Volume 15, Issue 1

In this project it is shown that under certain conditions the checking for duplicates while loading bibliographic data into an online catalog can be replaced by a statistical estimation. Due to the selected significance level (of 90%) and tolerance bounds (10%) the minimum of the needed sample size is calculated, chosen from the population at random and verified by hand.
The result of this examination is regarded in further consequence as a valid result for the total quantity.

This article presents the results of a survey that focused on the perceived effects of the six American Library Association (ALA) accreditation standards on ALA accredited library education programs in the United States. The standards as they pertain to specific aspects of the programs are as follows: Standard 1 missions, goals, and objectives; Standard 2 curriculum; Standard 3 faculty; Standard 4 students; Standard 5 administration and financial support; and Standard 6 physical resources and facilities (ALA 2000). In order to conduct the survey, a questionnaire was developed and e-mailed to the deans or chairs of the forty-nine ALA accredited library education programs in the United States. Those who did not respond to the questionnaire were e-mailed a second time. The questionnaire asked respondents to provide their opinions regarding the effects of ALA accreditation standards on their programs. Also, they were asked to provide the following information: location within the United States, the number of full-time equivalents (FTEs) enrolled, and the age of their programs. Out of the forty-nine recipients, there were twenty-five respondents (51 percent). Conclusions drawn from the study were that the six ALA accreditation standards combined were perceived as having more influence overall than the individual standards. Although the conclusions of the study were predictable, the study had significance since it provided specific information and data regarding professional perceptions of ALA accreditation and library education programs.

This article describes an exploratory exercise in knowledge management and database development undertaken by a task force of volunteer members of the New Members Round Table (NMRT) of the American Library Association. The authors will show how the group defined its mission, established priorities, drew up procedural guidelines, and developed a searchable database to serve the organizational needs of their fellow NMRT members while making use of the basic skills and equipment available to the group at that time. The steps in this exercise are replicable, provided that volunteers can be identified within an organization who are willing to commit their time and resources to a project as challenging as this one proved to be.

With the advent of the new Knowledge Society, special libraries need to review user zones and services to ensure that they continue to provide features customers want and need. They must now offer spaces and places for people to come together, as in the English Commons of old, to share ideas and technologies. They must heed the call of the open access movement and begin to play a part in it. This article discusses details of the transformation of physical and virtual spaces of the Research Library of the National Institute of Standards and Technology over the past two years into a comprehensive InfoCommons.

The image of librarians in fiction and the media has been widely discussed in the professional literature, but librarians as authors of fiction has not, beyond news items of specific authors. Since beginning writers are encouraged to write what they know, it is not surprising that some librarian novelists create librarian characters or library-themed plots. This article reviews librarians as authors generally and examines the works of two librarian novelists, Miriam Grace Monfredo and Jayne Ann Krentz in detail. Both present library related issues. The possible use of well-written fiction that provides an interesting and accurate representation of information gathering and evaluation is discussed, as are other possible research topics in this area.