Despite the huge potential of information and communication technology (ICT) to assist communities to increase their overall well-being through community development, there are relatively few examples of sustained community networks built around ICT when compared to commercial applications, even in the developed countries where the technology has…

This report presents the information on resources in addition to ERIC which participants shared at the first topical conference for State Education Agency (SEA) personnel. The conference focused on the use and development of education information systems at the state level which go beyond the capacities of the ERIC system. Topics discussed…

The Oregon Pilot Retrieval Dissemination Project was one of three state experimental programs conducted in mainly rural areas. The primary objective was to develop a dissemination network, test its effectiveness, and recommend a model for implementation in other states. It was designed to serve teachers and administrators who need access to…

Summarizing Southern Rural Development Center (SRDC) activities and achievements during the October 1976-September 1977 fiscal year, this fourth annual report indicates that SRDC has been able to support rural development programs at land-grant institutions through sponsorship of workshops; issuance of publications, bibliographies, and a quarterly…

The five major articles in this document examine a variety of subjects: communication issues involved in the upcoming United Nations conference "Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries"; the fundamental role that information plays in the economy and in social structures of advanced industrial economies; an investigation into the…

Based on the papers and discussions of the 1977 Annual Conference of the International Institute of Communications, this publication provides a survey of major issues in communication. It deals with a variety of topics, including issues facing the 1979 World Administrative Radio Conference; news values and social priorities; the media in…

This is a summary of a presentation on the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC). The presentation provided information on how the user can gain access to the ERIC microfiche collection at libraries throughout the United States, and to reprints through the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS). Use of the Thesaurus of ERIC…

The 1976 20th annual report for the Council in Library Resources (CLR) reviews the highlights of the past two decades, describes current activities in the context of the past, and relates those activities to the Council's perception of the development of an improved library system in the U.S. and abroad. The Council's board of directors, committee…

After discussing the need for message pluralism in a democracy, this report focuses on a three-stage research strategy conducted to study the effects of newspaper/television cross-ownership on news homogeneity. The three stages consist of: an analysis of questionnaire data obtained from 214 newspaper managing editors and television news directors;…

The problem of selecting which sites to use in locating library and information centers in order to best achieve system objectives is modeled as a mixed zero-one linear programming problem and examined in detail. The model incorporates an objective function based on the costs of locating centers and of transmitting information to the users. The…

A survey was conducted of school media centers throughout the United States to determine: (1) how computers are being utilized by these centers, (2) the levels of satisfaction with present services, and (3) whether or not the services being provided by the computer are cost effective. Responses to survey forms returned by 20 school districts and…

This paper discusses how networks of elderly people change with stages of disability. Senior citizens in 80 nursing homes (40 in New York and 40 in Florida) were interviewed. The authors examine how spouses, relatives, neighbors, friends, and acquaintances help out when the elderly are robust, how these patterns of help change when the elderly…

This paper describes the functions and services of four federally-funded information dissemination networks--the Research and Development Exchange (RDx), the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), the National Diffusion Network (NDN), and the State Capacity Building Programs (SCBP)--and explains how each network interrelates within…

These seven papers on library management and networks focus on: (1) computerized access to archival and library materials, describing the methodological problems associated with a pilot project in the German Democratic Republic, as well as the efficiency of data bank systems; (2) present and future development of libraries and information centers…

The study, exploration, and debate of relations between universities, world information systems, and communication networks seeking to establish a sustainable system to handle recent developments in information and communication, utilizing universities as focal points, was continued at this third annual conference attended by 31 information…