The purpose of this study is to explore the public library program of publicizing and interpreting the professional collections and services available for use by professional staffs of welfare agencies and to relate such programs of interpretation to levels of use by the agencies' staffs. Four libraries in cities of over 300,000 population were…

The material presented within this revised and updated annotated bibliography will be useful to educators who wish to become familiar with the career education concept and to integrate it into the existing curricula. Listings are grouped under three main headings; Models and Guidelines, Postsecondary Level, and Background References. Annotations…

In response to a directive to the Director of Libraries, State University of New York at Buffalo, to investigate the possibility of establishing a resource/research office to handle the specialized reference needs of university administrators, this document outlines a proposed Office of Specialized Services (OSS). Staff, clientele and dates of…

The hypothesis that there exists a strong linear relation between reference service and library use was strongly supported by data from Northern Illinois University Library. Hourly counts of people using the reference room, total number of direction and location questions asked, and total number of reference questions asked were randomly sampled.…

This service, begun in February 1977 through the Sydney Eye Hospital Library, provides a monthly list of 40-50 references for distribution throughout the hospital and mailing to 190 members of the Royal Australian College of Ophthalmologists. The analysis discusses user characteristics, items requested through the library, and most popular…

Estimates show that 50 to 80 percent of questions answered by reference librarians are directional or informational. If librarians are performing tasks below their intellectual abilities, issues that could be affected include faculty status, employee morale, library cost effectiveness, and education for reference work. (Author/JAB)

A description of reference service is presented along with a brief discussion of library education, citing the programs of the Interamerican Library School. Suggestions for evaluating reference service in Latin American Libraries are included. (Author/JAB)

To provide graduate students with an in-depth reference and information service, the School of International Affairs has appointed a "librarian without a library" whose primary duty is to put the students in touch with the university's library resources and the diverse sources of information available in the national capital area and…

This paper discusses the helping relationship concept, its relationship to the reference process, and the problems of teaching the concept to pre- and in-service librarians. A teaching unit is described. (Author/KP)

After analyzing the pattern of questions at the reference desk of the library of California State University, Fresno, the reference department changed its desk staffing. (PF)

Describes the Tacoma Public Library's experience with "BIP Plus," the CD-ROM version of Books in Print. Memory requirements, search capabilities, automatic ordering, and the library staff's response are discussed. Keyword searching is explained as the system's most used feature, and price the area of most serious concern. (EM)

Reports on a study designed to ascertain the occurrence of 10 terms from the field of urban planning in 55 databases available on the DIALOG system by searching the terms in the Dialindex file. Total postings and postings in 10 top ranking databases for each term are shown. (eight references) (MES)

Examines the impact of library automation on collection development, and argues that collection development now requires information and expertise possessed by both public and technical services librarians. The need to adjust the library's organizational structure to facilitate this interaction is discussed. (28 notes with references) (CLB)

Discusses issues which will have an impact on database searching for the next five years: (1) quality control; (2) more inhouse databases; (3) changes in database visuals; (4) pricing policies; and (5) market changes. A number of favorable and unfavorable changes unlikely to occur within five years are also noted. (MES)

Benefits of the proposed Common Command Language for online interactive information retrieval, which has been developed by the National Information Standards Organization, are discussed, as are remaining problems in cross-system searching. A summary of the language showing the functions performed by the various commands is included. (MES)