Having K-12 students create artifacts can serve several purposes within an effective science curriculum. Through World Wide Web (WWW) publishing projects, students' cognition and motivation can be improved and the "authenticity" of their work increased, relating to recent thinking about situated learning and constructivist science…

The motivational value of Virginia's Public Education Network (VA PEN), specifically the Thomas Jefferson On-line discussion group, is examined in this study. The instructional value of the network with respect to student motivation in fourth grade students of varied ability was gauged through observation of actual hands-on network experience,…

This volume contains 52 of the 70 papers that were reviewed and selected for presentation at the 1998 National Online Meeting. While the balance of the papers are not included in this Proceedings, their titles, together with author names and author affiliations, are listed at the end of the volume and they are included in the index. The volume…

This report highlights the initiatives, activities, and accomplishments of the National Occupational Information Coordinating Committee (NOICC)/State Occupational Information Coordinating Committee (SOICC) Network during program year 1990--July 1, 1990-June 30, 1991. It begins with a description of NOICC and the NOICC/SOICC Network and the…

The essays collected in this volume present the personal visions of several individuals, mostly librarians and other information professionals, on what the library might look like 25 or 30 years from now. The contributors represent a wide variety of libraries and related institutions on four continents. The essays collected are:…

This report highlights the trends and problems associated with rapid price increases of foreign-published journals, especially science and technology journals. It is observed that a combination of effects--e.g., discriminatory pricing on the part of some foreign publishers, the sharp decline of the U.S. dollar--have resulted in subscription…

This investigation of the use of white space in print-based, computer-generated text focused on the point at which the white space interferes with reading speed and comprehension. It was hypothesized that reading speed and comprehension would be significantly greater when text was wrapped tightly around the graphic than when it had one-half inch…

Twenty-three preservice elementary teachers with limited technology backgrounds created complex electronic portfolios during a 2-year teacher education program. At the end of the 2-year project, they responded to a 72-item survey based on previous qualitative research with the same students and Kirkpatrick's (1996) four dimensions for evaluation.…

This paper outlines the efforts of two mathematics teacher educators in their use of online videos to expose their elementary preservice teachers to examples of reform teaching, as espoused by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. The online videos provide an excellent source for reflection, and each author shares their different…

Written by a board member of OCLC, this paper discusses critical issues relating to OCLC for the remaining decade of the twentieth century. A brief history of OCLC traces its development and recounts its goals and missions to establish a computerized network to promote the evolution of library use, of libraries themselves, and of librarianship.…

This essay explores the somewhat uneven course of the public library as a knowledge institution in America and its relevance during the current information age, particularly in the United States, where there is a basic connection between access to knowledge and the political system. The public library situation is considered in terms of the…

The IMS Learning Design specification provides a potential means for capturing units of instruction in a machine-readable, consistent way. However, in order for the IMS Learning Design specification to be used widely by educators and instructional designers for whom it is intended, we will need effective ways for users to contribute to, access and…

Describes a survey that examined the effects of increasing serial subscription costs on American and Canadian research libraries. Strategies adopted by libraries are described, including faculty and campus involvement, retrenchment, long range planning, and shared resources. Relationships with publishers and the possible impact of electronic…

Using database-driven web pages or web content management (WCM) systems to manage increasingly diverse web content and to streamline workflows is a commonly practiced solution recognized in libraries today. However, limited library web content management models and funding constraints prevent many libraries from purchasing commercially available…

This newsletter focuses on the presentations of a program session on Internet-accessible scholarly resources, held at the 1996 ACLS Annual Meeting. Articles in the newsletter include: "Building the Scene: Words, Images, Data, and Beyond" (David Green); "Electronic Texts: The Promise and the Reality" (Susan Hockey); "Images…