Describes how two methodologies for analyzing and improving performance--performance engineering and organization mapping--were used in a case study involving the purchasing department of an electric utility. Highlights include the establishment of a model of the desired results, measuring existing performance, and the designing of an improvement…

Compares OCLC, WLN, and RLIN in terms of the composition of the databases, indexes and searching, special uses for public services, costs, and documentation. Selected bibliographies of general public service uses and interlibrary loan applications are provided. (CLB)

Describes the Department of Energy's Institutional Conservation Program (ICP) that can provide federal funding to school administrators for help in gaining control over excessive energy costs. (MD)

Relates the experiences of a private preparatory school librarian in her search for a cataloging system, and the selection and use of OCLC to automate her library's cataloging processes. Benefits and costs of OCLC system and interlibrary loan subsystem use are discussed. (MBR)

Every school needs an effective disaster recovery plan that is flexible, comprehensive and designed to take into account unexpected disasters. Presents guidelines for preparing such a plan, with immediate and long-range recovery procedures. (MD)

This symposium presents thoughts of OCLC's president and six reactions to news that OCLC has decided to register its database for copyright. Topics covered include copyright and access to information, legal and technical issues, reasoning behind the decision, a threat to sharing, improved communications, and copyright enforcement. References are…

A program for school districts with central air conditioning and/or high kilowatt demand and low summer occupancy involves custodians from a number of buildings thoroughly cleaning one building, then closing it for the summer. Critical factors of this program are identified. (MLF)

Utility services (telecommunications, power, water, and gas) throughout the world were traditionally provided by large, usually state-owned, monopolies. However, encouraged by technological change, regulatory innovation, and pressure from international organizations, many developing countries are privatizing state-owned companies and introducing…

A report, written by 54 specialists in management practices, recommends hundreds of ways districts can trim excess fat from more than 20 areas of school operation. This article discusses 13 of them. (Author)

While libraries, book and periodical vendors, system providers, and bibliographical utilities are collaborating to move scholarly information from origin to public access more quickly, scholarly publishers, particularly university presses, have been slow to join in. Discusses aspects of the publisher/vendor relationship: library/vendor…

In 1996, the Colorado Library Resource Sharing and Information Access Board initiated a project to explore a patron-initiated interlibrary loan (ILL) system utilizing the ACLIN (Access Colorado Library Information Network) infrastructure and interfacing with local catalogs, remote databases, and bibliographic utilities. This report summarizes the…

Presents a comprehensive model for identifying the processes and costs involved in preservation efforts that was developed for the Columbia University libraries. Preservation activities are described; costs are assessed for staff time, supplies, and bibliographic utility use; and appendices outline the preservation process and the roles of the…

Discusses the impact of new technologies on library operations and management, and the need for librarians to understand how to manage technology and utilize it to improve library services. The areas which library education should address to prepare librarians to deal effectively with new technologies are outlined. (CLB)

Describes a study that examined the feasibility of automating the process of library collection analysis, using collections in botany and mathematical analysis as the study population and bibliographic utility databases as sources of holdings information. The discussion covers the effectiveness of the methodology and potential uses of the results.…