The interfacing of various spectrometers with analog output to a personal computer running Microsoft Excel in the Windows environment is described. This low cost data acquisition solution is a useful replacement of a chart recorder for various UV-visible and infrared scanning spectrophotometers.

The inability of computer users who are visually impaired to access graphical user interfaces (GUIs) has led researchers to propose approaches for adapting GUIs to auditory interfaces, with the goal of providing access for visually impaired people. This article outlines the issues involved in nonvisual access to graphical user interfaces, reviews…

Those who work in libraries focus much of their energies on providing access to information, and major changes seen in the last decade have shown the need to be flexible in the ways that librarians approach content delivery. Library users span all the generations of information distribution mechanisms. Some prefer to receive information in their…

The Disabilities Information Flow (DIF) project at the University of St Andrews has sought to provide a means of efficiently managing all student disabilities information within the institution and provide appropriate role-based service interfaces for all staff who need to routinely interact with this information. This paper describes the software…

Modern computing systems exploit graphical user interfaces for interaction with users; as a result, introductory computer science courses must begin to teach the principles underlying such interfaces. This paper presents an approach to graphical user interface (GUI) implementation that is simple enough for beginning students to understand, yet…

This paper describes the impact that technological change over the past few decades has had on a number of key interfaces to the library catalog, including the user, resource, abstract/index, and union catalog interfaces. Areas of focus for future development are then highlighted, including: (1) reassessing data requirements and conventions in…

Grid computing allows large groups of computers (either in a lab, or remote and connected only by the Internet) to extend extra processing power to each individual computer to work on components of a complex request. Grid middleware, recognizing priorities set by systems administrators, allows the grid to identify and use this power without…

Discusses database interfaces and explains that collaboration is an important aspect of searching online information retrieval systems that requires explicit computerized support. Collaboration in physical and in digital libraries is discussed and an example of a system that supports collaboration between browsers, ARIADNE, is described. (105…

Discussion of personalized information environments (PIEs) focuses on library personalized interfaces. Describes academic library PIEs and commercial sites, such as Amazon.com that use personalization; explores the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg's personalized interface; and discusses opportunities and challenges PIEs offer public…

Describes recent improvements in graphical user interfaces (GUIs) offered by online services. Highlights include design considerations, including computer engineering capabilities and users' abilities; fundamental GUI design principles; user empowerment; visual communication and interaction; and an evaluation of online search interfaces. (LRW)

Outlines the nature of information processing projects and discusses some project management programming packages. Describes an in-house interface program developed to utilize a selected project management package (TIMELINE) by using Oracle Data Base Management System tools and Pascal programming language for the management of information system…

Discusses the growing demand for online learning activities; considers the possibilities that the Internet offers for a flexible learning environment; and describes a framework for electronic learning that addresses institutional, pedagogical, technological, interface design, evaluation, management, resource support, and ethical issues. (LRW)

Presents a user-oriented interface for generalized informetric analysis and demonstrates how informetric calculations can be specified through advanced data modeling techniques. Topics include bibliographic data; online information retrieval systems; citation networks; query interface; impact factors; data restructuring; and multi-level…

Considers factors that must be weighed in creating effective electronic learning environments and presents a basic framework for Web-based or electronic learning. Highlights include the institutional dimension; the pedagogical dimension; technological dimension; interface design; evaluation; management; resource support; and ethical…

Describes the MultiText information retrieval system that finds arbitrary passages of text, as opposed to complete documents, that are likely to be relevant. Discusses relevance ranking, term expansion, interactive user interface, and distributed searching used in experiments for TREC-6 (Text Retrieval Conference) in the ad hoc, high precision,…