This introductory text provides an overview of the processes and procedures associated with developing, maintaining, and evaluating a library collection at the building level. The processes and procedures practiced in school library media centers are discussed in relation to educational theory and principles of collection development. The text was…

Electronic journals are both a blessing and a curse for libraries. To be meaningful in the current information environment--to meet users' ever-increasing demands--libraries must acquire as many appropriate full text resources as possible, as quickly as possible, and make them easy to use. This Digest provides tips for acquiring and providing…

This guide is intended to help education leaders deal with the problem of teacher shortages. It is designed to help community leaders and school officials think strategically about the problems they face with regard to the supply of teachers and help them develop an action plan to address those challenges. The first section provides a conceptual…

This note draws on "The Empirical Curriculum," a study of college course-taking patterns published by the Department of Education. Courses are tracked for three cohorts: adults in the high school graduating classes of 1972, 1982, and 1992 who went on to earn more than 10 college credits within 8.5 years of completing high school. Topics covered by…

Phrasal verbs occur frequently in written and spoken English and may be difficult for non-native speakers to understand and produce, particularly when parts of the phrasal verb should be separated and when they should be adjacent. The study reported here analyzes natural data in context to determine whether the word order of the parts of a…

This paper discusses the interrelated components of institutional structure and administrative leadership within colleges and universities, focusing on the relationship between presidential qualifications and institutional structure. It examines the differing characteristics and qualifications of presidents of institutions that are members of the…

This collection of essays grew out of the "Reading Stephen King Conference" held at the University of Maine in 1996. Stephen King's books have become a lightning rod for the tensions around issues of including "mass market" popular literature in middle and high school English classes and of who chooses what students read.…

Prepared by the manager of a virtual reality (VR) laboratory at North Carolina's Haywood Community College, the three papers collected in this document are designed to help instructors incorporate VR into their classes. The first paper reviews the characteristics of VR, defining it as a computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional…

This paper examines the extent of current or future shortages of qualified U.S. elementary and secondary teachers. Data come from the 1987-1988 and 1990-1991 waves of the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), a nationally representative study by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The SASS includes four sets of integrated…

Designed to help teachers, students, and parents identify engaging and insightful books for young adults, this book presents annotations of over 1,400 books published between 1994 and 1996. The book begins with a foreword by young adult author, Chris Crutcher, a former reluctant high school reader, that discusses what books have meant to him.…

This issue discusses talent development in gifted children and youth. Articles include: (1) "Good and Goodness" (Roman Herzog), which addresses the need to provide gifted youth with financial aid to enable them to attend one of ten higher education institutions sponsoring gifted persons; (2) "It Is Essential To Start at an Early…

A review of human investment in education considers the pivotal human capital theory in relation to complementary, replacement, and opposing hypotheses and the interrelationship of workers, education, and workplace production. Analysis of definitions of human capital concludes that it is the marketable value of an individual that additional…

The application and selection processes involved in filling a full-time assistant professor position at a small liberal arts college are discussed, as are the results of a survey returned by 64 undergraduate departments that undertook a search for a similar position during the 1995-1996 academic year. The survey involved departments that offered…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is mandated by the United States Congress to survey the educational accomplishments of U.S. students and monitor changes in those accomplishments. For more than 25 years, NAEP has assessed the educational achievement of 4th-, 8th-, and 12th-grade students in selected subject areas, making it…

Based on the view that the benefits of reading aloud are not widely recognized or sufficiently promoted, this book explains why reading aloud to young children has a strong emotional and intellectual impact on their ability to read and learn. The book begins with the recollection of how the author became aware of the effects of reading aloud on…