This article is about how information is gathered in organizations to make decisions. There is actually a long history in economics on this topic, called the "economics of information," but this is a bare beginning on the topic for libraries, suggesting only a few patterns from observation and a few literatures that might help with the challenge.…

The second of three articles on abusive data collection and usage practices and their effect on personal privacy, discusses the evolution of data protection laws worldwide, and compares the scope, major provisions, and enforcement components of the laws. A chronology of key events in the regulation of computer databanks in included. (1 reference)…

This example of online searching, employed as a research method rather than as a tool to gather bibliographic information, used Magazine Index to collect data which were manipulated using geographic codes and compared with the buildings of a 1977 study on geographic bias in television news reporting. (EM)

Describes a methodology which analyzes courses described in university catalogs in order to produce a database used in the compilation of a collection development policy statement. Each step of the analysis is described, and tables are used to track sample data through the entire process. (CLB)

Describes the development and current uses of computerized databases of information about individuals by the government and private agencies, especially credit bureaus, and discusses three major categories of abusive information practices that threaten personal privacy: information collection, information dissemination, and information management…

It is noted that the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and libraries have a mutual mission: the collection and dissemination of information in formats that are useful to the information needs of the public. This report discusses the NCES' mission statement in these terms and describes its broad-based data gathering program, which…