to biomedical and health sciences literature through the integration of the MEDLINE database into the University's MELVYL online union catalog. The discussion covers the design, implementation and evaluation of the system, current planning efforts, and key technical and…

Provides a checklist of functions and capabilities of online searching systems that attempts to cover all system features, not just searching functions. The checklist is suggested as a tool for checking features of new systems, as a framework for comparing systems, and as a source of suggestions for developing new online systems. (10 references)…