The purpose behind the Russian-American Seminar on Critical Thinking was to bring together librarians from both countries to provide an East-West perspective on the issue of critical thinking. This document presents 16 papers from the seminar as well as introductory remarks from a Russian and an American participant. Papers are as follows:…

The Commission on Preservation and Access was established to foster and support collaboration among libraries and allied organizations in order to ensure the preservation of the published and documentary records in all formats and to provide enhanced access to scholarly information. The Commission's newsletter keeps preservation and access…

The Kountze Public Library in Texas conducted a program using cross-age tutoring as a strategy to strengthen family reading skills, to develop a collection of educational literacy materials in the library, and to disseminate results to the public. During the 1-year program, 29 volunteers participated, with 14 trained as tutors. Tutors worked 64…

This handbook is an expanded version of an original guide written as a basis for orientation and training of new children's librarians and allied personnel. It puts into one place the basics of library service to children, with an emphasis on the practical rather than the theoretical. Among topics covered are: (1) roles and responsibilities of…

This paper discusses the building of a hypermedia-based reference station at the Wright Laboratory Technical Library, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. Following this, the paper focuses on an electronic user survey from which data is collected and analysis is made. The survey data is used in a rapid prototyping approach, which is defined as…

Total Quality Management (TQM) brings together the best aspects of organizational excellence by driving out fear, offering customer-driven products and services, doing it right the first time by eliminating error, and maintaining inventory control without waste. Libraries are service organizations which are constantly trying to improve service.…

In spring 1994, a survey on reference service policies was mailed to 119 members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). Seventy-one responses (60%) were received from libraries that offer reference services on a college or university campus. Less than half of the responding libraries have written policy statements, and of those that did,…

This report is based on information from the 1992-93 IPEDS (Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System) Academic Libraries survey. The data in this report come from the higher education institutions in IPEDS and include all colleges and universities with accreditation at the higher education level as recognized by the Secretary of Education.…

The Louis Bromfield Sustainable Agriculture Library is located in Lucas, Ohio, at Malabar Farm State Park. Established in 1992, the library is jointly maintained by the Ohio State University Sustainable Agriculture Program and the Ohio Department of Agriculture. The library's namesake, Louis Bromfield, was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and noted…

To determine if further library-services issues require more study and whether further initiatives should be undertaken, the Division for Library Services of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction conducted a focus-group study. Nineteen library directors from small public libraries took part. Eight services librarians or directors from…

This annual report summarizes activities of the Alabama Public Library Service (APLS) for the fiscal year (FY) 1993. It begins with a letter from the director who gives an overview of the report and a listing of the Library Service Executive Board. The following general areas are then discussed: (1) agency services including the summer reading…

This document presents a report on the Minnesota Technical College System's Library and Media Services. All 34 technical colleges were given a survey to prepare, a Library Advisory Board was established, and relevant literature and standards were reviewed to conduct and obtain data for this study. The report begins with the mission, values, and…

Three prison librarians were interviewed about the ways they handle major issues in their libraries. Two of the three librarians were females and one was male; one was Caucasian, one was Afro-American, and one was of Asian descent. A case study approach was used to examine their methods. Issues examined included: (1) materials selection and…

This paper discusses the results of a project designed to gather data that the Library Media Coordinators of DeKalb County (Georgia) Schools can use to evaluate several aspects of online searching in the county's secondary schools. The project, involving responses from library media specialists (LMSs) from 24 DeKalb secondary schools (5 junior…

The South Pacific School Libraries Project was launched by UNESCO in 1978 and continued until 1991. It was designed to improve school library service in the 11 independent island states (Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Turaw, Vanuatu, and Western Samoa) of the Southwest Pacific and to develop…