Presents an interview with Reed Hundt, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), who implemented the Education Task Force to coordinate the FCC's role in educational provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. He asserts that writing clear rules for the communications sector will promote competition and ensure educational…

Electronic information transforms relationships among the elements of traditional publishing, creating new opportunities and new challenges, especially for the sustainability of information. A new model of information ecology suggests that current government information dissemination institutions and practices must transform themselves if access…

Asserts that the federal government should adopt a centralized governmental structure for the privacy protection of personal information and data. Discusses the roles of federal law, federal agencies, and the judiciary; the concept of information privacy; the impact of current technologies; and models of centralized government structures for…

Acceptable-use policies help ensure appropriate Internet access in a New York State school district. The district's four elementary schools and one each junior high and high school are relying on a two-pronged strategy. A policy version for staff, and one for students and parents, couples tight supervision with a carefully crafted acceptable-use…

Discusses the control of digital content and the stakes for libraries and our democratic culture. Highlights include copyright term extension, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, use of contract law to limit the public domain, database legislation, trademarks versus the public domain, the void in our cultural vocabulary, and the concept of the…

Discusses the need for intellectual honesty in using technology. Topics include intellectual property laws; ethics; indirect results of copying software and images; the need for institutional policy; and the provision of facilities and resources that encourage respect for policy. A sidebar provides "A Bill of Rights and Responsibilities for…

The fifth interagency conference explored ways that changes in technology, coupled with efforts to reinvent government, are redefining the policy and implementation issues of providing public access to federal information. Five groups were established to address issues and to develop recommendations; each group was divided into two sessions. Ten…

Examines contrasting scenarios of the proposed National Information Infrastructure and its antecedents, the Internet and the NREN (National Research and Education Network). Topics include a public network offering popular services versus a private, revenue-driven network; network development; information superhighway analogies; network benefits;…

Explores the extent of information technology (IT) adoption in Hong Kong, the perceived benefits of IT, and the problems encountered in adopting IT, based on a postal survey of 116 companies. Topics include government policy, previous studies, annual expenditures on IT, IT personnel, IT applications, software used, and problems. (Author/LRW)

Proposes an approach to the analysis of cataloging rules, in particular, rules for bibliographic description, in terms of orientedness, a concept employed to explore directiveness or inclination of a characteristic toward a given objective or function. Assesses the validity and usefulness of the proposed approach and reviews its problems and…

Firm policies and procedures that address the environment, patron/staff behavior, general attitude, and care and handling of materials need to be at the core of the library/archival security program. Discussion includes evaluating a repository's security needs, collections security, security in non-public areas, security in the reading room,…

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 (PL. 104-191) is a multitiered, comprehensive, convoluted, and controversial federal law for sweeping health care reform. Although HIPAA is dramatically broader in scope than privacy protections for health care information, a provision for privacy in the form of a Privacy Rule…

Reliable and current data is the foundation upon which good public policymaking is built. While California collects a good deal of data on its teaching workforce, policymakers have lacked a state-level data and analysis system to provide answers to even some of the most basic questions: How many credential holders actually take jobs? In what types…

This paper assesses the recommendations made during the 1991 White House Conference on Library and Information Services (WHCLIS) from a public policy view, and identifies their meaning for the public's uses and needs for library and information services. Recommendations from the WHCLIS conference which fit best with national goals were found to…

Following a review of the literature of group counselor experiential training, this paper describes a rationale for an experiential growth group model to be used as an adjunct to a masters level group theories course. Such a course is a typical requirement within counselor training programs across the country. The current controversy which…