Discusses searching on the World Wide Web. Highlights include search-engine size; features of the six largest search engines; features of five metasearch engines; intelligent agents; two Web sites for difficult-to-find information, including industry statistics and market data; Internet publishers and databases; specialty search engines; and…

Electronic publishing is the grandest revolution in the capture and dissemination of academic and professional knowledge since Caxton developed the printing press. This article examines electronic publishing, describes different electronic publishing scenarios (authors' cooperative, consolidator/retailer/agent oligopsony, publisher oligopoly), and…

Describes how an economist from St. Andrews University in Scotland is lining up support for an online venture to challenge the market dominance of traditional academic publishers. (EV)

Considers the current state of the academic journal in an age marked by increasing expenses of publication and the advent of electronic journals. Provides an overview of current debates concerning how academic journals work today and raises questions about the continuity of the conventional academic journal and the publishing practices of the…

Concentrates on three case studies as examples of typical publications where the definitive versions are already in electronic formats and maintained online, and discusses implications for long-term preservation selection; preservation requirements; publishers as archivists; stability for the next century; copyright; technology and standards;…

Describes the features of an e-book, its limitations and technical concerns. Explores the e-book's place in the market and highlights several pioneering companies that have launched, or will soon, a number of e-book readers and e-reading software. Concludes with questions on effects of e-books in academic libraries, the publishing industry and…

The resurgence of interest in e-books, who uses them, and where the technology is headed were among the issues discussed March 16 at the eBooks in the Public Library Conference in New York, sponsored by the Open eBook Forum (OeBF). Roughly 200 librarians, publishers, and vendors braved a winter squall to share their expertise and experiences.…

In this article, the author reviews James Farmer's "IncSub," short for "incorporated subversion," a Web site that combines many of the new approaches to educational technology. It is at heart a weblog, written by an Australian educational technologist; but in addition to the almost daily comments threading the tapestry of the new model of online…

Blogs are communication tools, they serve as vehicles to transmit messages. Before deciding to blog, one needs to devise a strategy on how this medium will fit in with his or her communication needs. This will also help later in deciding which features one will need to include in his or her blog. This article discusses ways on how to start and…

Born-digital material such as archived Web sites provides unique challenges in ensuring access and preservation. This article examines some of the technical challenges involved in harvesting and managing Web archives as well as metadata strategies to provide descriptive, technical, and preservation related information about archived Web sites,…

In this article, the author examines the role blogs will play in future campaigns and elections and how bloggers will affect the election of the next commander in chief. A necessary starting point in discussing the role of blogs in the presidential election of 2008 is to consider how similar blogs are, as a new medium or genre or venue, to…

Online learning (eLearning) has become a global phenomenon as many organizations and educational institutions worldwide have entered the field in an attempt to enhance the students' experience of learning. While numerous studies have focused on the effectiveness and benefits of eLearning, few have focused on understanding and measuring the user…

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) The Road to School Improvement: It's Hard, It's Bumpy, and It Takes as Long as It Takes (Richard F. Elmore and Elizabeth A. City); (2) Better Teaching with Web Tools: How…

Digital technologies, combined with library expertise in information management and bibliographic control, access, dissemination and preservation, have provided new opportunities for academic libraries to play a more active role in the publication of scholarly information. Over the past decade a number of Australian academic libraries, drawing on…

Digital publishing is a field lurching along many paths and alleyways of experimentation. For their potential influence, however, recent approaches bear watching. In this article, the author shares the story of Jason on his personal decision-making struggles on using digital versions against conventional textbooks. The author also discusses…