Describes major changes made in bibliographic control systems in the past three decades and discusses why these changes have occurred. (Author)

Provides an overview of journal evaluation indicators, highlighting strengths and weaknesses and their range of applicability. Topics include the definition of a quality journal; different notions of impact factors; citation models; electronic journals; ranking journals; possible biases in citation databases; and using the journal impact in…

Provides a history of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) union and its information services and research functions. Examines the research department and the influence of technology, shifting from collecting information to using information from the Internet and online databases that has made access easier. Analyzes information services with…

Describes a project for the creation of an indexing system for architectural drawings that will allow integration of bibliographic and intellectual access to the collection using an existing online library information network. The discussion covers the influence of archival, curatorial, and library traditions on the project. (11 references) (CLB)

Discusses electronic publishing as it refers to machine-readable databases. Types of electronic products and services are described and related topics considered: (1) usage of library and information science databases; (2) production and distribution of databases; (3) trends and projections in the electronic information industry; and (4)…

Presents various levels of criteria for judging the quality of abstracts and abstracting. Requirements for abstracts to be read by humans are compared with requirements for those to be searched by computer. Concludes that the wide availability of complete text in electronic form does not reduce the value of abstracts for information retrieval.…

Considers aspects of building, maintaining, and using United States MARC format and other related standards, discussing costs and benefits, MARC and the American National Standards Institute's Z39 standard, effects of MARC on content and processing, compatibility between and within standards, and MARC in practice. Nineteen sources are cited. (EJS)

Describes the common and distinguishing features of coauthorship trends and patterns in selected science fields. Analyzes the relation between coauthorship schemes and other bibliometric features such as publication activity and citation impact; concludes that the extent of coauthorship varies among fields; and suggests implications for database…

Discusses the problems involved in assigning descriptors to works of art for online museum catalogs. The topics covered include the subjectivity of the analysis of art, factors that affect the cataloging of museum collections, and the online systems developed by various museums. (17 references) (CLB)

An approach to the design of flexible text-based management systems for archives includes tiers for repository, software, and user management systems. Each tier has four layers--objective, program, result, and interface. Traps awaiting software development companies involve the market, competition, operations, and finance. (10 references) (MES)

Describes a prototype system--GeoMatch--that allows users to interactively define geographic areas of interest on a background map and to define, qualitatively or quantitatively, the relationship between the user-defined area and the map coverage. The knowledge discovery in database (KDD) factor is analyzed in the retrieval process. The MARC…

Describes access and retrieval techniques implemented as part of a research and development program in electronic imaging applied to document storage and retrieval at the National Library of Medicine. Design considerations for large image databases are discussed. (six references) (EAM)

Explores the underlying concepts involved in the design of art scholarly databases and describes three systems definition projects currently in progress. The discussion covers the revisions of MARC formats and authority controls used in bibliographic information networks that might support an art scholarly database. (eight references) (CLB)

Reviews electronic language data oriented specifically toward linguistic and language research, including machine-readable versions of established dictionaries; text databases, including newspapers and books; speech databases with phonetic/orthographic transcriptions; and bulletin boards and news groups available over computer networks. (17…

Presents a methodology for creating pathways through the scientific literature following strong cocitation links. A path is described starting in economics and ending in astrophysics, traversing 331 documents. Attention is given to where the path crosses disciplinary boundaries and how analogy can be used to model the thought processes involved in…