Reference Services Review: Volume 17 Issue 4

The Index Expert System: A Knowledge‐Based System to Assist Users in Index Selection

Charles W. Bailey, Jeff Fadell, Judy E. Myers, Thomas C. Wilson

The University of Houston Libraries are developing an expert system to assist library users in selecting appropriate indexes and abstracts to meet their information needs. This…

Five Years After A Nation at Risk: An Annotated Bibliography

Bonnie G. Gratch

More than five years have passed since A Nation at Risk was published in 1983 by then‐Secretary of Education Terrance Bell's National Commission on Excellence in Education. Those…

Inmates Do Ask Questions: Automation and Reference Service in a Correctional Setting

Michael Sawyer

In January 1987, history was made at the Chillicothe Correctional Institute (CCI) library in Ohio when the prison library automated its catalog and circulation systems. This…

A Guide to Nature‐Study Manuals

Beth Clewis

In 1984–85, Reference Services Review published a series of review articles on field guides for wildflowers (Potts), birds (Klaas), trees (Kinch), and insects (Chiang). A glance…

American History Reference Sources, 1986–1987

Gary D. Barber, Carol Burroughs Hammond

It has been two years since our “current” survey last appeared (RSR, Summer 1987). In that survey, we covered 1985 publications. For the sake of continuity, this new survey looks…

Library Orientation and Instruction—1988

Hannelore B. Rader

The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with orientation to library facilities and services, instruction in the use of information resources, and research and…

Public Access Computer‐Assisted Mapping and the Instructional Program

Steve Hiller, Jenny Marie Johnson

The decline in published thematic mapping, especially U.S. government census mapping, the growing availability and affordability of computers, and the rise of geographic…

Newspaper Indexing with Microcomputers: The Washington State Experience

David W. Nelson

The value of newspaper indexes in libraries is a topic that few public services librarians would be willing to debate on the negative team. Most large and mid‐size libraries, and…