Examines attitudes and cooperative behavior of personnel in six multitype libraries through questionnaires and interviews to determine the degree to which monetary considerations or their perception influences interlibrary cooperation. Results indicate it is the perception rather than the reality of monetary concerns that influences decisions…

Discusses results of the final part of a study of the environmental scanning behavior of chief executive officers in two Canadian industries--publishing and telecommunications. The results of personal interviews were analyzed to determine their main sources of environmental information and how they made use of the information in decision making.…

Describes an inductive, qualitative study of 30 Syracuse University students that investigated the situated nature of action during interactions with an online public access catalog. Highlights include elements of situatedness, with examples; the mapping of individual searches; and users' goals and stopping behavior. (Author/LRW)

This report, selected from the results of a larger study of online searching, focuses on the sources of search terms. Terms from users, professional intermediaries, thesauri, and relevance feedback are examined; and the relevance of retrieved items is discussed for each source of search terms as well as for combinations of sources. (12 references)…

Describes a study that addressed the problem of predicting pertinence of documents from citations. The difference between pertinence and relevance is discussed; the use of eye movement monitoring and verbal reports is explained; and citation viewing is discussed in terms of extensity, intensity, and motility. (20 references) (LRW)

Examines the role of physical surroundings and artifacts and how they contribute to the knowledge work occurring there, based on preliminary analysis of data collected in interviews and observations of a research group over a four-month period. General issues of the interaction between information work and environment can be revealed and applied…

Reports on an exploratory study that examined the criteria users mentioned in evaluating the results of their own multimedia searches related to weather information. Ten evaluation criteria are described, their relationships to information sources and presentation formats are examined, and directions for future research are suggested. (nine…

Describes a study that investigated fifth-grade children's search behavior using an automated library catalog designed for children called the Science Library Catalog. Level of science domain knowledge was found to influence both their success and search behavior. (Author/LRW)

Describes a study that investigated the information needs of rural health workers in Hawaii and their current means of information access. Highlights include ranking of information needs, ranked sources of information, hardware ownership, use of electronic sources, use of document delivery services, and perceived barriers to information use.…

Discusses an empirical study that examined the relative efficiency of individual differences variables and user-based situational variables as predictors of the actual information/knowledge needed by users to accomplish word processing tasks. Information seeking versus information use is discussed, and results of canonical correlation analyses are…

Discusses the role of electronic networks in engineering work; reviews selected literature on engineering work, knowledge, and communication; describes current uses of electronic networks; and presents results from a study of the use of networks by engineers in the aerospace industry, including their perceptions of networks. (67 references) (LRW)

This study examined two groups of online catalog users--one group using terminals in the library at Drew University (New Jersey) and the other using remote workstations. Transaction log analysis, online surveys, and interviews were used to determine perceptions of accessibility, frequency of use, user satisfaction, browsing behavior, and task…