Describes the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) system, a national network of 16 specialized clearinghouses and several central ERIC service facilities. Notes that the ERIC system is charged with enhancing the database of educational resources by identifying hard-to-find materials. Explains briefly how to use ERIC and the educational…

Discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using dBASE for the storage and retrieval of downloaded bibliographic records, and the problems involved in importing data downloaded from various online systems into dBASE. ASCIIREF, a software program developed to allow users to easily reformat just about any file of ASCII bibliographic records into…

Describes the CHILDES/BIB electronic bibliographic database, its contents, and its relationship to the CHILDES database. CHILDES is a depository of child language corpora and is the publisher of CHAT (a transcription manual) and CLAN (an electronic package for child language research). (GLR)

Describes a conceptual model for bibliographic data called Maestro (Management Environment for Structured Text Retrieval and Organization) that is being developed both to support structured documents in databases, and to provide a query language to link information contained in these structures. Traditional text retrieval systems are discussed,…

Sidebar describes the use of the Biblio-Link software packages to download citations from online databases and convert them into a form that can be automatically uploaded into a Pro-Cite database. An example of this procedure using DIALOG2 is given. (CLB)

Describes the development and functions of a text retrieval program that makes extensive use of the best match model of document retrieval rather than the Boolean model. The use of the program in teaching and research at the University of Sheffield is summarized. (24 references) (CLB)

Reviews models currently used to describe the retrieval process and questions whether extensions of traditional approaches can provide mechanisms for expert retrieval systems. An alternative view in which retrieval is based on concept space is presented. A logic framework is used to define a semantic model for using knowledge contained in concept…

Presents an online search strategy to help find pairs of medical literatures that are logically related but non-interactive, meaning the two pairs have no articles in common, do not cite each other, and are not co-cited. Each stage of the search strategy is described and favorable results are discussed. (four references) (CLB)

Discussion of bibliographic databases and the structure of records focuses on the structure of education information based on publications of the New Zealand Council for Educational Research. Faceted design is discussed, and mandatory and optional fields in education database design are considered. (Contains 16 references.) (LRW)

Describes a study of Library of Congress (LC) Subject Headings that examined 1,000 records from the LC BOOKSM database (i.e., bibliographic records of monographs cataloged by LC) to determine current subject cataloging practices at LC. The process of constructing subject headings with free-floating subdivisions is discussed, and recommendations…

Reports on a survey which assessed automated authority control capabilities of 18 vendors' automated library systems, software, or services. Graphs rank vendors according to overall score, authority record source, format/storage of authority records, database dynamics, matching/linking authority and bibliographic records, syndetic structure,…

Presents "Islands," an interactive graphical interface for construction, modification, and management of queries during a search session on a bibliographic database. Discusses motivation and bibliographic search semantics and compares the Islands interface to the Dialog interface. (Author/LRW)

Small solutions solve discrete, well-bounded problems and can be pieces of larger solutions. They can move things forward by mixing and matching available components in new and previously unimagined ways. A number of innovations, which at first glance are completely unrelated, can come together and create important synergics. This article…

Purpose: To share the experiences in data migration of the KFUPM Library with libraries planning to move from legacy systems such as DOBIS/LIBIS to third-generation systems. Design/methodology/approach: A detailed analysis of DOBIS/LIBIS data structure, data extraction, including data mining, and data conversion of bibliographic, non-bibliographic…

A major part of Arthur M. Cohen's scholarly legacy is the archive of documents and journal articles catalogued by the ERIC Clearinghouse for Community Colleges, which he led throughout its entire 37-year history (1966-2003). As Clearinghouse director, Cohen oversaw its document acquisition and cataloguing operations, as well as its extensive…