Discussion of changes in scholarly communication due to the World Wide Web focuses on a comparison of two views of information production and use in computer-related research based on citation analysis of publications on the Web using autonomous citation indexing and a parallel citation analysis of traditional journal literature. (Author/LRW)

Presents a metric for comparing the performance of common classes of Internet information retrieval tools, including human indexed catalogs of Web resources and automatically indexed databases of Web pages. The benefit of the proposed metric is that it is relevance-based, and it facilitates the comparison of the performance of different classes of…

The term "grade descriptors" has commonly been used to refer to the practice of describing for students characteristic work that would merit different grades. This paper reports the results of a phenomenographic study on the different ways that academic staff understood and practised grade descriptors as forms of standards-based assessment. Four…

This study evaluates the "Education Resources Information Center" (ERIC), "Library and Information Science Abstracts" (LISA), and "Library Literature" (LL) databases, determining how long the databases take to enter records (indexing delay), how much duplication of effort exists among the three databases (indexing…

This study compares ABI/INFORM and Wilson Business Abstracts in order to determine user preference. Surveys in the form of questionnaires were used to evaluate users' preference of interface, database response time, search results and ease of use with both business CD-ROM databases. Kent State University students, faculty, and patrons interested…

Intended as a basis for determining how the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) should proceed to meet its controlled vocabulary needs, this paper analyzes and evaluates the major published controlled vocabularies and thesauri used for the retrieval of mass communication literature. Following brief definitions of…

These two articles discuss clustering structure in the Cystic Fibrosis Document Collection, which is derived from the National Library of Medicine's MEDLINE file. The exhaustivity of four subject representations and two citation representations is examined, and descriptor-weight thresholds and similarity thresholds are used to compute…

Describes SAPHIRE, an experimental information retrieval system featuring concept-based automated indexing, natural language input, and relevance-based retrieval; and compares its retrieval effectiveness with other indexing approaches in a Boolean-based searching environment. Indexing in MEDLINE is described, and a test collection of AIDS…

Describes a study of the retrieval results of World Wide Web search engines. Research quantified accurate matches versus matches of arguable quality for 200 subjects relevant to undergraduate curricula. Both "evaluative" engines (Magellan, Point Communications) and "nonevaluative" engines (Lycos, InfoSeek, AltaVista) were…

Reports on tests evaluating nine microcomputer software packages designed for information storage and retrieval: BRS-Search, dtSearch, InfoBank, Micro-OPC, Q&A, STN-PFS, Strix, TINman, and ZYindex. Tables and narrative evaluations detail results related to security, hardware, user features, search capability, indexing, input, maintenance of files,…

Presents guidelines for statistics for Web-based information resources developed by the International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC). Outlines use elements that must be provided: number of queries, menu selections, sessions, turn-aways, and items examined. Discusses privacy; user, institutional, and consortial confidentiality;…

The Comparative Systems Laboratory (CSL) proposed to deal with the problems of testing retrieval systems by examining a number of processes involved in such systems, with particular attention to the human factor. It is hoped that the results of the project will be useful in refining methodologies for experimentation with information retrieval (IR)…

Describes a project intended to improve subject access in an online catalog by adding multiword terms from the table of contents and index to MARC records for each book. The discussion covers a preliminary evaluation of the impact on workload, resources, and subject access to information. (seven references) (Author/CLB)

Expected Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSHs) and assigned LCSHs for 161 books requested by faculty in sociology, anthropology, and social work were compared to gauge the likely success of an online subject catalog search for those works. For 80% of the titles checked, inspection of the ninth edition of "Library of Congress Subject…

Provides an overview of the problems with information retrieval in psychology, based on the examination of the search strategy used for a dissertation. The discussion illustrates the usefulness of a facet model for formulating search strategies for psychology literature reviews, using the same dissertation as an example. (15 references) (CLB)