One critical role of the catalog is to help librarians manage and track their inventory, whether it's books, videos, journals, microfilm reels, laptops, or even access to study rooms. The phrase, "if you can't track it, you don't own it," is quite real for the library that is trying to monitor thousands or millions of items. In the last decade,…

Libraries must increasingly accommodate bibliographic records encoded with a variety of standards and emerging standards, including Dublin Core, MODS, and VRA Core. The problem is that many libraries still rely solely on MARC and AACR2. The best-trained professionals to lead librarians through the metadata maze are catalogers. Catalogers…

The AccuNet/AP Multimedia Archive is an electronic library containing the AP's current photos and a selection of pictures from their enormous print and negative library, as well as text and graphic material. It is composed of two photo databases as well as graphics, text, and audio databases. The features of this database are briefly described in…

With wireless connectivity and small laptop computers, people are no longer tied to the desktop for online searching. Handheld personal digital assistants (PDAs) offer even greater portability. So far, the most common uses of PDAs are as calendars and address books, or to interface with a laptop or desktop machine. More advanced PDAs, like…

Catalogers, catalog managers, and others in library technical services have become increasingly interested in, worried over, and excited about FRBR (the acronym for Functional Requirements of Bibliographic Records). Staff outside of the management of the library's bibliographic database may wonder what the fuss is about (FERBER? FURBUR?), assuming…

The purpose of this article is to provide five empirically-derived guidelines for knowledge map construction tools that facilitate problem solving. First, the combinational representation principle proposes that conceptual and corresponding procedural knowledge should be represented together (rather than separately) within the knowledge map.…

This article presents the idea that databases are very useful tools for teaching languages over the Internet. Databases in Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) are commonly used in three ways: for reference sources such as dictionaries, in the management of large websites, and for data processing such as language tests and learners'…

Many employers in the United States have been initiating or expanding policies requiring background checks of prospective employees. The ability to perform such checks has been abetted by the growth of computerized databases and of commercial enterprises that facilitate access to personal information. Employers now have ready access to public…

An account is given of the design and compilation of a freely-available database, updated on a monthly schedule, listing journals, books, conference proceedings and online publications concerned with any and every aspect of low vision. Specific topic areas can be located by means of keywords and through other bibliographical details such as the…

The initial goals of IAMFC included conducting and fostering programs of education in the field of family counseling, and promoting and conducting programs of research in the field of marriage and family counseling (International Association of Marriage and Family Counselors, 1990). The goal of fostering program development shows signs of success,…

Presents the findings from a study of 48 Colleges of Further Education (FE) who have participated in a diagnostic benchmarking exercise using the learning probe methodology. Learning probe has been developed from the established service probe tool (developed originally by London Business School and IBM Consulting) to support colleges of FE in…

An online questionnaire survey was distributed amongst the Petherick Readers of the National Library of Australia, a user group of scholars and researchers. The survey asked questions about the readers' use and appreciation of the NLA catalogue. This group of users clearly appreciated the library catalogue and demonstrated that there are still…

Information Technology is developing rapidly and providing policy/decision makers with large amounts of information that require processing and analysis. Decision support systems (DSS) aim to provide tools that not only help such analyses, but enable the decision maker to experiment and simulate the effects of different policies and selection…

Purpose: Expository discourse, the use of language to convey information, requires facility with complex syntax. Although expository discourse is often employed in school and work settings, little is known about its development in children, adolescents, and adults. Hence, it is difficult to evaluate this genre in students who have language…

This article discusses open source projects which may free universities from expensive, rigid commercial software. But will the rewards outweigh the potential risks? The Kuali Project involves multiple universities writing and sharing code for their financial and operational systems. Another, the Sakai Project, is a community source platform for…