With the Internet-evoked paradigm shift in the academy, there has been a growing interest in students' Web-based information-seeking and source-use practices. Nevertheless, little is known as to how individual students go about searching for sources online and selecting source material for writing particular assignments. This exploratory study…

College Navigator was developed by NCES and released in September 2007 as the U.S. Department of Education's primary source for comparing postsecondary institutions that participate in federal student financial aid programs. The site is designed to help students, parents, and high school guidance counselors search for and compare information on…

In order to help students make well-informed choices, reliable college ranking systems with comparable information about higher education institutions worldwide have been welcomed by many students. Because traditional college rankings had many methodological problems, a new type of user-based ranking, called "personalized college…

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Library, where the author serves as the digital services librarian, is increasingly challenged to make it easier for users to find information from many heterogeneous information sources. Information is scattered throughout different software applications (i.e., library catalog, federated search engine, link…

Internet usage logs captured during self-directed learning sessions were used to determine how undergraduate medical students used five popular sites to locate and access biomedical resources. Students' perceptions of each site's usefulness and reliability were determined through a survey. Google and Wikipedia were the most frequently used sites…

The web is a rich and diverse information source with incredible amounts of information about all kinds of subjects in various forms. This information source affords great opportunity to build systems that support users in their work and everyday lives. To help users explore information on the web, web search systems should find information that…

Tables are ubiquitous with a history that pre-dates that of sentential text. Authors often report a summary of their most important findings using tabular structure in documents. For example, scientists widely use tables to present the latest experimental results or statistical data in a condensed fashion. Along with the explosive development of…

This is a compilation of 12 primers on important information standards and protocols. These primers are: (1) Atom; (2) COinS; (3) MADS; (4) MARC 21/MARCXML; (5) MIX; (6) MXG; (7) OpenSearch; (8) PREMIS; (9) RESTful HTTP; (10) unAPI; (11) XMPP (aka Jabber); and (12) ZeeRex. The Atom Syndication Format defines a new XML-based syndication format for…

With Internet usage in the United States at an all-time high, information technology use in education has continued to increase. Research has shown that many students are utilizing these materials to search out information and assist with completing class assignments. Many college students have described the Internet as a functional tool that…

The Internet is a natural place to look for images that teachers can use in lessons and students can use in projects and assignments. Google, Yahoo, AltaVista--many of these popular search engines offer image searching. Usually there is a tab to click at the top of the page to select image searching; just enter a search term and go! However, this…

After providing background to Continuing Professional Education (CPE) of librarians in Hungary, this article outlines the content of a course that seeks to make Hungarian librarians familiar with free Internet resources that are usable for library technical services and reference. One of the most important topics covered in the course is the…

The purpose of this study was to explore and investigate the ways faculty at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign use Networked Information Sources and Services to support their research task. Library and Information Sciences faculty at the University of Illinois were chosen as…

For the past ten years law students, academics and legal practitioners have relied on AustLII and various internet search engines to conduct legal research. The purpose of this article is to examine what these can offer and to note the importance of other websites when conducting legal research. This article is based on an address given to the…

Discusses library Web sites and explains some of the benefits when libraries make their sites into reference portals, linking them to other useful Web sites. Topics include print versus Web information sources; limitations of search engines; what Web sites to include, including criteria for inclusions; and organizing the sites. (LRW)

This pilot study was conducted to determine the feasibility of using PDAs (personal digital assistants or palm pilots) as a data collection device in studying information seeking behaviors of undergraduate students. Discusses results that shows heavy use of Internet search engines and that most information searches do not extend beyond the first…