Reviews research on data mining (DM) and knowledge discovery (KD). Discusses popular conceptions of information growth, the knowledge acquisition process, major elements of the DM process, and evaluation methods. Research on DM and KD is divided into two categories: analysis of numerical databases and analysis of non-numerical or textual…

Describes how the Orange County (Florida) Library System separated walk-in and phone-in reference services. Discusses telephone reference services, the Quest Line database, staffing and resources, results, and keys to success. Includes the Quest Line work flow chart. (PEN)

Discusses the need for comprehensive and accurate sources of information for librarians looking for information about online databases or CD-ROMs and compares, examines, and makes recommendations regarding three print and electronic directories--the "Gale Directory of Databases," Bowker's "World Databases," and Waterlow New…

Both routine monitoring reports and special studies contribute to effective fund-raising efforts and the provision of services to alumni of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A long-range strategy committee was established to determine market-research needs and approaches and to establish long-term alumni-relations priorities. The alumni…

Discussion of distance education and use of the Internet focuses on the development of a prototype distance-learning system at the University of Macau called DESI (Distance Education System for the Internet) that makes use of replicated databases and speech synthesis to overcome some of the limitations of Internet-based systems. (Author/LRW)

Discusses the outcomes approach to measuring progress toward agreed-upon goals adopted by the Vermont Agency of Human Services. The outcomes and indicators span the areas of maternal and child health, school readiness and success, youth behavior, economic vitality, and safety and welfare. (Author/JOW)

Studied national educational datasets in Japan during the post-World War II era. Found that current datasets do not contain questions about family background or rank of school attended that are detailed enough to permit an analysis of the impact of family background on educational attainment. (SLD)

In this study, the phrase "shrug" is investigated using the Bank of English Corpus. The report is the first of three; the other two will focus on the phrases "hold one's gaze" and "touch wood." Each of these phrases relates to an aspect of communications that may hold particular difficulties for someone from another culture: gesture, eye contact,…

In this report, the phrase "hold one's gaze" is investigated using the Bank of English Corpus. The report is the second of three; the first is the phrase "shrug" and the third is "touch wood." Each of these phrases relates to an aspect of communications that may hold particular difficulties for someone from another culture: gesture, eye contact,…

When providing access to digital images, there are three elements to consider: structure, location, and appearance. These considerations are illustrated with two examples--a book and a photograph collection. Each of the elements is then described in detail. (AEF)

Provides guidelines for building a consistent and reliable database of expenditures within an institution of higher education. Stresses the importance of involving key constituencies, including both data providers and data users, in decisions about building the data elements for such a database and the resulting campus cost studies. (DB)

Explores similarities or dissimilarities between citation-semantic and analytic indexing based on a study of records in the Science Citation Index and MEDLINE databases on antibiotic resistance in pneumonia. Concludes that disparate indexing terms may be an advantage for better recall and precision in information retrieval. (Contains 42…

An n-gram is a string of characters, usually adjacent, extracted from a section of continuous text that can be used in spelling error detection and correction, query expansion, information retrieval, dictionary search, text compression, and language identification applications. This article provides an introduction to the use of n-grams in textual…

Three databases were analyzed to investigate the range and frequency of terms in the field of mental retardation/developmental disabilities. The most prevalent term over the last 15 years was "mentally retarded." The terms "cognitive impairment" and "developmental disabilities" have been used more frequently in the last five years. (Author/CR)

A study examined students' thinking processes when using database applications to solve an ill-structured business problem and compared six students using command language with six using menu selection computer interfaces. Students used a subgoal analysis method for problem solving. Command language group was more likely to skip relevant factors…