This report presents statistics on how Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member libraries spend money on electronic resources. This report indicates that expenditures for electronic resources account for 25%, on average, of ARL institutions' library materials budgets. ARL libraries reported spending more than $228 million on electronic…

Data quality and speed in data processing profoundly affect service provided to the Educational Resources Information Center's (ERIC's) broad audiences. With these factors in mind, a new technology infrastructure for processing records has been acquired and is scheduled for implementation. The story of how the ERIC database is being constructed is…

This paper establishes a classification for the different types of ephemeral publications that are common in museums (e.g., educational, commercial, internal). To this purpose, it sets forth an elementary system of automated technical treatment that provides a secure system for storage, retrieval, and diffusion of this data by using MARC format in…

Surveyed art therapy literature available on computer databases to assess the literary activity of registered art therapists along with other mental health professionals between the years 1983 and 1993. Computer databases were selected as the source of gathering information because they offer a wide and varied audience accessibility to a vast…

Discusses four kinds of computerized access tools: online catalogs; computerized reference; online database searching; and compact disks and read only memory (CD-ROM). Examines how these technologies are changing research. Suggests how research instruction in advanced writing courses can be refocused to include the new technologies. (RS)

Describes a study that compared the coverage of the nursing profession, subject heading specificity, and ease of retrieval of the MEDLINE and Nursing & Allied Health (CINAHL) online databases. The strengths and weaknesses of each database are discussed and hints for searching on both databases are provided. (four references) (CLB)

Describes UNIX, a computer operating system that supports multi-task and multi-user operations. Characteristics that make it especially suitable for library applications are discussed, including a hierarchical file structure and utilities for text processing, database activities, and bibliographic work. Sources of information on hardware…

Provides an overview of the Canadian business environment and online sources of business information. The databases described cover the following areas: directories, financial information, stock quotes, investment reports, industrial and economic information, magazines, newspapers, wire services, biographical information, and government…

Describes the scope and types of information available to potential buyers of CD-ROM products in product directories and review tools. Extensive listings of CD-ROM product directories, journals, newsletters, and product reviews are appended. (16 references) (CLB)

Reports on the Online Access to Knowledge (OAK) Project, which developed software to support end user access to a Department of Energy database based on the skill levels and needs of energy researchers. The discussion covers issues in development, evaluation, and the study of user behavior in designing an interface tailored to a special…

Presents a method for measuring the quality of controlled vocabularies that involves identifying clusters of documents, searching for each document, identifying terms used to index each document, and calculating certain measures to determine indexing quality. The results of a comparison of three library and information science databases using this…

Describes a study that supported two hypotheses concerning the use of anaphors in information retrieval: first, that anaphors tend to refer to integral concepts rather than peripheral concepts; second, that various term weighting schemes are affected differently by anaphoric resolution. The implications for the use of anaphoric resolution for…

Discusses the special needs of the depository library poster collection in academic libraries, especially with regard to improving public awareness and access. Suggestions for creating a bibliographic database are offered and a database at the University of Miami is briefly described. Appendices list poster items by issuing agency and subject…

Explores issues related to bibliographic database authority control, including the nature of standards, quality control, library cooperation, centralized and decentralized databases and authority control systems, and economic considerations. The implications of authority control for linking large scale databases are discussed. (18 references)…

Describes the Utlas database with specific reference to its design, file structure, and content. Features discussed include access to the database, products and services supported by the database, interfaces to local systems, the interactions between bibliographic and authority records, and Japanese language processing. (Author/CLB)